What I meant was that the series would no longer be a staple of Nintendo. It would lose profitability over time because not as many games would be released every year or two years. If only one generation released every console, we'd be seeing like, I don't know, one set of new games every 6-10 years, which would kill the series. And I don't mean kill as in automatically kill. It would be a slow, painful death leaving only the merch, cards, and other stuff behind.
I definitely don't think it should be 1-2 years like it has been either. Three to four seems ideal and like enough time for them to churn out a quality game. If they can't even do that with these new games, then they've probably just lost their edge.
All of that is still not only highly unsubstantiated, but it is also completely without precedence. I can't emphasize enough that Pokémon is currently valued at around
$92 billion. When
Pokken Tournament was released on the Wii U, sales of the console rose by a staggering
151%. Obviously that wasn't enough to save the Wii U from being a financial failure, but it demonstrates the brand synergy Pokémon has that it can move even the most poorly managed consoles off the shelf with a
non-canon spin-off game. They rather smugly referred to ORAS alone--the remakes of a previous generation game rather than the brand new mainline game released shortly beforehand--as the "Vita killer," implying that they expected to sell so many copies that it would make competition from Sony irrelevant.
And they were right. And this isn't even going into supplementary material (anime, comics, spin-off games, TCG, etc.), which are likewise
individually valued in the range of millions if not billions. This indicates two important things:
- That Gamefreak could release Pokémon-branded air and expect it to sell by the truckload.
- If Pokémon games did plummet even gradually as you suggest, it would probably be the largest overall loss of revenue in multimedia history and absolutely unprecedented.
Not to mention, even just comparing it to other intellectual properties, the ability to release a fully-featured, big budget title multiple times per console generation is something of rarity*, particularly among other Nintendo properties. The Mario series typically only releases one major 3D Mario game per generation, with the Galaxy games being the only exception (though there is debate as to whether or not Bowser's Fury counts, which being a short expansion of a re-release of a Wii U game, I personally don't). Yet, as of December 2021,
Super Mario Odyssey is only a little bit behind
Pokémon Sword and Shield, the highest grossing games in the series since 1999 in spite of dexit and public backlash. The length of time between 3D World and Odyssey was four years. But the length of time between Odyssey and
Galaxy--a game that not only sold
significantly better than 3D World but was released on a console that was actually successful at the time, thus making it a slightly more fair comparison--was
10 years. It's also debatable as to whether or not 3D Land counts as a
mainline 3D platformer (as it was released on a portable system), but just in case, it also sold considerably better than 3D World, which leads me to one conclusion: The success of a Mario game is not inherently related to the span of time between the games, but much more closely related to how well the console on which it is released performs. Of course, there are other factors, including how Nintendo markets it--or in the case of the Wii U, how it doesn't--but the proximity between games seems to be only tangentially relevant.
For that matter, we're literally discussing this on an
Animal Crossing forum, a series which famously only has one mainline game per generation but was able to outsell
DOOM: Eternal in 2020 and was both the best selling game of the series by a landslide, but also one of the best selling games in its year of release, and it is
still the
second highest-grossing game on the Switch.
Which leads me to the ultimate conclusion to be gleamed from this: S
elling multiple mainline games per console generation is a luxury afforded from Pokémon's pre-established success, not the other way around. Gamefreak rushes out game after to game
because they sell well, not because they wouldn't sell well if they didn't.
I concede that, yes, they would see a decline in the
rate of revenue if they decided to slow down releases dramatically. But even a fraction of that revenue would continue to solidify Pokémon as the single most profitable multimedia franchise in history. And there's no market indication that general audiences wouldn't buy the next big game in the series in droves, particularly if they're insistent on keeping an antiquated two-versions model. There is nothing that suggests that multiple generations per console is the load-bearing cog that's keeping the series afloat.
* With the exception of annual release games like sports titles and Call of Duty games, but I'm choosing to not degrade this discussion to applying the abhorrent business practices of Electronic Arts or Activision as viable long-term strategies.
But even if all that were true, I'm honestly kind of apathetic to it? I simply don't see the growth of revenue at the expense of the quality of the games to be something to applaud. If we were to apply this same train of thought to something like
The Simpsons, a series whose longevity and subsequent waning quality has been the subject of ridicule for a longer duration of time than that of its heyday, one could easily make the argument that if the showrunners were to examine the weaknesses of the show and decide to focus on quality rather than quantity, it would ultimately lead to an enormous decline in viewership that could ultimately end up cancelling the show. That's largely debatable as well;
The Simpsons is still a ratings darling, with millions of viewers every week in spite of its current state of mediocrity having become mainstream sentiment. But even if we entertain that it is true... oh well?
I hold a lot of high regard for Pokémon, in spite of my ever-growing list of frustrations with it. But at the end of the day, I'm playing these games because I expect a reasonable level of entertainment quality from them, not because I care about how they're succeeding as a brand. I would rather the games fizzle out in a respectful light than to continue trudging along as a cash cow milked until the well runs dry. But unfortunately for me, it seems like Nintendo has chosen the latter option.
