The sales of video games are significant for self-explanatory reasons. The better a game sells, the more the dev team gets; then, they can use that money to make more games. However, there are a select set of titles every year that you know will sell well. These are the games from big-name franchises that have a history, clout with gamers, and can pull off big sales without breaking a sweat. For those titles, like the upcoming Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, the question is, “well, how much will they sell in the first week?”
For the upcoming 9th Generation of Pokemon titles, the number is looking very high, especially when you factor in the Japanese pre-orders. We wrote a piece about this last month, but now we have an update for you. Via the Japanese chain COMG, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are at over 1200 in their pre-orders. As noted by the Twitter analyst below, that’s a record for Nintendo Switch games, including ones that sold multi-millions in their run:
Some games that put it above are Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Splatoon 3. Those two titles were not only major hits in Japan; they’re some of the best-selling games in recent history, if not all of Japan’s history in certain categories. So for Gen 9’s titles to be above them in pre-orders is a very important detail.
Plus, that’s just one region. The other two main regions in the US and the UK haven’t teased their pre-order numbers yet. But if they did show them off, they’d likely be very high. After all, Gen 9 isn’t just the next line of titles in the franchise. They’re the next significant evolution of the series as a whole.
For example, the game will have an open-world aesthetic for the first time. That will allow players to roam around the Paldea Region all they want and in whatever way they want. Moreover, the game will have expanded co-op features that entice players to bring friends to the game to have fun with them. The branching storyline options will allow you to choose one of three paths as part of a Pokemon Academy to fulfill the task of a “treasure hunt.”
Add that to the new legendary Pokemon, the updated visuals, and more, and you can see why so many people want to ensure they get the titles the moment they arrive on November Switch.
Source: Twitter
