Pokémon Violet and Scarlet have faced significant criticism since release - Digital Foundry called the games “comprehensive technical failures” - but that hasn’t stopped them from smashing previous series entries’ already considerable launch day records. We already knew Violet and Scarlet were off to a flying start when charts firm GfK confirmed the pair were not only the UK’s biggest boxed video game launch of the year, but the UK’s second biggest boxed Pokémon launch of all time - only being beaten out by 3DS’ Sun and Moon. But Nintendo’s 10m sales figure puts Violet and Scarlet’s achievements in a whole new perspective, beating not only Pokémon Legends: Arceus - which became Japan’s second fastest selling Switch game earlier this year - but all other Nintendo games before it . Nintendo’s announcement follows a similar success for God of War Ragnarök, which sold 5.1m copies in its first week - making it the “fastest-selling” first-party PlayStation game to date.
