Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Is Now The Second-Best Selling Game In The Series

Well deserved! This TOTALLY deserves high praise, what a game!

Forget Kirby, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem, Pikmin, 2D Mario, this is where true quality is at! Keep buying these games and TPC will play limbo, so we can see how low they can go

I agree with the person above that it was well deserved. I'm sure 100% of the incoming comments will also agree.

I know we get a lot of complaints here about the Switch games, and they're not wrong, but clearly the people who have issues with SwSh and SV are a minority.

I am glad this happened.

And this is why this series will never improve

With all the money they make on these games, it would be nice if they made one, that doesn't look like mobile games.
Let the team behind Xenoblade, help out.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I prefer Sw/Sh over S/V. Regardless of the dex cut I had a lot of fun with those games, whereas performance issues really hindered my enjoyment with S/V. Also max raids over tera raids any day.

SV deserves to be the second best selling entry in the series simply because it means that SwSh isn't the second best selling entry anymore

The performance is not good but going through Violet was the most fun I had with a Pokemon game since getting into the series in Gen. 8.

I do hope all the Pokemon games on Switch 2 will perform better.

@Keyblade-Dan I mean isn't the fact that there hasn't been a new Pokemon game in almost 3 years a sign that they are trying to improve/take their time?

But I guess we'll have to wait and see how ZA and Gen 10 turn out

And people are reacting rationally to the news.

Honestly, while the technical issues are embarrassing and shouldn’t have been present, the game itself is a great step for Pokémon games and is pretty fun itself.

Crazy how these games sell tens of millions, yet still go for outrageous prices on the used market. The Pokemon fanbase is disgusting, and nostalgia is a drug.

Even with the performance issues the games are a lot of fun. Maybe not as much as Legends Arceus (which is my favorite Pokémon game ever)

Also the game is set to get a free update for Switch 2, so maybe it is going to be somewhat better.

I definitely enjoyed my time with S/V more than Sw/Sh overall. Is it perfect? No. But it’s still fun. It gets overlooked by all the discussions on performance and whatnot, but I’d say S/V has one of the better stories than most Pokemon games. The characters were all fairly memorable and the school setting was nice (though could have been implemented a bit more). The DLC was also pretty solid with a fun little story and additional Pokemon. I also really liked paradox Pokemon, it gave us some fun twists on classic Pokemon designs. The online discourse always focused on the negatives, but there’s a lot to like in S/V.

@Keyblade-Dan that’s a bit harsh. Yes this was rough around the edges but was my second favourite story after black and white and probably my second favourite game after Arceus.

Agree with the other comments that taking time out appears to be them listening to the vocal fans and wanting to flesh a game out properly. Only time will tell.

I will be doing a second run once the switch 2 upgrade drops.

Unpopular opinion but I prefer my Nexomon + Nexomon Extinction PS4 version than my Pokemon Violet.

I stopped continuing my Pokemon Violet once I finished the storyline.
Even if the game get really boosted fps to 60 fps, I don't think it will convincing me like the way I got impressed by Nexomon.

100% in my top 5 mainline Pokémon games. I can easily play through games with performance issues though. One of my most fun experiences in the later years of the Switch tbh.

As someone who played this game, this game is one of the worst games I have ever played. It is embarrassing that this game sold as well as it did

Good… Sword and Shield was crap.

@cmlobue For a mega series like Pokemon it would take ahwhile for the poor quality to affect sales I think. It can coast off brand strength for a bit. It would take a few bad games before it sinks in to average customers.

Anyway Cassette Beasts is very good.

Pokemon Red/Blue my beloved

Anecdote time, I was so sad when I heard I can't catch Growlithe, I didn't even think that I had Vulpix and Sandshrew instead.

Moral of the story, don't focus on what you don't have, focus on what you do have.

S/V are clearly better games in most aspects so they deserve to sell better.

i think gamefreak is either incapable or does not have the technical know-how to make a quality pokemon game

Despite what core fans say the masses love these games. Pure and simple. Games like Pokemon pretty much guarantee the success of the Switch 2.

