Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Breaks Sales Records, and That’s Concerning
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Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the latest mainline title release for the Pokémon franchise, is breaking sales records as it’s now the biggest launch ever for the platform, Nintendo, and even the series, and if you’ve been following what people think about the game since it launched, that’s concerning.
According to a press release from Nintendo, despite negative reception from critics, Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet together reached over 10 million units sold in its first three days in the market, with over 4 million of that coming from Japan alone.
As I saw the announcement, it didn’t feel like a time for celebration but a cause for concern for the franchise as it shows that hype and brand awareness drove this much success for a title that launched with poor technical performance and bugs which has overwhelmed the online narrative. The concept for Scarlet and Violet was exciting – I get why people jumped in as early as they did, but Game Freak obviously dropped the ball on the actual product as it definitely looked like it needed more polish to deliver a completely smooth experience.
Critics have expressed the technical and visual issues they experienced as Scarlet and Violet received a 76 Metacritic rating as of this writing, and with what actual players have shared on social media, it does look visually dated, filled with hilarious bugs, and poor optimization as it runs poorly on the Nintendo Switch.
Here are just a few examples of what players are sharing, showing the various issues they’ve encountered.
For a better picture of the game’s poor technical quality, Digital Foundry’s detailed tech review of Pokémon Violet points out its many issues clearly as the video is a laundry list of problems that should not happen to a title breaking sales records as it reminds me of the state of Cyberpunk 2077 when it was released in 2020.
From barely maintaining 30 fps, the laughable draw distance, to how dated the game looks for a triple A title released in 2022, it’s so disturbing how this game was released in this state that it actually makes the Nintendo Switch seem incapable of running games in this scale. This is obviously not true just by the examples of what Digital Foundry has displayed in their video.
There will likely be a drop off in sales in the next few weeks thanks to the backlash but on paper this is still a success for Nintendo, Game Freak, and The Pokémon Company. The quality for Pokémon games is now in a vulnerable state, and we’ll see if this reception will give those involved enough incentive to do damage control to mend the brand’s image, which I hope leads to them providing an even better product in the future because the Pokémon community deserves better. It’s concerning, to say the least. Will we get a similar product in the future since sales are good anyway? Regardless of what people think of the game? Does the success block possible budget increases for future projects? Who knows.
I don’t see change happening anytime soon, which is a problem that makes future Pokémon titles less appealing from this point forward.
Stellar Blade’s potential was clear, but as its ambitions expanded into something greater, it lost focus. As soon as Stellar Blade tries to bring everything together, it merges into a single figure that looks deformed and uneven. The quality is unquestionable but it wasn’t the final product I was slowly building in my head as I went through the game’s first half.