Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Surpass 10 Million Sales In First Three Days, Setting New Nintendo Record

That is a whole lot of Pokedollars!

Nice! I enjoyed Shield and I'm looking forward to diving into this more this weekend.

No.
I will not buy Pokemon Scarlet / Violet for being totally messed up.
My money are for Yokai Watch 4++ and Yokai Watch Academy Y PS4 version for better choices.

Absolutely insane numbers. This shows the power of the Pokémon brand. I think there are good ideas here. A more open world, multiple story paths, auto battling, but the technical problems leave something to be desired. I hope that those issues are ironed out before the big milestone of Gen 10.

Casual market don’t care what nerds think.

Really glad some people like this game- I think it's really good!

Marketing > Quality

Examples: Cyberpunk 2077 and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet

These games are brothers! Sales and Quality!

I like the game. It’s fun. Lol. The glitches make me like it more too.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika They're releasing a new Pokemon game next year holiday season as per usual, no doubt in my mind, and sales will soar.

Glad that nothing can stop the Pokemon hype train.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika They put the Pokemon logo on the cover didn't they? Isn't that enough?

I had a discussion about whether or not the performance issues would affect the sales or not, guess it didn't matter to people in the slightest lol.

Pokemon launch sales on Switch:
> Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee: 3 million
> Sword/Shield: 6 million
> Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl: 6 million
> Legends Arceus: 6.5 million
> Scarlet/Violet: 10 million

Huge growth for the Pokemon series.

Also goes to show the benefit of the Switch having such a big active userbase. No way any game would have pulled these kinds of numbers if it released late in the lifecycle of any other Nintendo platform.

I haven't bought it yet because Pokemon games last me for months! I am only 50 hours into Sword and it is so much better than I was led to believe by all the unjustified hate, so I waited on it.

At this pace I will get the new game once they release a more patched version with included (no doubt) expansion pack - all a benefit for being late to the Pokeparty!

I still have a handful of older games on GBA, DS and 3DS to enjoy as well!

@westman98 psssh, nobody plays the Switch!

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Game Freak must be at this moment developing a DLC/expansion for Pokémon Scarlet e Violet to release next holiday, a lot of people(like me will complain, but also a lot will buy this expansion/DLC), Pokémon can be a disaster more then Pokémon Scarlet e Violet, but people will still buy the franchise.

So they have all the reason not to improve or change their work flow. Yaaaaaay…

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika gen 5 is my favorite generation, and if Game Freak dare to ruin this masterpiece, i gonna have a very serious conversation with Masuda e Ohmori, head will surely fall.

This is terrible news, because everyone who bought the game just rewarded Game Freak for being mediocre. Bravo, you bloody sheeple.

Once again fun and engaging gameplay triumphs over graphics.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika sadly you are right, Game Freak will never make a game with the quality of gen 4/5 ever again.

Funny how Pokémon goes. One of my friends is already in postgame loving it and my other friend informed me today he returned his copy after two hours of play. And I’m sitting in the middle 😂 I played for a day and went right back to ragnarok and sonic for the last few days.

This is both really impressive and sad at the same time. 10 mil in 3 days is amazing, but there is no way that something so half baked should be getting rewarded.

@Dr_Lugae Elden Ring & GOW Ragnarok both managed to deliver fun and engaging gameplay AND excellent graphics. This isn't even the discussion, though. SV lacks polish. If there's a fun game under there, GF sure dropped the ball with their QA, 100%. This is blind brand loyalty triumphing over any reasonable skepticism.

how do you make so many pokemans so fast??? can you catch that many??

These games consistently sell, sell, sell and yet all I hear from the Pokemon community is anger and complaints. A whole lot of people are complaining but sending a contradictory message by buying the game. How are Game Freak and Nintendo going to be incentivized to change things?

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika You're the only one pushing nostalgia "only replay gens 1-5".

Maybe lack of self-awareness comes free with blind cynicism.

@Burning_Spear Nah, you would have to prove that the same people buying are the ones that are complaining. Many of us watched streamers or let's plays before wasting $60 on a company that doesn't care about their franchise enough to put it through any proper QA.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika As soon as his world-view is challenged, it's just insults. You replied what, once or something and that's all it took? Yikes.

