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Pokemon Scarlet & Violet sells 10 million units in three days

The worldwide sales numbers are a new high for the franchise and come in the wake of criticism over the game's state upon release.

Ozzie Mejia

November 23, 2022 2:40 PM

Nintendo

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The Pokemon franchise is riding higher than ever before. In spite of the myriad of issues plaguing the most recent set of titles, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet sold over 10 million units globally in just its first three days. This is a new record for the Pokemon series, which dates back to Red & Green's original Japanese release in 1996.

The news comes via a corporate press release issued by Nintendo of Japan on Wednesday. Scarlet and Violet had a simultaneous worldwide launch on November 18 and managed to sell over 10 million units in just its first three days. This is remarkable considering several factors, including the date's proximity to Black Friday and that they did not receive any sort of holiday discount. This is the 9th generation of the base Pokemon series and this sales record include the core titles, as well as various spin-offs like Pokemon Legends: Arceus (which took almost two months to surpass the 10 million unit sales milestone) and New Pokemon Snap.

The other noteworthy thing about this news is that Scarlet and Violet's sales come in the wake of some heavy dissatisfaction over the state of the games at launch. While there's certainly a lot to be happy about, as noted in our review, heavy performance issues and egregious glitches were undeniable. Some players have been able to overlook these issues, but others have gone so far as to request refunds. According to at least one Reddit post, Nintendo appears to be approving some of those refunds.

The news of Pokemon's latest sales numbers are sort of a Double-Edge sword. On the one hand, the Pokemon series flying this high almost ensures that more titles and spin-offs will come down the pipe and at a greater frequency. If you love Pokemon, this is great news. On the other hand, a game coming out in this sloppy a state should not be rewarded. There is going to be rightful concern that standards for what constitutes a ready-for-release state are going to be lowered heavily going forward, especially from Game Freak, with whom a chunk of the Pokemon fanbase has rapidly lost patience.

There's a lot to watch for from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet going forward, a potential performance patch being high on that list. We'll continue to watch these games here at Shacknews and report on any updates as they come in.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?