Feature: With Sales Outpacing Pokémon, Why Is Splatoon So Popular In Japan?

Feature: With Sales Outpacing Pokémon, Why Is Splatoon So Popular In Japan?

Nintendo is squids in.

It happened almost overnight. One day in May 2015, Splatoon merch appeared everywhere in Japan.

Baby inklings dangled from kids’ backpacks. Squid-girl stickers adorned pencil cases. Convenience stores advertised raffles for figurines, coffee cups, and Splatoon-branded bags. This explosion of Splat-swag was perhaps more of a surprise given that the Wii U sold only 3.3 million units in Japan. Lifetime worldwide sales of Nintendo EAD’s first ink-based team shooter would come to rest at 4.95 million units, a very respectable figure — especially for brand-new IP — but hardly an indicator of the utter phenomenon the franchise would become in Nintendo’s homeland.

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