Ah the buy game no matter the cost no matter the quality crowd at work

Lol just casually doubles the new GoW release [that was also the best performing Sony 1st party launch] in just three days.

@FishyS long term sales will be just fine. It’s heading to Christmas holidays too which will keep sales going for awhile. Even Sword/Shield had excellent legs despite the whole “Dexit” negative fiasco where it ended up being the 2nd best selling Pokémon game ever.

Hardcore Pokémon fans are just massively dwarfed by the casual/young/family friendly gamers that Pokémon targets to and they don’t care that there are frame rate drops or that the graphics are bad. As long as the game doesn’t crash on startup and it’s a genuine Pokémon game then anything else is gravy as far as they are concerned.

All most of them will hear is “open world mainline Pokémon game with multiplayer” and the wallets are already opened

@Mr_Gamecube It’s an overall consensus at this point that the game is more tolerable in handheld mode although it still has issues.

And Sony say they don’t want to be like Nintendo? Bye bye GoW Ragnarok.

That is insane. I bet people going nuts over all the games' problems made them sell even more copies. I realized a long time ago that quality and popularity had very little to do with each other, but a game managing to set both new highs for sales and new lows for polish and quality assurance is just ridiculous.

Plenty of effort has been put into this game. The performance is no reason not to buy it. It has zero affect on the game. It is the most fun pokemon game ive ever played.

Makes sense they would rush this game to be released. It paid off.. literally.

😊I was one of those 10 million sales and I don't regret it.

Technical issues aside, the Game is fine and I prefer it way more than Arceus and BD.

Sword is still my favourite Switch Pokemon game.

@KnightsTemplar Yeah, playing the game with nostalgia goggles just makes all the problems disappear! lol

Brand loyalty and nostalgia doesn't explain why Scarlet/Violet sold 67% faster than Sword/Shield. This type of growth for sequels is incredibly rare.

This also puts to rest any claims of "Switch is too old/weak, people are jumping ship to other platforms."

@SonOfDracula maybe your the sheep for not actually buying the game yourself and going along with the whole mediocre game bullcrap. The game is legit amazing. Performance is bad but does not affect game play what so ever. Give it a go yaself. Make ya own mind up. And find out that those 10 million people, Are actually buying the game because its good, not just because its pokemon.

@SonOfDracula no nostalgia goggles here. Just playing it for what it is and loving it. By the way. I dont like lets go and sword/sheild are very boring games to me. But yeh. Keep riding that train your on

@KnightsTemplar That's not how that works lol. I watched a 4 hour stream of the game, informed myself with several reviews and watched a few let's plays/technical analysis before spending any money on this trash. Why play this when I can play literally any other Pokemon game and get a better experience? They're each a copy/paste of each other, with name and place changes. Unless they do something stellar or unique, I'm not wasting money. Not to mention, I would want a fully working game for the price they are asking, not this broken, ugly mess.

@SonOfDracula i watched a lot of videos to before i bought it and thought man, these games look horrible. The difference between playing and watching is night and day

@KnightsTemplar No it's not. I watched vids of Elden Ring before I bought it, thought the game was gorgeous and holy crap, it STILL looked gorgeous when I physically played it. You're not magically staring at different pixels because you're playing vs. watching ffs

The game is incredibly fun. Yes it could run a little better, but I'm having such a good time with it, I'm considering picking up Scarlet as well - I don't usually get both versions.

Nintendo - The mass market doesn't care about graphics and performance.

"Gamers" - LOLz, whatever idiots, make your baby system for babies

(Wii breaks sales records)

Nintendo - Nintendo - The mass market doesn't care about graphics and performance.

"Gamers" - LOLz, dream on. No one is going to buy your glorified iPad when you can get a PS4!

(Switch crushes records)

Nintendo - The mass market doesn't care about graphics and performance.

"Gamers" - LOLz, idiots, this game is awful. Graphics suck, NO ONE is going to put up with the glitches and issues.

(Game breaks all sales records)

Nintendo - It's almost like we figured this stuff out.

I mean, PERSONALLY I hate that this game is a bug filled nightmare, but you have to hand it to them ... they stick to their guns in terms of priorities and seem to almost always be right.

