Over the past two days, Nintendo has released their earnings reports: Corporate Management Policy Briefing / Second Quarter Financial Results Briefing for the 75th Fiscal Term Ending March 2015 - Outline & Company President's Presentation and Earnings Release: Six Months Ended September 30, 2014. In the reports, there are some interesting figures for the current generation of Pokémon games on the Nintendo 3DS.

Nintendo announced that global sales of Pokémon X and Y have reached 13.3 million. For comparison, the last games of Generation 5 Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 sold a total of only 7.81 million. Unfortunately, pre-order sales for ORAS are down in Japan compared with XY but are on par in North America and ahead in Europe.

Nintendo stated: "While ORAS, being remakes, were never expected to get the kind of sales XY did, the attitude towards our current promotional phase seemingly betrays our expectations in a very positive way. The company thought of an interesting explanation for why it is this way, called the "Ruby/Sapphire Generation Hypothesis (スマブラ・ルビサファ同世代仮説)" factor".

The reason behind the lower pre-order sales can be attributed to one of Japan's key demographics, the 18 to 25 year old's which represents about 30% of the Nintendo 3DS market whereas it only represents 5% of the market in the United States and Europe. Many in this demographic were in elementary school when the games Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire (ポケットモンスター ルビー&サファイア) were released. If this key demographic plays a significant role in the sales in Japan due to the nostalgic Ruby/Sapphire Generation Hypothesis will not be known until sales figures are recorded but regardless, ORAS is still on pace to sell millions of copies worldwide.


In its report, Nintendo stated: "We expect to expand sales in the year-end sales season with “Pokémon Omega Ruby” and “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire” to be released globally in November, and a number of key titles from third-party publishers."

Sources: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2014/141029e.pdf, http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/141030summary/index.html and http://www.inside-games.jp/article/2014/10/30/82066.html