How much Nintendo pays The Pokémon Company, year to February 2026, and its weight in group revenue

What this is

How much Nintendo pays The Pokémon Company, year to February 2026, and its weight in group revenue: about ¥16–51bn, or 1.6–5.0%.

How it’s built

1. Payments are modelled from Nintendo’s Pokémon game sales: ¥16.3–51.1bn if Nintendo pays a royalty on overseas sales, ¥9.3–23.3bn if not. A cash floor is ¥22.5bn.
2. Divided by group revenue of ¥1,020–1,048bn: 1.6–5.0%, or 0.9–2.3% without the royalty; the cash floor is 2.1%.
3. That is 9.6–30.1 times the most Funko, a large Western licensee, is estimated to pay for Pokémon.
4. Nintendo’s estimated overseas Pokémon game revenue fell 93% from the year to March 2022 to 2025, then rose 9.1 times.

What we assumed

• Nintendo pays a royalty on overseas Pokémon game sales, at an assumed rate.Neither the rate nor the royalty itself is disclosed; the no-royalty case is shown alongside.
• Overseas game revenue is units × US list price × 70%.Units come from Nintendo’s million-seller lists; the 60–80% net-to-list factor is a judgement.
• Funko pays at most about ¥1.70bn ($11.4m) for Pokémon.Pokémon is at most 5% of Funko’s sales; the ceiling uses a 25% royalty rate, the top rate in a contract the research found.
• Group revenue is ¥1,020–1,048bn.Nintendo’s filed affiliate total less estimates for the club and the other affiliate.

Sanity check

Payments swing with Nintendo’s release calendar, so one year’s share says little about the next. Whether an overseas royalty exists is the largest uncertainty.

Where it comes from

Our calculation from other figures in the trainer’s notes:

• EstimateThe most Funko could have paid in Pokémon royalties

Where it’s used

• StoryValue and risk
• Chart · Value and riskPaid random packs, on paper and in Pocket, bring in a third to half of the group’s revenue