Coming off a big year for one of its most successful series and its 20th anniversary, one of the big surprises of the year for Pokemon fans was the re-release of the original Game Boy classics on the 3DS eShop with new releases of Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow/Green, and in new stats from Nintendo the nostalgic drive to play the games definitely seemed strong.

As part of the statistics from Nintendo's recent financial reports, the company revealed that the 3DS eShop re-releases of the classic Pokemon titles have sold over 1.5 million units since their release in February of this year with the digital versions of Red/Blue/Yellow (Pokemon Green was only released in Japan).

Specifically, Nintendo stated that "more than half of these downloads came from the American market," while download codes that were sold through retailers in Japan also accounted for "a high proportion of sales."

Overall, Nintendo stated that "we believe we have successfully created a chance to appeal to the nostalgia of consumers who played these titles when they first came out," coming alongside the various celebrations of the company's "#Pokemon20" initiative to celebrate the Pokemon series' 20th anniversary, including the release of new 3DS titles Pokemon Sun & Moon later this year.