@SonOfDracula oh yeh because elden ring is a great example 🙄

I didnt get the game myself, but I'm seeing a lot of people really enjoying the game. A friend of mine who hates Sword and Shield loves this one. Honestly I'm seeing fewer people complaining about the quality of this game then people complaining about dexit last gen.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika You don't seem that happy based on the time you're spending here.

I'm not a huge fan of Pokemon, but apparently the game is not great. Imagine the sales if it was great, though.

@Edward_J_Grug_III That doesn't even make any sense.

The games are great its just a shame the performance is dire and that its filled with bugs, hopefully Gamefreak can sort that and get it in a better state.

@iLikeUrAttitude
It's Pokemon, at this point it's a given that it will always sell well lol I never believed what some people were saying that it was going to be the worst selling Pokemon game despite some mixed reviews.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika
I'm so sorry people are enjoying a game, I'll stop having fun now since the bugs offend you so much.
Please, I know that a game this buggy is not ok, and i wish the game was in a better state as much as the rest of you, but if you can have fun playing it, is it really the fps and resolution that matters? That's just my opinion, I'm sick of hearing about the game I KNOW is broken to bits thousands of times a day.

Goes to show people will buy anything regardless of its quality as long as the Pokémon name is slapped onto the slop

Regardless of performance, Scarlet/Violet is an incredible Pokemon game. It's a huge leap forward for the mainline games mechanically, even though technically speaking it has launched with a bunch of issues. The game design is there. It's just that they are always behind the curve with performance after XY.

If you like Pokemon, then you really will enjoy your experience with Scarlet/Violet, ultimately.

Nintendo needs to take this as a sign and send in their best in-house programmers to help clean up Game Freak's code. So basically, send in the calvary (Monolith).

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Maybe try more fibre?

Wow! Here's hoping the next game is so buggy and glitchy that it can only run for 30 minutes at a time before crashing! I'm sure people will still buy it, defend it, and praise it. Can't wait!

Keep up the good work Pokefans! The quality can only lessen with each game now! We did it!

Haha. I knew I'd see salty comments under this article, and you folks didn't disappoint.

Pokemon is such a monstrously popular franchise. Utterly insane how well this sold coming out of the gate.

It'll be interesting to see if the bad press the game is receiving for its performance hurts post-launch sales like it did with Cyberpunk 2077. Although I wouldn't count on it.

For once, I'm proud to say that I'm not one of those 10M people who bought a half baked game. This shows that people will flock to buy mediocre products and defend their makers to the bitter end.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Three years from now.

Incentive to keep releasing undercooked, underperforming product.

this is why you will have new buggy games released every year because the addicts will buy the game no matter what condition the game is in

First Pokemon game purchased since Black, but it's an Xmas present so it's not going be played for at least a month and a day now.

One day people will learn that the more they talk about a game, and the more "controversy" there is surrounding a game, the better it does.

I haven't played Scarlet yet(will be getting it for Christmas) but these glitches and bugs being showcased actually made me wish I didn't hold off on buying the game. By most accounts of people who are actually playing it, while flawed, these games are still fun.

So this is how the gaming industry dies. With thunderous applause.

@Dr_Lugae Well one has to buy the game and play it to determine if it's fun but their purchase counts whether they like it or not.

No, I would say it's the brand name that sells it.

You are only as good as your last game. I dare say their next one will need more positive press.

The sad part for me will be when we see Tears of the Kingdom open much lower despite being inevitably an infinitely better game.

Once again proving how easily people are influenced by a brand rather than the quality of the actual product. This looks to be quite comfortably one of the worst looking major game releases we've seen on any console and whilst graphics certainly aren't everything, this game just looks very poor by any standard.

If people enjoy playing it then great but this level of polish should be unacceptable and especially for a franchise that basically swims in money

Sales of this level for games with such egregious flaws is never a good thing, I only hope Nintendo will acknowledge the controversy and do something about it. I want to like Pokémon again!

