Scarlet & Violet sell 20.6 million copies in six weeks

[Nah]

I noticed that this page finally updated again recently. So as of December 31st, 2022, Pokemon Scarlet/Violet has sold 20.6 million copies, making it now the 4th best selling Pokemon game (with Red/Blue, Sword/Shield, and Gold/Silver being ahead of it).

It had already broken records by selling 10 million of that just within its first three days of release, far surpassing the previous record holder for sales in that timeframe on the Switch (which was Splatoon 3 with 3.5 million iirc), while also supposedly selling the most within that timeframe for any game on any Nintendo console ever.

And that's just the number sold in the first six weeks of its life, so there's still whatever amount has been sold between then and today, and what will be sold in the coming days.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

I noticed that this page finally updated again recently. So as of December 31st, 2022, Pokemon Scarlet/Violet has sold 20.6 million copies, making it now the 4th best selling Pokemon game (with Red/Blue, Sword/Shield, and Gold/Silver being ahead of it).

It had already broken records by selling 10 million of that just within its first three days of release, far surpassing the previous record holder for sales in that timeframe on the Switch (which was Splatoon 3 with 3.5 million iirc), while also supposedly selling the most within that timeframe for any game on any Nintendo console ever.

And that's just the number sold in the first six weeks of its life, so there's still whatever amount has been sold between then and today, and what will be sold in the coming days.

It's a great game and I'm definitely not surprised at all. Hopefully it continues to see well. It is definitely likely to sell even more when the DLC comes out and HOME become compatible.

 

[Corveone]

The only problem is that this continues greenlighting Game Freak to keep rushing deadlines and not giving their games all the polish they deserve, because sales show that there are no negative consequences for them for doing so, at all. The games continue selling as if they were flawless masterpieces.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

The only problem is that this continues greenlighting Game Freak to keep rushing deadlines and not giving their games all the polish they deserve, because sales show that there are no negative consequences for them for doing so, at all. The games continue selling as if they were flawless masterpieces.

Game Freak has been developing Pokémon Scarlet and Violet for three years before release, which is enough time to polish the games. The average video game takes around three years to develop. Regardless of sales, Game Freak has been known to attempt to fix issues with glitches if possible.

 

[Sheep]

Honestly what I expected. They are absolutely buggy but it still is Pokémon and despite that the games are a lot of fun. I feel like with more time to iron out issues and optimize things it would've been the ideal Pokémon experience. Maybe three years is doable to make it work well but I feel like an extra year would have been massively beneficial for them anyway, and wish they were able to take their time.

 

[Corveone]

Game Freak has been developing Pokémon Scarlet and Violet for three years before release, which is enough time to polish the games. The average video game takes around three years to develop. Regardless of sales, Game Freak has been known to attempt to fix issues with glitches if possible.

Cyberpunk 2077 took over five years and it wasn't enough. Some games need more time than others and there are a lot of variables to take into account.

Game Freak simply has the ability to get away with things that other companies would be destroyed for doing. If they need to fix things after release, then they did something wrong. Back in the day, when online patches weren't an option, good developers actually had to do their best to release games in the best condition because there was no turning back after that.

 

[Orion☆]

Game Freak simply has the ability to get away with things that other companies would be destroyed for doing. If they need to fix things after release, then they did something wrong. Back in the day, when online patches weren't an option, good developers actually had to do their best to release games in the best condition because there was no turning back after that.

A lot of people did destroy Game Freak during the initial release cycle though, and still do. The outcry might not have been enough to silence the praise, but compared to other games, it was still massive.

For that matter, I consider S/V to be one of the worst games in the franchise (if not the absolute worst) not because of the glitches or performance, but because of the concepts behind it - especially the Mon designs, which are the main charm point of the franchise. By the look of it, this was their plan from the beginning; I doubt a year or two would have changed things much aside from improving performance. Now these games are looking likely to surpass Sw/Sh which had better art direction and Mon designs, and I'm livid. Yeah, Sw/Sh's plot could have been better, but the weird modeling, muted coloring and shoddy shading of both humans and Pokémon in S/V makes the *~intricate, branched storyline~* and *~open-world gameplay~* absolute slogs to go through.

I wish Game Freak would just keep refining Pokémon's own identity instead of trying to imitate other RPG franchises. They wanted to make Pokémon's own BotW, and it went horribly right. (Oh, and by the way, I sold my copy of BotW for the exact same reasons detailed above.)

 

[Corveone]

A lot of people did destroy Game Freak during the initial release cycle though, and still do. The outcry might not have been enough to silence the praise, but compared to other games, it was still massive.

Yeah, but if it has no effect on the commercial success in the slightest, it's just as if didn't happen. Some companies have to face actual consequences for releasing games with lack of polish or technical issues.

The loud minority who quickly jump and criticize the new Pokémon game for this or that seems to be largely irrelevant in the big picture. and even those who hate and rage about the new games exaggerately will be probably among the first ones desperately pre-ordering the next games anyway.