Latest Sales Data For Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Finds Fans Are Growing Older

I kinda expected this, but I hope that Nintendo doesn't try and go grim and gritty or "mature" the franchise in future installments. Keep it that classic Pokemon style!

Hmm... that explains that advanced and sort of mature theme Black/White had...

@Discostew What's cool, a lot of things are like that.

Most everyone loved Black and White so having a bite more mature content is fine IMO. Just not too much, the series should always be recognisable as what it is and always has been.

I loved when I went into that museum in OR and they explained a few basic things about marine biology (haven't played the original so don't know if they did the same there), they've done something similar in almost every other Pokémon game I've played. It's always good to make an effort to cater to and teach children with the games, not just adults, but I also think it's completely okay to confront them with more mature content if done right. And Nintendo/Gamefreak usually know how to do that IMO, so no worries.

I'm 36 and have been playing Pokémon games for 15 years. LOL X-D
To those people who think they're just kid's games "You know nothing!"

Well yeah nostalgia is making me buy it.

I have to say, I've been a ninty fan since the days of the nes. So I'm one of the more {i}mature guys here, not the most though thanks to @kit!!! The point of my senile ramblings here is that I've never actually played a Pokemon game in my life. I could be persuaded to try it out but I have no idea why the games are even about!!!

even tho pokemon games saw a decline in sales, X and Y sold more then pokemon black and white 2

I do actually still have a handful of 'mon in my collection(s) that come from my original GBA Pokémon Sapphire game too - which makes some of my oldest 'mon 11 years old. I'm thinking now I should've had kids instead of Pokémon

The average age of gamers is going to continue rising for a while. Back in the 80s it was mostly kids, but by the 90s those kids were now teens and new kids had joined in and so on. I've been reading news stories for the last 15 years or more about the average age of gamers and it always comes out as a few years ahead of me.

None of us are getting any younger.

Well, I'd be one of those guys (I'm 23 now!) but I still haven't bought it. Maybe next week...

Totally agree! And they should make games like TLoU etc to get the teen audiences from ps and Xbox too. Expand the demograph, no harm.

My high school is oddly fixated around Pokémon.

So many people with emulators who cry because they can't afford a 3DS and OR/AS, yet!

Haha, we're all OG's now- the Original Gamers

I am 43, and I just started playing Pokemon Y, and it is the 1st Pokemon I have ever played. I have been a gamer since the beginning, but I have never gotten into games like Pokemon or Zelda. I have always been into side scrollers, racing and sports.

My 12 and and 10 yr old love Pokemon, so I thought I would give it a try. After Y I am going to start my first Zelda game, A Link Between Worlds.

I just missed the Pokemon craze. I was in High School when Pokemon first came out so anything the kiddos were enjoying was uber lame to us. I remember getting a Game Boy Color and being utterly disgusted when 70% of the retail space at Walmart was allotted to Pokemon games. Still never played a single game in the series. Maybe old farts like me don't get it. And why the heck do they always come in pairs?

Oh well, they can have heir Pokemon. I'd rather go stomp some Goombas. But who am I kidding? I'm 33 yet still think Ninja Turtles are cool...

@freaksloan good on Ya! ALBW is fantastic!

Yeah Nintendo, know that 20+ year olds play your games so stop feeding us the same story. Give us a mature story along the lines of Pokemon Collisum and Pokemon Gale of Darkness. Not X/ Ys where it seemed to be telling a story to a 5 year old.

Emerald was my first Pokemon game and I got this game purely for nostalgia/

@Porky YES!! Also if they know about their past audiences..Where's our DK64 and Diddy Kong Racing sequels on Wii U?

Playing through AS I find it's pleasing a nostalgia in me I didn't know I had. For what I remember of the originals is not being able to trade over the ones from Gold and Silver and that put a damper on the experience.

It stinks. They're losing the kids, and they can only hang on to us with the nostalgia for so long. Unless they somehow recapture the younger market it's not a sustainable practice. And those kids aren't changing unless you can get between them and their smartphones, which isn't going to happen any time soon.

I know most people will bite my head off for saying it, but there may come a time that a Pokemon game for smart devices is literally the only way to keep the franchise viable, whether the fans like it or not.

Makes sense. Most of the times I go to the those pre-release events for the pokemon games (or just about any E rated Nintendo game), well over 2/3 of them are adults buying the game for themselves. Granted I'm also in the two thirds group, so that's one more in that group.

Well Nintendo isn't doing a great job at attracting new customers/fans, so I am not surprised at all that the customers are getting older. It's the same group of us that have been buying Nintendo systems since the early 90s that keep coming back for more of the same...

I'm 27 years old (almost 28 in this month) and still play Pokemon, and still have my copies of the originals Ruby & Sapphire, jijijiji....., ah, and also I have my copy of Smash bros Melee.
well, for me, the most important is that a videogame still be fun and enjoyable, and the age is not the problem, but never forget that if have responsabilities (job, family), well, first the responsabilities and next, if there are free time, play the games, XD

Haven't gotten ORAS, but not afraid to say I am 35 and I play Pokémon. I just took a break since Gold until Black, though. Currently playing X when Smash 3DS allows.

