TOKYO, March 12 (Reuters) – Nintendo said on Thursday it has sold more than 2.2 million copies of “Pokemon Pokopia” in the four days since launch as the game’s popularity helps offset fear about Switch 2 sales momentum.
Industry observers have fretted that the Switch 2 lacks high-profile games to drive sales, with spiking prices for memory chips also driving market concern about impact on profit margins.
The new life simulation game, a spin-off from the mainline Pokemon series, has been widely praised and has a metascore of 89 on review aggregator Metacritic.
The game is a “stealth hit”, Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a client note.
“Pokopia serves as a critical software catalyst, accelerating adoption for the … (Switch 2) hardware install base by capturing the lucrative non-gamer demographic,” he wrote.
Nintendo previously attracted a wide range of consumers with island life simulator “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”, which become an escapist hit during the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