Performance and graphics are terrible, no ones denying it but I like the gameplay. It isn't unplayable and I use it as a game to relax and just wander around. The one thing I'm concerned about is Nintendo and GameFreak hasn't commented about how bad the game looks or runs. All the negative reviews and they've not said they're working on a fix or anything. I honestly think GameFreak have overstayed their welcome. 10m sales! Imagine how many more they'd have if they released the perfect open world Pokemon game.

Fact is the games are good. Great, even. They're incredibly fun and in a completely different league from previous Pokémon games.

I didn't enjoy Let's Go/SWSH/Arceus Legends, but I've thoroughly enjoyed SV.

The tech issues suck and are frankly inexcusable but I'm not gonna sit here and say the games aren't great, because everything NOT on the tech side... Is spectacular. Simply spectacular.

If only they'd devote more dev time per game. Clearly they can spend an entire year more on JUST optimization and nothing else, since they can pump out an amazing game in the current dev cycle. Just not one that performs even acceptably well on the tech side.

Nice! Happy to have done my part to enable laziness or whatever the haters are whining about!

Despite the glitches and technical hiccups a lot of people are enjoying the game. Let’s be honest, the hardcore gaming crowd, the people who care about these issues that frequent comment sections like this, are not the majority of people who buy video games. It’s the casual audience that makes up the bulk of that, the same casual audience Pokémon is aimed at.

So, for anyone who complained about the quality of the games, you brought this upon yourselves.

The sales keep increasing while the games' quality keeps decreasing. Where's the line exactly? Children or parents buying it is one thing, but the vocal fans online are seemingly proud about what's happening to the series.

That’s kind of disgusting.

Wow go Pokémon what a beast.

Sends a nice message to all the other developers who still aim to release a 100% finished game.

...Has tons of glitches, bugs, and serious problems...but it's Pokemon, so you should get it because it's awesome!
...
Yeah I'm done with this series, lol. Sword was underwhelming, so was the dlc, and Arceus was just boring. I'll just wait for New Snap 2...or Monster Hunter Stories 3, or something, I dunno.

@DuragonArt Speak for yourself. I played the game, I know its good. So I'll say its good.

Pardon if my opinion breaks up the salty bunches circle jerk of misery with a take from actually playing game.

@ZealMajin Yup. This is absolutely disgusting.

The quality of Scarlet/Violet is beyond bad, not worthy of calling it a AAA Nintendo Title.
Youtube reviews have slammed the terrible performance, bugs and glitches in this game!
The User Metacritic score is 2.9.

After a week, there is nothing but silence from both Nintendo and Gamefreak, to even acknowledge the issues and what they going to do about it with patching, updates, etc!

I guess this article pretty much explains it! Why would they bother, they can just sell an empty cartridge with a Pokemon Logo on it and they still sell tens of millions of units! /FACEPALM

This just sends a clear signal to Gamefreak it's fine what they did and they can just forget about this game, they got the cash and profits and move on to develop the next Pokemon game and put even less effort in it, as it clearly doesn't matter. People just buy it anyway.

________________________________________

Just in stark contrast as to the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 (example). I actually played it on the XBox One X at that time and it was more playable than Scarlet/Violet.

Yet, CDProjectRed had to come out with an apology within days, remove the game from the stores (PS4/XBox One version).

Same with other terrible major releases, where the Devs actually bothered to come out with an apology and update their customers with a roadmap into fixing the problems and when the first major patch could be expected.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika God of War Ragnarok was in development since the release of God of War 2018(Sony Santa Monica Studios) for what my friends told me is vastly improvimment to the 2018 God of War, you can see is a passion project, unlike Pokémon, the QA departament did nothing in regard to it terrible techinal/graphical isseus
https://youtu.be/pBZqt7D24Zc

Methinks a patch not be comin'. With sales numbers like this, why put forth the effort? I'm totally part of the problem, I'm very much enjoying the game even with the bugs and performance lol

Being playing in handheld mode for few hours a day since launch. I wouldn't call it a polished graphical experience but I've barely experienced any glitches that seemingly make it unplayable. Got stuck on a platform once for 3 minutes before game coped it and moved me.

This basically shows what is wrong with the industry. Marketing has far more effect than quality nowadays. People can't seem to think for themselves anymore.

I hope many of those will be unhappy customers like Cyberpunk 2077 to make a change, but I doubt it since most of them are little kids or have the mentality as such.

