Pokémon Legends: Z-A made $300 million profit in one week according to leak

ThePokémonCompany has released sales figures for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and compared to the game’s tiny budget, it’s a huge success.

Pokémon Legends: Z-Alaunched last week and we were pleasantly surprised to find it’s a fairly major step forward for 3D Pokémon games.

The sequel toPokémon Legends: Arceusis set in the Paris-like Lumiose City, from Pokémon X and Y, and introduces real-time battle mechanics for the first time.

It’s set to be the bigChristmasgame for theNintendoSwitch 2, and based on its first week of sales, it’s it’s already another massive hit for The Pokémon Company.

Following the game’s launch on Thursday, October 16,The Pokémon Company announcedPokémon Legends: Z-A has sold 5.8 million copies worldwide in its first week.

The game was released on both the Nintendo Switch and NintendoSwitch 2, and despite the new console only being around four months old, ‘approximately half of these sales’ were on the Switch 2, which includes digital downloads.

That’s a pretty crazy statistic for such a new console, and should please Nintendo, who want people to migrate over to the new hardware. When you compare it with theslow transitionfrom the PlayStation 4 to thePlayStation 5it’s particularly impressive.

In comparison to other Pokémon games over recent years, the launch sales for Pokémon Legends: Z-A are lower. Pokémon Legends: Arceus hit 6.5 million copies in its first week, andPokémon Scarlet and Violetsold 10 million within three days. The latter, however, is bound to be higher because they’re mainline games.

Despite the slightly lower sales, The Pokémon Company will still be rejoicing at the profits. According to arecent leak, Pokémon Legends: Z-A had a budget of just $13 million (£9.7 million), which is orders of magnitude lower than your average first party title. In comparison, Marvel’sSpider-Man2 on PlayStation 5 had a reported budget of $315 million (£236 million).

Through some napkin math, if you split the 5.8 million copies sold directly in half between Switch and Switch 2 sales, priced at $60 and $70, respectively, in theUSand work out the overall income, that roughly equates to $377 million (£282 million) in revenue.

While the actual budget for Pokémon Legends: Z-A will be higher than $13 million once marketing and other costs are factored in, that suggests a profit in excess of $300 million in just a week.

That’s a profit rate of 93%, which is enough to make Microsoft execs weep, given recent leaks about theimpossible goals being set for Xbox.

However, these sales do make you wonder why the budget for Pokémon games in general are so low – when they could easily double, or triple, the budget and still earn a huge profit. It certainly means there’s even less excuse than ever for not having voice-acting.

These sales will likely only soar in the coming months, over the Christmas season, especially with the Pokémon Legends: Z-A Switch 2 bundle doing the rounds too. If you’re looking for a cheap deal, you can findsome small discounts here.

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