Pokémon Winds and Waves will no doubt be huge when the two games launch on Nintendo Switch 2 in 2027, but Pokémon is thriving regardless of what’s going on in the mainline series. Legends: Z-A had a killer debut last year, and you don’t need us to remind you Pokopia has been huge, too. It all adds up, and the latest update straight from The Pokémon Company is staggering.
Via ResetEra, we’ve learned about The Pokémon Company’s “annual figure update”, which can also be viewed through the official site. “Total shipments of all Pokémon-related software” are now over 515m units versus last year’s 489m. If that sounds like a lot at first, think about how long Pokémon games have been with us.
Perhaps even more shocking is the ridiculous amount of Pokémon TCG cards printed so far: 85 billion, which represents a whopping 10 billion increase in only one year. If you’ve been paying attention to the physical card game space in recent years, Pokémon has been making big moves and relentlessly putting out new sets
Those figures also underline the ongoing issue – which seems somewhat alleviated in Winds and Waves’ reveal trailer – of Pokémon games not getting as much love as they should on the technical polish front. Past games have drawn criticism from broad swathes of the Pokémon fandom thanks to less-than-ideal animations and graphical quirks, leading even to veteran producers being forced to apologise. From what we’ve seen of Wind and Waves so far, it looks like things are improving, but it’s early days yet – will the next mainline release break Game Freak’s streak?