@johnvboy my card was full within seconds.

@MajorTom Which is idiotic really.

Like I said earlier. I played CP2077 on the previous XBox One X (before I got the new series X a year later) on launch day and it actually ran pretty smooth, way better performance and framerates than Scarlet/Violet other than some bugs/glitches.

Yet CD Project Red was crucified in public, had to remove the game from the stores (temporarily), offer a public apology and a patch roadmap for the game.

Fast forward, here we are with Scarlet/Violet and both Nintendo and Gamefreak are utter silent, not so much giving a peep about the state of the game nor when we can expect a first patch in an attempt to improve the performance.

I can handle some issues and bugs with games, but this game is literally giving me a headache and eye strain, when I try to play for more than 15-20 minutes on TV in docked mode. It's so blurry due to the horrible resolution, low framerates, low quality textures and moving NPC's stuttering over the screen.

In stark contrast to Sword/Shield and Legend Arceus who had none of these issues.

This is disheartening. I guess they have no incentive to make better games. Oh well

@MajorTom, @Jeronan

This exactly! It’s great the game has proven to be a financial success but what hypocrisy within this industry. Game Freak won’t ever have to issue any public apologies for rushing a currently broken and unfinished product..it’ll just be more accolades and incentive to keep selling gamers hype over quality.
I’m not exactly sure what it is when it comes to Pokémon, it’s a decades old franchise so it’s a misconception that’s it’s only played by kids yet it’s a franchise where complacency seems to be widely accepted! 10 Million in 3 days and the holidays rush isn’t even in full swing.

@Jeronan I also played CP2077 on day one myself on the PC. I also enjoyed it and did not have that many issues myself. Only some bugs here and there. Really liked the feel and world of the game. I heard most problems were on last gen systems. I also consider the outcry that CD Project Red got a bit overboard. However it did help improving the game and the view on it. Right now most people consider it a good finished game as far as I know which is deserved.
Hope the same outcry will come to Pokémon, but I sadly doubt it.

@MajorTom Yep. A month ago, after the latest major patch, I came back to CP2077 and had a blast playing it again. It's a fantastic game.
Incredible production quality, when it comes to the design of Night City, the many characters, etc.

And this is what makes me angry. TPC makes 600 million bucks in 3 days and this is all they can deliver to us with Scarlet/Violet? It's literally what they call in certain industries a "Minimum Viable Product". Not even that, with the horrible performance the game currently has. /facepalm

They should be utterly ashamed!

I think people blaming others for buying it is a bit disingenuous, it should be on Pokémon themselves for releasing a product in this state. I felt at least there was very little revealed about the games before release and reviews didn't even come out until the game had almost released in some countries. Sure, you and I might wait to get a consensus on release but you can hardly blame the huge casual audience on the Switch's massive install base for trusting one of the world's biggest media franchises to deliver a quality product. So in my opinion, if they look at these huge numbers and decide they don't need to improve in the future, that's on them, not the consumers.

(For the record I don't think most people here are doing that and are putting the responsibility on Pokemon, but I've definitely seen it a bit)

Unreal.
4 Million+ just in Japan where it became the fastest selling game ever, smashing Splatoon 3’s record that was already unbelievable.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Trust me, so do I 😂

@SonOfDracula Proud bloody sheeple here! Cry moar!

@FirstEmperor Yep, brand loyalty will do that to ya...

@SonOfDracula Indeed! And the delicious schadenfreude over the failed outrage mobs certainly helps too!

@FirstEmperor I can't speak for others, but schadenfreude generally means that you're happy for another's misfortune. I'm actually unhappy with GF for reaching peak mediocrity. I want a better Pokemon game, in other words.

Aw man. I was hoping it would sell poorly so maybe Pokémon Company learns their lesson but it seems people just don’t read any reviews or warnings because a lot of Pokémon players are probably 10-year-old children. Oh well. Maybe next time.

@HeadPirate
while im not sure about the sources on those quotes nintendo as a first party has been known to prioritise performance and optimisation on their first party games alongside clean visuals which make the most of their systems, if they felt that people do not care for those kinds of things then they would not do that.

