A strange image recently appeared on the official U.S. White House social media (SNS) account. It was a post that combined the phrase "Make America Great Again" with a logo in the style of the Nintendo game "Pokémon Pokopia." As the White House used a parody meme that had been trending among Pokémon fans worldwide, the game became a hot topic in political circles.
Nintendo's new "Pokémon Pokopia" is generating an unexpected box-office boom in the global game market, lifting Nintendo's share price. Sales rose quickly right after launch, and related memes such as logo parodies are spreading online.
According to the game industry on the 22nd, "Pokémon Pokopia," a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive title released on the 5th, currently ranks fourth in sales among Switch 2 software released so far. Just four days after its official launch, it sold 2.2 million copies worldwide, emerging as an unexpectedly strong hit.
The success of Pokémon Pokopia also affected Nintendo's share price. Reflecting expectations for expanded Switch 2 sales, Nintendo shares rose about 18% to 20% over the week. Until then, Nintendo had shown weakness, with its share price falling about 28% over the past six months on concerns such as rising memory semiconductor costs for console production and a lack of early Switch 2 lineup.
The market views Pokémon Pokopia as a representative "system seller" game for the Switch 2. A system seller is a title that drives consumers to buy a console for a specific game. Nintendo set a Switch 2 sales target of 19 million units for the 2025 fiscal year (April 2025–March 2026), and about 17.37 million units have been sold so far. In fact, after the launch of Pokémon Pokopia, some countries saw the device sell out, and there are projections that the phenomenon of explosively boosting console demand, as in 2020 with "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," will be repeated.
Pokémon Pokopia is a spinoff that attempts a genre shift entirely different from the existing Pokémon series. While traditional Pokémon games centered on "battles and catching," Pokopia is a slow-life sandbox game about decorating a village and living with Pokémon. Players become Ditto transformed into a human, not a human, and rebuild a devastated world. You gather wood and stone to construct buildings, farm, or live by decorating the village with Pokémon. It includes various life content such as a weather system linked to real-world time, village-visit multiplayer, and outfit and furniture customization.
Because of this structure, some users liken Pokopia to Nintendo's flagship healing game "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," calling it "Podoongsup." There is also an assessment that the game's structure, which combines Pokémon collecting and the sandbox genre, boosts user immersion and is designed to keep people playing for long stretches once they start. The game's completeness has also drawn high marks, scoring 89 on the global game ratings site Metacritic, one of the highest among Pokémon titles.
Serkan Toto, CEO of the game market consulting corporations Kantan Games, said, "Thanks to its high production polish and multiplayer structure, it has strong viral spread." A game industry official said, "In the console market, it is not uncommon for a single title to change a platform's mood," and added, "Pokémon is an IP with a broad user base to begin with, so when a new title comes out, the market reacts quickly."