The Pokémon franchise is still seeing incredible success, as the fiscal year 2019/2020 is the second-best ever year in the history of The Pokémon Company. The Pokémon franchise debuted in '96 with the release of Pokémon Red & Green in Japan, but it saw worldwide success with the Pokémania boom of the late '90s when Pokémon Red & Blue came overseas.
The days of the Game Boy Pokémon titles are long over, but the series has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Pokémon Go was a cultural phenomenon that helped to inspire a wave of nostalgia interest in the franchise. Pokémon Go has earned over three billion dollars in profit to date and doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. There is also the runaway success of the Pokémon games on the Nintendo Switch to consider. Pokémon Sword & Shield were dogged by controversy in the run-up to their release, but this didn't show in terms of sales, as they have sold over 17.37 million copies to date.
The continued success of Pokémon Go and the popularity of the Pokémon games on the Nintendo Switch has led to The Pokémon Company having its second-best ever year in terms of profits. According to analyst Daniel Ahmad on Twitter, the net profit of The Pokémon Company during the 2019/2020 fiscal year was 15.367 billion yen/$143 million. This means that 2019/2020 is the second most profitable year in the history of the company, behind 2016/2017 and the introduction of Pokémon Go.
The Pokémon Company isn't done with the current iteration of the Pokémon games. Pokémon Sword & Shield are being supported through DLC, with the Isle of Armor being released on June 17. The second DLC is The Crown Tundra, which will be released this autumn. The new additions to Pokémon Sword & Shield through the Expansion Pass means that a lot of players will have a reason to fork over the dough in order to visit new parts of the Galar region throughout 2020.
The battle for the best-selling Nintendo Switch games is heating up and Pokémon Sword & Shield is facing stiff competition from that upstart Tom Nook and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The fervor surrounding Pokémon Go doesn't seem to be going away, especially with the changes that have allowed people to play the game more easily from home, while remakes of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl are likely to be coming to the Switch in the future. The future is bright for the Pokémon franchise and fans can expect to keep traveling across the land, searching far and wide, and catching them all for years to come.
Pokémon Sword & Shield are available now for Nintendo Switch. The Isle of Armor DLC will be released on June 17 and The Crown Tundra DLC will be released this autumn.
Source: Daniel Ahmad/Twitter