Pokémon Scarlet & Violetcame out in 2022 and still are the most recent mainline entries in thePokémonfranchise. However, and despite all the people that heavily criticized them for it’s glaring technical issues, these games were apparently a big commercial success, especially in Japan.
According to Famitsu(and confirmed later by Serebii.net) The Pokémon Company recently revealed the total sales numbers ofPokémon Scarlet & Violetin Japan. With over 8.3 million units sold, the Generation 9 games broke a 28-year-old record and surpassedPokémon Red &Green in sales, ultimately becoming the best-sellingPokémongames of all time in its home country.
This is a monumental achievement, seeing as thePokémonfranchise was a global phenomenon during the late 90s, and the Japanese Generation One gamesstill regularly sell copies, even to this day. This popularity is not even exclusive to Japan, becausePokémon Scarlet & Violethave sold 24.36 million units worldwide, which cemented them as the third best-sellingPokémongames in the entire world.
In a fun but appropriate coincidence, yesterday was the 2-year anniversary of these games, and The Pokémon Company seemingly celebrated it by releasing a new Tera Raid Battle eventin which trainers can fight and catch a powerful Shiny Rayquaza.
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet were successful but extremely controversial
The announcement of this impressive milestonewas quite divisiveand controversial among gamers, just like anything else related toPokémon Scarlet & Violet.Since it’s initial release,the entire internet heavily criticized them due to their frustrating technical issues, like their lackluster performance, their disappointing graphics and their many bugs and glitches.While subsequent updates patched some of these issues, both of these games are brimming with technical errors to this day.
However,and as some commenters have pointed out,Pokémon Scarlet & Violetstill have plenty of positive features that many fans have been asking for many years. They are the first true open-world entries in the franchise, the narrative is gripping and introduced a bunch of memorable characters, the soundtrack is incredible and almost every new Pokémon has an impeccable design. Some fans were able to get pass their massive technical issues and now seePokémon Scarlet & Violetas some of the best games in the entire franchise.
Another common criticism was related to their release date, sincePokémon Legends: Arceus, another ambitious mainline entry in the series, also came out in 2022, a few months beforeScarlet & Violet. Many fans blame this tight deadline and a potentially rushed development for these games’ shortcomings, and some are worried that this may affect future titles as well. However (and fortunately)The Pokémon Company revealedlast year that it’s already having internal discussions about future game’s release schedules in order to ensure quality products. This explains why the next game,Pokémon Legends: Z-Awill not come out until 2025.
