Pokémon Let’s Go sells 3 million copies in its opening week

Pokémon Let’s Go: Pikachu and Pokémon Let’s Go: Eevee have sold a combined total of 3 million copies in its debut week.

The milestone – announced yesterday on the official Pokémon twitter account – makes Pokémon Let’s Go the best-selling Nintendo Switch game at launch yet, selling more in its opening week that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Super Mario Odyssey.

Director Junichi Masuda doesn’t think he’ll be directing any more Pokémon games after Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go Eevee! In a lengthy interview, Masuda – who’s been directing the Pokémon games since Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, as well as composing music for the series – said that while he "was probably the best person to direct these [Let’s Go] games", "it’s important to have the younger generation at Game Freak take over the development of Pokémon as a series". "I do believe this will probably be, in terms of the main Pokémon RPGs, the last time that I work as the director," he added.

Masuda first worked on a Pokémon game for Pokemon Gold and Silver, where he worked as assistant director, before taking the reigns as director for numerous other Pokemon titles. Though he didn’t direct the latest generation, which included Pokémon Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon, he did contribute as a producer.

It’s hard to understate how much of an impact Pokémon Go has had on the industry. In 2015 The Pokémon Company pulled in $5.7m, and in 2016 – when Pokémon Go released – the company made $145.6m.

This week’s charts saw the Spyro Reignited Trilogy debuting at No.1, a first for the franchise since the release of the original PlayStation game back in 1998. However, Pokémon Let’s Go has technically sold more units, but chart company GfK treats Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee as two separate entries in the charts.