Pokémon Scarlet & Violet becomes the fastest selling exclusive video games of all time

Nintendo today announced that POKÉMON Scarlet and Violet, the newest pair of mon games, have sold over 10 million copies in just three days since their release.

The games were released on November 18th, so the figures only reflect global sales for the first weekend since release, both on Nintendo’s digital eShop and in online and brick-and-mortar stores worldwide.

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These numbers break several all-time records, making Pokémon Scarlet and Violet the largest Pokémon game release in history.

They also mean the games had the biggest launch on the Nintendo Switch console ever, and the biggest launch on any Nintendo platform ever.

The massive sales of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet also surpass other platform’s big exclusives, making the new mon titles the biggest console-exclusive release of all time.

Exclusive game sales are limited by the fact that they will only launch on one gaming platform, making Scarlet and Violet’s performance all the more impressive.

For comparison, Sony’s PlayStation exclusive God of War Ragnarök, which launched to critical acclaim two weeks ago, managed to sell 5.1 million copies in its first five days.

Sword and Shield, the previous pair of Pokémon games launched in 2019, sold six million copies in one week, also a record number at the time.

Scarlet and Violet’s impressive sales performance comes after widespread performance issues impacted their launch.

Many gamers have complained that the games don’t play properly on Nintendo Switch, especially in the console’s docked mode where you play on your TV.

Others have noticed outright bugs and glitches where Pokémon appear in all black with no textures, characters disappear, players get stuck in the open world, and more.

The games have been bombarded by players for these rating issues, and their user rating currently sits at 2.9 out of 10 on the popular review aggregator metacritical.

Bugs and performance issues are uncommon for first-party Nintendo games as they are usually quite polished, leading players to believe that Scarlet and Violet’s short development time has taken its toll.

This is the third major Pokémon release in a year, following the remakes of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl and the all-new Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which released in November 2021 and January 2022, respectively.

Hopefully the lack of polish will soon be addressed in the upcoming updates and the record number of players who have purchased Scarlet and Violet will have a flawless experience in time for the holidays.

Written by Stoyan Ovcharov on behalf of GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN.

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