While pokemon isnt developed by nintendo and has often had issues on a technical level especially when they made the jump to HD console development they do have one of the most powerful brands in gaming history and some extremely powerful marketing.

The more I play it the more it gets closer to a 10/10. This game is special.

@SonOfDracula
Some have the "haters gonna hate" mentality where someone criticising something (Pokémon in this case) is labelled a "hater" and their criticism is dismissed without being engaged with.

Though with this game there hasn't been as much of that with even people enjoying the game mentioning the issues and hoping they can be patched.

though i imagine for the former group schadenfreude would apply.

@Mgalens That makes more sense. I just don't believe in shutting down conversation out of disagreement. If people have dissenting opinions, having the conversation with some maturity is much better than all the fanboyism vs. people with hate boners. I'm just sad that Pokemon isn't better. It's got such grand potential, but they just churn out the yearly Pokedex update without any innovation.

@Mgalens

Interesting take. I'm not saying you're wrong of that's an invalid way to look at things, but let me add some perspective based on my experience just in case you’re interested and because I'm on a train right now with nothing to do but write this on my phone!

While Game Freak and TPC are not Nintendo and I’m generally a strong voice reminding people that Nintendo has no control over its wholly owned subsidiaries like Nintendo of America, Pokémon games are an exception. They order a game from Game Freak, and just like any other time you farm out, they send over the project management details and milestones. It’s actually a pretty ingenious, almost shady, way to get past both domestic and international laws that force the separate operation of both parties; Game Freak sends dailies to Nintendo, who in return can send updates on how they want the game to progress given that’s not an unheard of thing you to when you get a 3rd party to develop a game for you. Really the only difference in a Pokémon game and a 1st party title from a development point of view is Nintendo can’t personally make staffing decisions nor can then “force” Game Freak to implement exactly what they say other then on a contractual level like “if the game doesn’t have (x) we will not pay you for it”. They even get some additional control by being the joint publisher.

"Graphics and performance" here means high end visuals and things like frame-rate, draw distance, load times, and basically anything you can get from just adding raw power. I think you’re taking it to mean more polish and care, which I would agree Nintendo is known for doing quite well. The point I’m trying to make here is that Nintendo is completely okay with 90% of the complaints people have with theses game because a lot of what people are labelling “bugs” or “glitches” are really just performance issues or engine limitations rather than coding logic errors or the like. They would gladly release a game that looked garbage and couldn’t hit 15 FPS if focus groups told them it was still fun to play. They don’t care about load times or draw distance as long as it doesn’t impact gameplay.

And now for the hot take; yeah this game is buggy, but as open world games go it’s actually very polished. The bigger your game is, the more players are going to do things outside usage cases you can anticipate or test, which is why ALL open world games are buggy AF at launch. Compare this with day one Skyrim and it’s a freaking masterpiece.

As for the “quotes”, that’s just a generally take you can get from any time Nintendo answers questions for the media. Is this game going to be 60fps? Are you going to make a 4K system? Will the next upgrade have a faster hard drive? They are pretty consistent with their answer; they don’t care. They dodge the question by moving back to gameplay. They don’t upgrade hardware or push for performance milestones “just because”. Where EA or Ubisoft would 100% tell both 1st and 3rd party developers that a game needs to hit 60fps so they can put that in marketing material, even is gameplay in no way benefits (or even if it suffers and this takes time away from other areas), Nintendo tells developers to focus on gameplay. The target frame rate is “good enough”. The target resolution is “good enough”. And that’s what I mean by it isn’t a priority.

@SonOfDracula I'm well aware of what the word means, and the fact that your first post referred to people who bought Pokémon SV as "bloody sheeple" demonstrates that you don't just have a problem with Game Freak, but also with people who don't share your opinions or priorities about the game. No use backpedaling now.

@Mgalens I have no issue with the people criticizing Pokémon or any other game. I'm mocking and laughing at the people who are trying to shame those of us who like the game.

@FirstEmperor So you are trying to validate your own opinnion by mocking and laughing at people who consider your opinnion bad? Isn't that literally doing the same thing as the group you try to crticize?

@MajorTom Answer to the first question is no. As for the second question, which version of "literally" are you using? Hard to tell these days now that the word has evolved to mean its own antonym .

