Highlights

  • Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have surpassed the sales of the classic Gen 2 games, despite their abundance of issues and criticism.
  • The technical state of the Gen 9 games, including lackluster graphics and performance issues, led to widespread disappointment and a poor perception of the Pokemon franchise as a whole.
  • Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have sold over 24 million copies since launch, making them the third best-selling core-series Pokemon titles of all time, showing the continued popularity and success of the franchise.

While Pokemon Scarlet and Violet may be black sheep among the series of games in many ways, new information shows that they have surpassed the classic Gen 2 games in total sales, making the Gen 9 titles some of the best selling Pokemon games in the franchise's nearly 30-year history. While this might be pretty surprising considering the sheer amount of criticism and generally poor reception Pokemon Scarlet and Violet saw due to their abundance of issues, it certainly seems to suggest that the popularity of the Pokemon franchise as a whole continues to soar higher and higher.

Though much of the gaming community across social media has expressed disappointment with the past several generations of core-series Pokemon titles in general, the release of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet took this level of disappointment to another level. The Gen 9 titles almost immediately became the subject of widespread criticism due to their technical state, with the lackluster graphics, frequent bugs, and blatant performance issues suggesting the games themselves weren't close to finished. These problems quickly turned many players away, and made for an increasingly poor perception of the Pokemon franchise as a whole among the gaming community.

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Pokemon Scarlet and Violet vs Palworld Sales Compared

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How Many Copies Have Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Sold?

As poor as Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's state may be from a technical standpoint, the Gen 9 games sales confidently speak for themselves. As reported by Joe Merrick of Serebii, The Pokemon Company has now sold a total of 24,360,000 copies of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, superseding the total sales of the Gold and Silver games and making the Gen 9 titles the third best-selling core-series Pokemon titles of all time. Scarlet and Violet began breaking sales records mere days after release, with the games selling over 10 million copies over the first three days following launch, pre-orders included.

For some perspective, some fan-favorite titles such as Pokemon Emerald, Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, and even Pokemon Platinum have each yet to sell 10 million copies to this day. There are a number of factors that play into sales, however, and while the Pokemon franchise as a whole seems to be on an unstoppable upwards trend in terms of popularity and profits, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet releasing during the buildup to Christmas undoubtedly helped its early sale counts.

pokemon scarlet and violet trainer

While Pokemon Scarlet and Violet has seen various patches to fix frequent crashing issues and particularly problematic bugs, the games' infamous performance issues and disappointing graphics have never received any real attention, and likely never will. Scarlet and Violet are certainly more than just their shortcomings though, and though The Pokemon Company has been mostly silent in the face of the games' criticism, only time will tell whether the next Pokemon releases will strive to avoid making the same mistakes.