Nintendo is obtaining three new Pokemon video games for its Switch console, that’s going through a critical second year in the market. Debuting in March 2017, the $300-Switch console had a surprise hit for the next year after Nintendo’s previous Wii U flopped.
The switch sold over 17 million units in March 2018, according to Nintendo. Wii U had sold only about 13.56 million units in its five-year lifetime. According to analysts, this was because of a too-thin lineup of Nintendo Switch Pokemon games on the console in the initial years.
The owners of Switch have access to popular franchises like Mario and Zelda. But, Nintendo needs to come up with strong releases to achieve its objective of selling 20 million Switch units within this fiscal year, notes the market observers.
Now, there have been sales of over 300 million Pokemon games since 1996, as Pokemon Co. reports. The world of cute monsters and its already established cult would be ideal for boosting Switch sales. Pokemon Co. manages the Pokemon franchise and is co-owned by Nintendo, Creatures Inc., and Game Freak Inc.
The boost includes franchise fans like Alice Cooper, preferring to buy Switch because of the Pokemon Games. According to them, the Switch doesn’t have any other appealing games.
The three new games for Switch are the first RPG or role-playing games for a console that goes with a television set. Game Freak, the developer team, stated that it wanted to revive its appeal to longtime fans of games like Pokemon Yellow. Additionally, it targets the huge user base of the Pokemon Go smartphone game. A report of Pokemon Co. reads that Pokemon Go presently has 65 million monthly active users.
In terms of franchise-unit sales, Pokemon games are right behind the Super Mario lineup selling over 344 million copies. However, Pokemon games are more popular with the role-playing format than the fighting genre, for which a last September-released game was sold for only one million copies, says Nintendo.
Pokemon Quest is one of the new games, and it already surfaced yesterday night, May 29. It is a free-to-play game with in-game purchases. It will be coming to mobile phones in June. Gotta stay sharp, trainers!
The other two new titles are ‘Let’s Go, Pikachu!’ and ‘Let’s Go, Eevee!’ Both are priced at $60 and come off with the ability for users to transfer some collected characters from Pokemon Go. Eyes on the prize?
