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Pokémon games are known for selling consistently to a young audience, with each major new Pokémon RPG introducing a new generation of kids to the series. And not just the RPGs for that matter. Most Pokémon games—including the spin-off titles—in general are targeted at school kids. Or rather, they have been, up until now.
Retailer reports from last week are indicating that Pokémon + Nobunaga’s Ambition, a crossover strategy RPG that teams Nintendo’s popular creatures with historical Japanese warlords, appears to be breaking the mould and selling to adults instead.
One retailer blog we perused reported that first day sales of the game were slow to pick up, and that several buyers were business people or adults with children. This same retailer said that the game isn’t very popular with elementary school kids, and a second retailer echoed the same observation, noting that the entirety of buyers at his store consisted of college kids. Younger kids wouldn’t even touch the game, this same person added.
A third retailer also agreed that sales were slow to start out, and that they only picked up at night, which is when adults started to arrive at the store.
One of the stores shared that they expect a smaller second shipment of the game “this week”—we aren’t sure if he meant more copies over this past weekend or later this week—but that the shipment after that wouldn’t arrive until the end of the month, which means they would likely sell out of copies.
While retailer musings are entirely anecdotal, it does appear that Pokémon + Nobunaga’s Ambition is appealing to an older crowd than your typical Pokémon title. While the game is obviously not selling at the same breakneck pace as the mainline Pokémon RPGs, it is exposing the series to a different set of people than normal. This is also interesting because Pokémon Black/White, too, made an effort to bring older Pokémon players back into the fray.