So much unnecessary hate for Pokémon here. Scarlet and Violet performance issues aside, were great games. Sword and Shield were fine, Arceus was excellent, ZA looks great and will look and perform even better on the Switch 2.

Weird that people are in here with pitchforks over performance for a Switch 1 game

This proves people will buy anything as long as it has the pokemon name on it.

@Keyblade-Dan
The series includes many of the best games ever made.

Hey, good for it. I personally put B&W2 above it, but I had a ton a fun with this one.

Despite the amount of visual glitches I've seen and the performance issues being pretty bad at times, Scarlet/Violet is probably the most fun I've had in a mainline Pokemon game for years. So I'll be glad to experience it again on Switch 2 to see how much of an improved experience it'll be with its upgrade patch.

Say what you want about these games, the last hour or two in Area Zero with the story was worth it alone. Best story since the Black and White games (and S/M but they butchered Lusamine in USUM).

Visuals were obviously subpar but I'm not gonna blame Game Freak with their absymal time crunch nonsense the Pokemon games have to deal with, I'm just gonna hope they get more help next game maybe with Monolith Soft if they have the spare hands.

@Vectrex
I would LOVE if the Xenoblade team helped out.
And if they genuinely did and the game STILL failed to be well-crafted: Then it would prove what's been on the back of every pokemon player's mind since Red/Blue ---- that it has far less to do with Pokemon's greed, and far more to do with Pokemon's incompetence.

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It boggles my mind to this day that people think "Nintendo makes Pokemon!" when there's such an incomparable contrast between how Game Freak does things and how Nintendo does things. --
If a game isn't doing so great, Nintendo typically sends another team in and has them try to figure out how to improve said game. Which is why you usually see multiple familiar teams in the credits of most Nintendo games.
AT THE VERY LEAST, they'll make the game look polished and relatively bug-free. Maybe it'll be missing features, maybe some bad features are added in, but it will still LOOK like a complete game.
But Pokemon? ... If Pokemon is struggling (and it ALWAYS struggles because the teams for it really aren't that great programming/management-wise)... it just releases as it is. Not because Nintendo didn't offer help. Sometimes you see some of their other teams' members in the credits. No, it has to do with some sort of "weird pride thing". It can't be explained any other way.
ALL the Nintendo teams gladly put their IPs into Nintendo's hands - you'll see crossover easter eggs or additions appear in multiple Nintendo games... but WHENEVER you see Pokemon appear in Nintendo things? Well... 1: You most likely won't. and 2: When you do, it's stingy and bare bones. Take Mario Maker 1 for example - every other Nintendo IP put their character into the amiibo use in that game. Pokemon? Yeah, you get the Pokemon sprites. No real custom animations on them, but they're there.... But giving them sound effects? PFF! Why would they give SOUND EFFECTS??? It's not like some pop idol featured on Mario Maker gave their image AND sound when a large company like Game Freak didn't right??
No... Pokemon is so anti-Nintendo that they'd rather shoot themselves in the foot than to ask for Nintendo's help.

Why?
It couldn't be greed. They'd make MORE money if they had Nintendo's help, and that help is basically free (Nintendo will pay them, not Game Freak/TPC).
Honestly, even CONSULTATION would help them a lot. Considering how Pokemon is THE biggest title (Pikachu beats Mario in worldwide recognition)/one of the biggest sellers under Nintendo, OF COURSE Nintendo would be willing to have them stalled for better content.
No... Pokemon does this... because The Pokemon Company wants to keep Pokemon from being known as a "Nintendo thing". It wants to be its own thing. To reap all the benefits of being under Nintendo, without banking on those benefits because they're afraid Pokemon will just be seen as "another Nintendo title". GameFreak/TPC is THE MOST "3rd Party Company" under Nintendo. It's weird how badly they don't want to be under Nintendo's umbrella...

People genuinely believe that Nintendo basically owns all of Pokemon.
But if they did, then Pokemon would be in a far better place quality-wise.

It's the longest in a while there hasn't been a new pair of games, and the casuals just buy the latest when they want their Pokemon fix.

