The Pokémon Company is having internal conversations about maintaining game quality amid its “constant” release schedule.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were criticised last year for technical issues including a broken PvE experience, a rigged Battle Stadium, duplication glitches, a bizarre method of running at double speed, and more which Nintendo was forced to apologise for.
Some have suggested the relentless pace of Pokémon game releases has had an adverse effect on quality (not to mention the health of the developers at Game Freak), with several launches in the Nintendo Switch era alone.
2018’s Pokémon Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go Eevee!, 2019’s Pokémon Sword and Shield, and 2022’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will be joined by unannounced games in the works plus several DLC expansions.
“There’s more and more conversations, as the development environments change, about how we can continue to do this, while making sure that we’re ensuring really quality products are also being introduced.”
Speaking to The Pokémon Company COO Takato Utsunomiya at the Pokémon World Championships, ComicBook.com asked if there was a release schedule The Pokémon Company was “beholden” to keep.
“I think in general, if you look at the past, the path we’ve taken up until now has been this constant release, always regularly releasing products on a fairly fixed kind of a cadence, you might say,” Utsunomiya said. “Always having these products able to be introduced and new experiences for our customers, and that’s how we’ve operated up until now.
“I think we’re still operating in that way, but there’s more and more conversations, as the development environments change, about how we can continue to do this, while making sure that we’re ensuring really quality products are also being introduced.”
While Utsunomiya’s comments do not commit to a more relaxed release schedule, they do hint at an acknowledgement that the current pace may need reconsidered to prevent further launches like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s.
The poor performance was also a major factor in our 6/10 review, as IGN said: “The open-world gameplay of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is a brilliant direction for the future of the franchise, but this promising shift is sabotaged by the numerous ways in which Scarlet and Violet feel deeply unfinished.”
Of course, despite technical issues, Pokémon video games still sell in huge numbers. Scarlet and Violet sold over 10 million copies in just three days, making it Nintendo’s fastest-selling game of all time.
The Pokémon Company’s public release schedule so far only has Scarlet and Violet’s Expansion Pass on it. A trailer released during the most recent Pokémon Presents focused on The Teal Mask, which is Part 1 of The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. It’s due to launch on September 13 while Part 2 will follow in Winter 2023.
The latter, The Indigo Disk, brings back all previous starter Pokémon alongside a new Tera Type that looks to use all others as one super one.
For more, check out how you can get both Mew and Mewtwo in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and take a look at The Pokémon Company’s plush of its most NSFW Pokémon.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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