Pokemon Scarlet And Violet Has Had The Biggest Launch In Nintendo's History

Pokemon Scarlet And Violet Has Had The Biggest Launch In Nintendo's History
Images: The Pokemon Company

Written by 

Joseph Kime

Published 

24th Nov 2022 10:15

The launch of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet hasn't exactly been what fans were dreaming of.

We have bold new lands to explore, friends to meet, and most importantly, new and old Pokemon alike to befriend and force to fight each other in a global fighting ring. These features have come at a cost, with bugs that have made the game nigh-on unplayable for some players.

Not only are players duplicating the game's legendaries, but they're seeing huge crashes and jolts that are causing them to lose hours of gameplay.

It's a pretty sorry state to see the biggest franchise in the world in, but it doesn't matter for Nintendo, who are recouping the big bucks for their efforts.

Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Has Had A Gargantuan Launch For Nintendo

Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Has Had The Biggest Launch In Nintendo's History
Click to enlarge

Well, that was unexpected.

In spite of the game's bugs, players expecting that The Pokemon Company wouldn't be ready to manage a new Pokemon generation so soon after Sword & Shield, and the bizarre marketing strategy of the games, it looks like Scarlet & Violet have defied expectations and made for the biggest launch in Nintendo's history.

According to reports from Serebii, the leading Pokemon fansite, it has been confirmed that Pokemon Scarlet & Violet has sold over 10 million units in only three days, with 4.5 million being sold in Japan. This makes for Scarlet & Violet being the biggest launch in Nintendo's history (yes, we mean ever), a huge shock for the franchise.

This is a remarkable feat for the games and the franchise alike, but it could be about to break yet another record.

Scarlet & Violet Could Double Sword & Shield's Launch Numbers

We knew that the games would perform well, but when assessing the number next to Sword & Shield, the previous mainline games, it becomes even more impressive.

In the first week of launch back in 2019, Sword & Shield sold over 6 million copies, making it the fastest-selling Switch software ever. Considering this number was made up in only a week and Scarlet & Violet soared past it in a few days, it only needs a few more million sales to literally double the games' launch numbers.

This is unbelievable given the word-of-mouth coming from the game, and it could see a dip as a result of the game being practically broken - but it remains to be seen. Scarlet & Violet are financial bangers, and we're willing to attribute at least half of that to Lechonk. Thanks, queen.

Joseph Kime is the Senior Trending News Journalist for GGRecon from Devon, UK. Before graduating from MarJon University with a degree in Journalism, he started writing music reviews for his own website before writing for the likes of FANDOM, Zavvi and The Digital Fix. He is host of the Big Screen Book Club podcast, and author of Building A Universe, a book that chronicles the history of superhero movies. His favourite games include DOOM (2016), Celeste and Pokemon Emerald.

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