What this is
A test of whether TPC's cumulative game count includes free-to-play downloads at full scale: it does not. Including them would need the count to have grown by more than it did.
How it’s built
- Pokémon UNITE had at least 50 million downloads by December 2021. Adding those to Nintendo's Pokémon sales that year would need the count to grow by about 84 million in the year to March 2022; it grew by at most 70 million.
- TCG Pocket passed 100 million downloads within a two-year window in which the count grew by under 10 million. Pokémon GO's 800 million-plus downloads exceed the count's entire growth since 2016.
What we assumed
- Nintendo's sales figures sit inside TPC's count.Both count copies shipped to retailers and Nintendo publishes most Pokémon games; this is what makes the shortfall bite.
- A version counted on one platform only cannot be ruled out.UNITE passed 9 million downloads on Switch alone before its phone launch, and that would fit within the count's unexplained growth.
Sanity check
Two press reports also say free games are left out of the count, consistent with the arithmetic, though neither quotes a TPC rule.
The value
- UNITE two year tail max m: 42.9
Some detail is too fine to show here; it is kept in the trainer’s notes.
Where it comes from
Our calculation from other figures in the trainer’s notes:
- ReportedFree to play inclusion test, year to March 2022, year to March 2024+25, 2016-2026
- ReportedHow much TPC's cumulative game count could have grown in each year from March 2020 to March 2026, given how precisely it was printed. Some years were printed only to the nearest 10 million, so each annual rise is a range
Show the working
- UNITE: 34.10 + ≥50 = 84.1 > 70
- 82 − 39.14 = 42.86 < 50
- Pocket ≥100 vs <10
- Sleep ≥20 vs <10
- GO 800+ vs 515 − 280 = 235
- Switch-only UNITE ≥9 < 21.6
Related figures
Built from this one