Good, Sword and Shield sucked. For all its performance issues, SV is the most fun I've had with a Pokémon game since ORAS.

Truly remarkable considering this game had a tremendous amount of bad press here at NintendoLife, to the point of scaring me away from buying it!

Proof that Pokémon is Nintendo's CoD and quality is irrelevant. It will sell because it's Pokémon and each entry being good or bad doesn't influence sales, so they don't care. Seriously, why make an open world game that's not really open world because it doesn't scale? It's not like BOTW where even with early equipment you can win with personal skill, it's an RPG where the numbers of Levels and Stats determine everything. And they knew it was an issue because SV are the only games in the series where random Trainer Battles are all optional.

It's sad because I see a lot of good qualities in SV, but even if they fix the performance issues, having a game that's open world but not really is just bad. Which is weird, because they did it right with their first attempt in Legends: Arceus: There's plenty of off the path and hidden areas that can be both reached on foot or later on with new abilities, and while there are random high Level Pokémon wandering about in the form of Alphas, you can attempt to catch them or get a sneak attack advantage over them so they're not just meaningless hazards.

This was the first Pokemon game I did not get at launch. Sw/Sh left a bad taste in my mouth and the notes performance issues of SV kept me away.

I did however find a clearance copy of the game at an Asda for £20 and I thought "why not?".

It still took me months to start playing it, but I am having so much fun.

I've put it down now as the Switch 2 upgrades will likely improve my enjoyment, so I will pick it back up again in a month or two.

We are never getting good Pokémon games again😭

I see the problems, I don't think there as bad as they're made out, but this where I want Pokemon to go.
Open World and Pokemon interacting with the environment.
Next should be quests, leading to a MMORPG.

@shoeses
It's like "Why mention battling Gym Leaders in different orders in Sword/Shield if you still battle them in the same order?"

The answer is the same with every Pokemon entry since PokemonGo earned them infinite money: The feature wasn't there before. They forced it in the last minute.

The Wild Area wasn't in Sw/Sh originally, which is why it felt so out of place. No, they threw it in because Let's Go's roaming Pokemon was a big hit with players, so Game Freak went
GF: "Throw it in there."
Devs: "But... we're making the first ever any-order Pokemon League. We won't have time to -"
GF: "Then throw that out, and throw roaming Pokemon in."
Devs: "..."
GF: "And while you're at it, people like battling together in Pokemon Go Gyms. Do something like that, too, throughout the entire game."
Devs: "But that might ruin the balance of -"
GF: "Don't care. Do it."

Probably from people talking about how they missed Pokemon being more traditional, the Scar/Viol devs were likely going to make a TRADITIONAL pokemon game - just in 3D. But then their higher-ups saw the people clamoring for the little text they saw in Sword/Shield about battling in any order and said,
GF: "Make it so that you can battle the Gyms in any order."
Devs: "... but they said they wanted a traditional -"
GF: "No one cares. Make it so that they can battle in any order."
Devs: "Okay, but we'll need to make it so that it can scale proper-"
GF: "No time for that. You're going to turn it Open World too. Think Wild Area - but the entire map."
Devs: "But you said Legends would be that and we could -"
GF: "No, you're doing it for this one."
Devs: "...can we at least ask for help?"
GF: "Mmmmmmmmnnnnno."
Devs: "Time extension?"
GF: "HA!"

game gets review-bombed

GF: "Thanks to your incompetence of rushing things, we'll have to delay our next game's release."
Devs: "... thank goodness."

@Gatorclops The stories have been improving in these later games, I'll give them that. SM, USUM, SwSh, Legends Arceus, & SV all had either interesting plots or individual character arcs that were fun to follow.

And yeah, I definitely feel like Nintendo is giving the other members of TPC insane time crunches. Especially after the leaks where ILCA wanted to essentially add all the improvements and extras from Platinum to the original story of DP, but were given such an insane deadline they ended up having to re-use most of the original DS games' source code for BDSP. The lack of new spin-offs that aren't mobile games also makes the flaws with the main games more apparent, as there's nothing between the release gaps now so the latest entries get extra analyzed.

