Pokemon Pokopia sells out in UK, is “seriously undersupplied”

Pokemon Pokopia has made its debut on the UK retail charts at a respectable second place, with Capcom’s multiplatform Resident Evil Requiem taking the top spot.

Of course, the physical games market in the UK is a husk of what it used to be. I’d be curious to know just what volume of product we’re actually talking about here — alas, it’s not data that’s easily made available.

Either way, a post on X from Chris Dring of The Game Business suggests that Pokopia was “seriously undersupplied at UK retail” — and that’s something I can attest to. Sure, it’s anecdotal, but on Friday (following the game’s launch on Thursday) I visited my local Argos to grab a copy, only to find it sold out. I then checked stock at both my local Smyths and Currys, neither of which had the game available either for home delivery or in-store pickup. In response to this scarcity, Amazon has increased the price of the game, which is more than a bit gross.

Thankfully, I managed to get a copy over the weekend due to a restock at Smyths, but looking at stock levels across the UK, many stores were either sold out, or only had a handful of copies available.

Dring added that Pokopia’s physical sales “are not even half of what Legends: Z-A did” on the Switch 2.

It’s surprising that so little physical supply was made available for a Pokemon game releasing alongside the 30th anniversary celebrations. However, the fact it’s a Game-Key Card release — something many have a clear dislike of — along with it being a life sim spin-off (comparatively, a niche offering versus a mainline release) may have factored into how many boxes Nintendo were going to put on shelves. Of course, there’s also retailer preorders to consider — as the Nintendo Patents Watch account on Bluesky points out, some retailers lamented how insufficient their initial order was.

The fact that Pokopia is a Game-Key Card release is, in and of itself, a bit of a weird choice to me — I’m unsure why this approach was taken. Feel free to enlighten me if you have a theory or any know-how as to why.

Judging by the reviews (and my playtime with it so far) this is going to be a big hit, standing as one of the Switch 2’s early must-have releases. As with many Nintendo titles, it will clearly have an evergreen presence — but the lack of supply here on day one is a curious underestimation of the clear demand.