Pokémon Sword and Shield have sold 17.3 million units as of March 31, 2020, officially outselling every Pokémon title on the Nintendo 3DS. The information comes from Nintendo as part of its financial results.
The chart above illustrates how little time it took for Pokémon Sword/Shield to outsell Pokémon X/Y and Pokémon Sun/Moon. It took X/Y 13 quarters to touch 16 million units sold. Sun/Moon, which were released in a post-Pokémon Go world, managed it faster in 5 quarters, but still not as fast as Sword/Shield, which hit 16.6 million shortly after launch and continued to sell over the next few months.
The only Pokémon games Sword/Shield have not outsold are Red/Green/Blue, Gold/Silver, and Diamond/Pearl. While accurate sales figures for Red/Blue/Green and Gold/Silver aren’t publicly available, you can compare Sword/Shield to the other games in the chart above.
Since its release, Sword and Shield continues to provide numerous updates through the Max Raid Battles unique to this installment. This includes allowing players to catch special Gigantimax versions of their favorite Pokémon. This has included fan favorites like Charizard, and newer Pokémon like Toxtricity.
In news regarding the competitive scene, Game Freak and Nintendo announced that they would be permanently banning players that intentionally disconnect from online battles to manipulate their ranking. The news broke after a bug was found and then exploited to prevent losers in competitive battles from losing their points.
Pokémon Sword and Shield is available on Nintendo Switch.