BTW opinion just has two 'n's. Doesn't seem to be a simple typo since you made the same mistake twice.

@FirstEmperor I mean literally in its literal sense and thank you for correcting my spelling. I am dyslexic and not a native English speaker so I appreciate the thought.
Are you also able to elaborate on that "no"?

@HeadPirate
dont think i worded my post that well

Mentioned it in another thing but aspects such as load times, performance and draw distance all do tie into how a game plays, the pop in on sonic frontiers for example can make it harder to see platforms and other objects at a distance while framerate affects how responsive a game is.

when mentioning Nintendo and their games i more meant that Nintendo's first party games have been very consistent when it comes to 60fps

I imagine something like the digital foundry video could explain something far better than me but in regards to this game its less that the switch cant handle the game and more that theres issues with optimisation (including a data leak bug which needs a reset to fix)

with switch it does seem like there's more people hoping for a next gen switch using newer mobile chips than something that competes with the ps5/XSX considering nintendo has always done amazing in the handheld scene.

again apologies if i didn't word things well.

@Mgalens

You’re preaching to the choir. I am an extremely frugal person who don’t really go in for excess … except at no point in the last 20 years has my computer had a street value less then around 5k. I upgrade constantly because when frames drop, when pop in or even reflection quality is noticeable, or have trouble hitting 60 or even 120fps for some genres … it really impacts the game for me.

My point is just that Nintendo disagrees. They think I’m a tiny, tiny fraction of the market and that the overwhelming majority is ok playing a blocky slideshow as long as they are playing it with a smile. And when you look at the sales of some of the technical miracles on switch compared to games like this … I can’t really argue with them. Even I forgive Nintendo more then any other publisher because I think they are the only ones making games that are FUN anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the experience of something like Elden Ring …because it was made to be an experience, not something you just have fun with.

Now that said it’s not that it has zero value. They are going to aim for a smooth, beautiful experience when they can. But a lot of publishers tell development teams that 60 fps is non-negotiable so they can put that on the marketing even when gameplay doesn’t really benefit from it or even when they have to make compromise in other areas to hit that. Nintendo would never do that.

@FirstEmperor Nah, I have a problem with people having brand loyalty to the point they are blind to the errors a dev team churns out. I don't believe rewarding mediocre work is going to magically make the next Pokemon game something truly innovative. We would have to stop buying the games to send them that message, but people just lap this recycled game up, every time. I'm discussing a relationship between devs/publishers/players.

@HeadPirate
what i meant with the first party thing (and again sorry if its worded poorly or if im repeating myself ) was that Nintendo's first parties since the wii have rarely if ever had a blocky slideshow of a game, even ones which push the limits of the hardware they seem to target framerate (unless the game is more ambitious in size like botw or Xenoblade 3) they tend to in general have some of the most well-optimised games around (i still think that Mario kart 8 looks absolutely stunning and is rocking that smooth 60fps, splatoon also with that amazing looking paint and incredible smoothness.) Their first party teams go above and beyond.

Though in Pokémon's case game freak is technically third party iirc, its similar with Hyrule warriors Age of calamity where from what i remember in an article they really wanted some nice looking BOTW grass though i imagine that's partly why the performance suffered since i think the game was still using the same musou engine and maybe it didn't like the grass.

again i apologise if my wording isnt the best or if it comes across as argumentative, im going for more of a discussion of Nintendo's games and the various differences between how developers handle the systems hardware.

one thing i do agree is how nintendo has never really been the first to jump on things like HD or 4K though to be fair im not sure how common 4k TVs are nowadays (then again that could just be my TV tech illiteracy since i play the majority of my games on handhelds) though it also seems like a lot of games with 4k modes also run at 30fps on things like ps5

I bought the game and I have been thoroughly enjoying it so far. I actually didn't even know that the game had serious performance issues until I read a review today. I've felt a few of them myself while playing but nothing even came close to ruining my experience of the game. I really hope Game Freak patches all of the bugs because I really think this is a great new and innovative entry to the series and deserves the revenue it brought in.

I have 2 young children (5&8), who have become a bit pokemad in the last year or 2. Helped obviously by the fact I have nearly every game and gave them my old 3DS/gameboys/retro handhelds etc (which also helped with their reading/writing enormously!)