I remember when I went to get a Shiny Pokémon (I think it was Dialga) and there was a tournament going on and not a single kid in sight. Only guys in their 20s and 30s.

Kind of a worrying sign if you ask me. Today's young generation is gravitating almost solely around either FPS or iPhone apps. Yeah there's a few kids who's parents are gamers that will grow up with the classics both old and new, but once we, the main base that keeps Nintendo's boat afloat, are gone, what are they gonna do?

@Reverandjames You aren't strange. I'm 29 as well but I think the point is that it is ok to be an adult and still play games now. Many of my friends that are in my age bracket or slightly older sopped playing for a while because of how it was viewed (many are getting back into it now) so that can skew the ages a bit.

IDK where you're getting that Black and White was meant to appeal to older fans. It did the opposite, it was meant to appeal to children and mobile gamers. 5th gen brought Pokemon in a direction of lowered difficulty, less exploration, decreasing content, and forced handholding, these are not things that an older fan particularly enjoys. What they've been trying to do is make the series more approachable to kids and mobile gamers by making it a quick and easy experience, and unfortunately this goes against what the older fans enjoy. Hopefully this serves as a wake up call for Game Freak and they start turning things around.

Pokemon is ripe for more in depth stories and more focused gameplay. If you think about it, even 1st gen had a lot of hidden social commentary about humanity's interaction with the environment.

For example, manmade creatures like Voltorb and Magnemite represented the proposed Capitalist plan of using Pokemon as a profitable slave labor energy source; Grimer and Koffing represented the results of manmade industrial and chemical waste products being left unchecked; the legendary birds each represented an aspect of how humanity has destroyed nature (Moltres = habitat loss, Articuno = excessive hunting, Zapdos = planned obsolescence); and Mewtwo represents the industrial world's Military Industrial Complex running out of control.

As we see in Pokemon RBY, the populace of Kanto answered each of these representations to favor some harmony between humanity and nature. Kanto rejected the Free Market's plans to utilize the Power Plant and it's slave labor, choosing instead to generate power locally and on a small scale, even for Saffron City. Further industrialization of Kanto was rejected, instead relying upon a capped amount of growth the region's resources would allow, and setting environmental regulations to keep the region cleaner than before from pollution. (The TV show describes this political value shift as having not quite happened yet.)

Entire provinces of the region were closed off from real estate builders. Pokemon poaching was banned, in favor of catching them instead. The Safari Zone was established to protect endangered species, and allow responsible keepers to help bring dwindling populations up. There are no consumer product equivalents to our "thrown out by the hundreds of thousands into the trash every day" smartphones. All military presence on Kanto has been rescinded.

Kanto is a lesson on what a modern human society COULD look like, if we truly wanted it.

As for the issue of age group and difficulty, well... this is a user review I agree with about this: http://www.gamefaqs.com/3ds/696959-pokemon-x/reviews/review-155910
"Even with a nearly perfect entry, the cracks are showing in the fundamentals."

The gist of the review is that Pokemon X&Y (and probably also ORAS) isn't a bad game, but it doesn't know which direction it wants to take the series. Nintendo is playing both sides, casual for midgame and hardcore for endgame, and that makes the overall path throughout the games a more convoluted, less focused experience. Is Pokemon going to be a light hearted, simple affair? Or is it going to be a very in depth, competitive challenge? Game Freak doesn't want to pick sides... but they will have to pick one (or create their own alternative side) at some point.

In the mean time, I'll be playing Pokemon Crystal Kaizo on (slightly modified) Nuzlocke mode.

I'm pretty much in that bracket of the original Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and Melee customers , so yeah, I'm not surprised.
Though I absolutely hated Pokemon Black/White, I liked X/Y and I'm enjoying Alpha Sapphire.

I also feel like Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon was another attempt by Nintendo to get the GBA/GC crowds to come back around (it worked on me).

@PlywoodStick He does know that competitive is optional, yes? He makes a good point about competitive being too time consuming, but he's wrong about casual and competitive not mixing. Competitive simply draws from mechanics and strategies that casual usually doesn't. If there's any identity crisis they have to address, it has more to do with depth of content, exploration, and challenge, although they could possible compromise on some of those issues to satisfy both the hardcore, older fans and the younger, more casual fans.

I'm 42 and have been playing Pokemon games for only 10 years. Been playing video games non stop since 1977 though. No kids in the house here to be my reasons for being a lifelong hardcore gamer either!

I'm 24, and Pokemon Y was my first Pokemon game and I loved it. I'm getting Pokemon Alpha Saphire very soon! (I'm still playing Bayonetta 2 and Smash Bros on my Wii U)

@Discostew It's so true, at least in my case!

Obligatory I'm twenty five and still play Pokemon, etc. etc., byyyye.

Hopefully the next game's catered towards adults. Stop making the games so damn easy, introduce less kid-friendly (boring) characters like Serena and her lame trio and more like Blue and Silver.
To cater towards an older audience you don't need blood and bewbs...

@Melkac Agreed. I don't care if they make Pokemon as dark and gritty as CoD. Just undo all of this dumbing down nonsense they've been doing since 5th gen and bring back the depth that the series had before.