I thought about it constantly, giving the series another try, but I just...can't. Games never go on sale, either...Never even finished Arceus because it was really boring, and Sword was very forgettable aside from, I dunno, some music I guess? Also the fact that this gen is now going full open world...not to mention all of the resolution and framerate problems, and this is coming from a guy who doesn't care much about that stuff. But when it's really bad, then it starts bothering me.

@Anti-Matter I will admit, there's a silver lining in that playing these mid Pokémon games for so long made other RPGs feels so much better and refreshing comparatively. It's the reason I'm really hyped for Digimon Story: Time Stranger later this year and not Legends ZA.

@shoeses
Nintendo has stalled a handful of their games when they weren't meeting the bar in quality. With Pokemon being their biggest franchise, they absolutely wouldn't want it to release broken/buggy/unoptimized. The fact that Iwata stepped-in during the Gold/Silver days, the fact that Nintendo gladly advertises their works whenever possible, the fact that Nintendo agreed to create a secondary company to manage the series between them and Game Freak (when they haven't done this with any of their other franchises) shows: Nintendo WANTS Pokemon to succeed.

The fact that Pokemon wouldn't give their amiibo-power-ups sounds for Mario Maker 1 when ALL OTHER AMIIBO AND EVENT POWER-UPS had sounds, the fact that Pokemon refused to put any of their mainline games on the Wii U when it was struggling, the fact that whenever Nintendo does cross-overs with their other IPs Pokemon is always the one seemingly absent: Shows that it's not Nintendo who makes the calls with Pokemon.

If Nintendo controlled their release dates, they would've forced Pokemon to release their game on the Wii U (that would be Let's Go, since the Wii U lines up with Pokemon Go's era of popularity and Let's Go's features make more sense on a Wii U than a Switch) in order for the console to have a fighting chance, instead of letting them stall.
If Nintendo controlled their release dates, they would've forced Pokemon to stall Sc/Vi's release with how poorly optimized it was (they stalled Prime 4 for similar reasons, why not Pokemon?).

Pokemon's cruddy track record falls on Pokemon, period. Whether that's Game Freak, Creatures Inc, or The Pokemon Company. Nintendo would rather Pokemon held themselves to a higher regard (especially considering that Pikachu is more recognizable than Mario worldwide).
But, all this goes to show: It's Pokemon's choice. Not Nintendo's. (Likely BECAUSE they're such a successful/powerful IP that they can refuse Nintendo)

I enjoyed my time in Scarlet and I have high hopes for Z-A.

Deserved. I think everyone has dreamed of an open world Pokemon game since the N64 days so it’s unsurprising it did well. Storyline was also engaging and the environments were interesting to explore.

Just a shame it wasn’t up to snuff in the performance areas like your Zelda’s and Xenoblade’s (and 95% of buildings weren’t able to be entered)

Well deserved, it really is a step up despite ots performance issues. What's impressive is that this is the 1st time that the 2nd Pokemon generation on a single system managed to outsell the first.

G/S, B/W and Sun/Moon all sold less than the 1st entry.

I'm looking forward to the Switch 2 update as I held off the DLC. So would like to play it with better performance.

Can’t wait to try on switch 2.

Sword/Shield are so much better than the embarrassingly poorly designed (and performing) Scarlet/Violet that it's not even close. Fight me.

S/V was such a tedious, joyless slog that I absolutely dreaded playing the second version.

But Legends Arceus remains the best Pokémon game on Switch by a significant margin, and is easily the best Pokémon game since Gen V.

Huh, I thought they were already the top-selling Pokemon games. Maybe I'm thinking of "fastest-selling".

This is actually pretty surprising since sequels on the same console tend to sell worse. I guess people really do like the open world. I myself did have a lot of fun with the game, despite the performance issues it's a good foundation for future Pokemon games.