When Scarlet/Violet was released I worried about them watching videos constantly slagging the games off, as they are very excited to get them for Christmas, but they were adamant I show them some gameplay videos and stuff because they couldn’t wait. Whilst watching these ‘performance reviews’ all they could say was how much they couldn’t wait to play them, how cool it looks and which starter they would pick.

These are very popular games for people of all ages (including me!) but for those lamenting these sales figures, let’s not forget that these are largely aimed at children, and it’s before Christmas, and that’s a very very lucrative demographic.

@MajorTom Sorry for the late reply; I spent most of the holiday away from the internet. I'll elaborate on my previous post as you requested.

I have no interest in validating my opinion to anyone I don't know in real life. On the contrary, I revel in the disapproval of people who think they can shame me into behaving in a certain way, so part of me hopes they continue to disapprove and cry about it. The fact that I enjoy Pokémon is the only reason I need to buy it, period. I don't care one bit about "the message" that my purchase sends to Game Freak.

Your description of "literal" is circular, but I think I understand what you mean. I'm not doing the same thing as the people I'm responding to because I would never hope for the failure of a game (or any other product) that I don't like, even of such a failure could possibly result in something I want. And I certainly would never insult people for liking something I don't like.

For example, I would rather see Mario Kart 9 than more Mario Kart 8 DLC, and I think it's a shame that the Switch is likely to be the first Nintendo platform since the Virtual Boy that won't get an original Mario Kart (unless you count Mario Kart Live). But I don't hope for the failure of MK8 just because that would ensure we get MK9 sooner, and I am happy for the people who are enjoying the new waves of MK8 DLC. Sure, I get a bit tired of seeing it week after week in the Japanese sales charts, but I'm not going to whine about it.

@FirstEmperor I don't really see anyone shaming you in the first place. The sheeple remark of SonOfDracula seemed more like a general statement about a group of fans who just buy anything that they yearly churn out and deny all of the flaws of the series. It was not about every costumer. If you consider that a personal attack then that is more on you.

I myself would like the series to improve, but I expect this won't happen with the current numbers. For that example with Mario Kart you know for sure there will eventually come a next instalment that will more than likely be as good or maybe even better than the previous one. For Pokémon you know that they will release 1 or even more games a year with likely as much or even less quality or in a very special case "a step in the right direction". I also don't think that anyone on both sides really thinks it can fail. Even when it sells less than normal it outsells almost every franchise on the system.
Since the series is also the biggest multimedia franchise of the world it will have more fans and exposure in general so you will also see more "whining" about it.

I occasionally comment about it, but that is more often as a response. However I got past the point to really care that much. Most Pokémon games are below my standards, so I skip them. I hope they will improve enough to get a game near the levels of Dragon Quest XI S or other RPGs, but I don't expect that in the near future.

@MajorTom On the internet, I make no distinctions between general statements and personal attacks. Whether someone think all Pokémon fans are bloody sheeple (or whatever) or just me in particular makes no difference to me; I'm going to enjoy defying them all the same.

Sure, we'll eventually get a MK9. We'll also eventually get a Pokémon game with PS4 quality graphics. After playing a significant amount of Scarlet I can say the game looks and performs like an early PS3 game. It's in HD, but just barely and with an inconsistent framerate. This is actually par for the course for Game Freak. The GB, GBA, DS, and 3DS games all look like primitive NES, SNES, PS1, and PS2 games, respectively. If things continue as usual you can expect Nintendo handhelds to be one generation behind the modern consoles, and GF's games to be another generation behind that. So if you're waiting for a PS4 quality Pokémon game we'll probably get that next on whatever the Switch successor ends up being.

You've been civil so I'd like to end on a positive note. I also loved Dragon Quest XI and am eagerly awaiting DQ12 and the DQ3 remake! And I certainly wouldn't mind seeing Pokémon with those production values, but there's also something endearing to me about a company that decides to stay small and private after a huge success.

Oh geez so the people who are complaining didn't even try the game themselves?? Isn't it ironic? We tolerate the performance issues because Gamefreak are making huge improvements apart from not polishing the new game well.