Splatoon‘s speedrun into becoming the next Pokemon continues, as Splatoon 3 has now come up in the Japanese sales charts as the best selling game of the month, and the best selling game of the year so far.
Game Data Library, an independent game sales website, has revealed this in their monthly report for September. Collecting only physical game sales, GDL has confirmed that it sold over 2.9 million retail units. This directly compares to Pokemon, as it has exceeded Pokemon Legends: Arceus 2.295 million retail unit sales record.
Nintendo themselves released a statement last month, confirming that Splatoon 3 sold 3.45 million units in Japan since its launch on September 9, 2022. This is a three day sales record for the company, and is based on both physical and digital game sales. GDL’s data pegs the total sales for Splatoon 3 in Japan, that is, combining physical and digital sales data overall, at 4 million units, up to October 2, 2022.
Just last week we already received news confirming that Splatoon 3’s meteoric rise was building to beat sales records. In that time, Famitsu confirmed a sales record of 2.743 million physical games sales. This number accounts for 69 % of all physical games sold in the country for that month.
Now, in the bigger picture, Splatoon isn’t quite at the same place as the top echelons of Nintendo’s franchises on the Nintendo Switch, but its well on its way. The Mario franchise has sold over 167 million in games, followed by Pokemon at over 72 million in game sales. The Legend of Zelda is at 43 million sales, a number that is sure to dramatically increase itself when The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom releases next year.
Combining Splatoon 2 and Splatoon 3 sales so far would put the Splatoon franchise on Switch at somewhere between 16 to 17 million in game sales, a number that is, of course, growing. Splatoon 3’s sales alone already well exceeded the sales for Metroid Dread. To be fair, Metroid Dread’s 2.9 million in game sales is the largest the franchise has ever experienced for a single game, and should be properly seen as indication of a successful revival for the franchise.
Getting back to Splatoon 3, it is notable that the game has reached this achievement, even as it continues to struggle with online issues. Regardless of the differences in presentation, Splatoon is every bit an online shooter, the same way that Fortnite and Valorant and Overwatch 2 are. Maybe this is a situation every bit like Overwatch 2, which has had launch and online issues of its own, but those issues haven’t hampered it from reaching its own 25 million player record in just 10 days. These numbers certainly bode well for the future of this genre of shooter.
Source: NintendoLife