@SillyG
K. I'll fight.
Sword and Shield are better production and polish overall, but if you were running tournaments (as I am, albeit very small), Scarlet and Violet blow SwSh out of the water in how fast you can create your perfect team.
I died trying to shiny breed for the correct ability in SwSh (yes, the Cram-o-matic made it much easier to get Ability Capsules, but by the time the DLC came out I was completely burnt out). But in Sc/Vi, Capsules drop like candy during Raids.

Not only that, but strategically, Tera >>>>>>>> Dyna/Giga in terms of creating unique teams. I can throw a mid-tier Pokemon into a battle, and the opponent will be second-guessing it the entire time until I Tera it (the punchline is that I put it there to confuse them, and Tera a stronger Pokemon instead).

Also, if one genuinely doesn't get hurt from seeing the poor visuals (and performance), and if they can stomach the poor writing: Sc/Vi is FAR LESS disappointing than SwSh.
The promises you're given (how they portray the world and gameplay) in SwSh gets so exciting and intriguing, and when you get to the Wild Area you scream in excitement and then!! ... Nothing. That's the peak. It doesn't get better than that. And knowing that's all you'll get for your excitement suddenly sours your experiences leading up to that disappointment (hype included).
Sc/Vi, on the other hand, shows its promises of open world, free travel, choosing your route in the story, and fighting gyms in any order and blah blah blah... But with every interaction with these promises it's like "Oh. That's it?" and then you move on. Disappointed, but at least they quickly made it clear that: Yep. That's it. There was never this feeling of "Well, maybe after the story, we can do this or we can do that!" Nope. It's made pretty clear how much they'll ever give you... Which made the DLC so much more satisfying. Kitikami was actually a thought-out handcrafted map. BBA Elite Four weren't a joke (unless you used Lv 100 Pokemon). The minigames with friends were simple, but fun, and gave plenty of opportunities for arguments and hijinks. And being able to FLY through the sky? All that disappointment just lightens up. It doesn't fully fall off, but it lightens up a lot and you just start appreciating the fun you had in the game.

Like I said, SwSh has it beat in polish and single player content (especially if you're into collecting legendaries). But the disappointment of not delivering on its promises really killed it for me... Because, again, ScVi didn't deliver either: but at least it felt more honest about it.

"Why make GREAT when GOOD sells better?!" ~GameFreak, probably

I seriously wanna see a Pokemon game that looks modern one day. So much has been recycled at this point. I think it's time for the franchise to get a bit of a polish job. New models, new art style for the PCs, more detail, voice acting, choices with weight (don't MAKE me betray Kieran! I can betray him myself! XD), that kinda thing.

I wonder how much the next title is gonna sell after so many people were disappointed by this title

It's Pokemon. Sometimes dumb fun is good enough despite the jank, especially to little Timmys & their parents who will not know better.

If anything those games show's lots of potential for the future of the franchise but man the lack of level scaling for the gyms... such a stupid dumb decision for an open world game lol

Great game if you don't care about graphics. But srsly gameplay over graphics people!

It would be great if Monolithsoft started doing these games instead of Game Freak. Although they might've helped with the combat of Z-A...

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are technically flawed, but they're way better games than Sword and Shield. Well deserved.

@Keyblade-Dan I was about to make the exact same comment.

I need to get back as it's a backlog game but waiting for Switch 2 to try it again with updates to play on Switch 2.

@abbyhitter This has to be bait. There's no way you're serious

@RubyCarbuncle To be fair, it is a fun Pokemon game (it's not hard for them to nail the beloved formula), but it falls quite short in a lot of ways unfortunately. Enjoyed it but would still put it in the bottom 2 all-time for me lol

I much preferred the linear style of sword and shield with open zones, as the open world attempts at Pokémon tend to be quite empty and barren. It is a great achievement, though.

S/V is such a conundrum to me. The way they run should not and is not acceptable in any form, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have a lot of fun with them. There's the skeleton of an amazing game there, but its clear that the lack of time in the oven drags it down. All we can do is hope that Z-A is evidence that Gamefreak is loosening the reigns a bit.

Another console success story, has nothing to do with the games. Almost every franchise has its best selling entry on the switch. Those that don't, didn't release on switch. Interested in the attachment rate though