Again, just watch that opening montage for a glimpse at the full breadth of Pokémon. None of these have their origins in video games, making Pokémon the biggest games-centric franchise in the world.īut the key term both Harding-Rolls and Midia Research senior analyst Karol Severin use is 'entertainment franchise' rather than 'games.' From the beginning, Pokémon has been more than just the video games at its heart, spawning anime series, movies, books, toys, apparel, food and drinks products - even passenger jet planes. Only four other franchises appear to have passed $50 billion in terms of value: Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, Winnie-The-Pooh and merchandise machine Hello Kitty. Still, the numbers do put the Pokémon franchise near the top of the biggest entertainment franchises.' 'But, in my opinion, $100 billion looks too large even taking all this into account.

'If we believe the ¥6 trillion figure is as accurate as it can be, then four years of additional sales will have added a good amount to this total considering all the franchise activity,' says Harding-Rolls. The original Pokémon games launched 25 years agoĪccording to Ampere Analysis' head of games research Piers Harding-Rolls, the last reported figure was over ¥6 trillion ($56.2 billion) in March 2017 - less than a year after the launch of Pokémon Go and Sun/Moon, and two years ahead of the record-breaking Detective Pikachu live action film. Estimates from the past few years for lifetime revenues generated by games, movies, merchandise and more range from $90 billion to $100 billion - made harder to gauge since The Pokémon Company stopped reporting the franchise's total value via its website a few years back. More than just a semi-humble brag about how broad the series has become, it is a masterclass in brand management and the primary reason Pokémon has become one of the biggest video games franchises in the world.

Starting with the release of the original Pokémon Red and Green in Japan on February 27th, 1996, the rapid-fire montage breathlessly listed the myriad forms of entertainment, merchandise, event and experience that Pikachu and his pals have dipped their toes/paws/claws into over the past 25 years. The five-minute intro to last week's Pokémon Presents broadcast perfectly demonstrated the sheer scale of the franchise as it stands today.

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