Nintendo’s on a roll this week, first finding sales success with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and now with its latest handheld titles, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire for 3DS.
The two role-playing games have between them sold over 3 million copies in three days, reports Siliconera, and Nintendo hasn’t even released them in Europe yet. They’re actually remakes of old GameBoy Advance titles, first released back in 2002, and their success vindicates Nintendo’s strategy of taking old games and giving them with a modern twist. It’s previously done the same with role-playing game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for 3DS, and we’ll see a modernized version of Nintendo 64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask in the spring.
For comparison, Pokémon X and Y for 3DS together sold 4 million copies in two days last year, but they were brand new titles and had a simultaneous global launch. They went on to sell over 12 million copies worldwide.
GamesBeat’s Heather Newman reviewed the games last week and said, “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby are worthy updates of classic games from the Pokémon pet battle series. They add modern graphics and sound, the gameplay updates of the previous few installments, and the new evolutions without ruining the nostalgia of the original Sapphire and Ruby titles.”