With the updated financial data from Nintendo's latest report, we know that the Nintendo Switch has overtaken the Nintendo Wii in terms of sales. That's not the only upset, though, as the Pokemon franchise has seen a new contender for some of the highest sales figures the series has ever seen. As of December 31, 2021, Pokemon Sword and Shield have sold 23.9 million copies, putting it ahead of Pokemon Gold and Silver, and locking it in as the second-best selling Pokemon game, behind Red and Blue.

The current sales record for the Pokemon series can be seen below. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, the latest entries in the series as of the time of the financial report, have clocked in at 13.9 million units sold, making it the 12th-best selling title, only a month after their release in November 2021.

Red / Green / Blue – 31,380,000
Sword / Shield – 23,900,000
Gold / Silver – 23,700,000
Diamond / Pearl – 17,670,000
X / Y – 16,580,000
Sun / Moon – 16,270,000
Ruby / Sapphire – 16,220,000
Black / White – 15,640,000
Yellow – 14,640,000
Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire – 14,460,000
Let’s Go, Pikachu / Eevee – 14,330,000
Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl – 13,970,000
HeartGold / SoulSilver – 12,720,000
FireRed / LeafGreen – 12,000,000
Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon – 8,890,000
Black 2 / White 2 – 8,250,000
Platinum – 7,693,000
Emerald – 7,060,000
Crystal – 6,300,000

Source

 

[Arilys]

I haven't used them because I frankly don't care about most of them. Like I said I miss not having some of my favorites, but it was time I tried something new. Was getting bored of having half my team be the same Pokemon generation after generation.

I get it, I thought similarly until I got into Ranked Battle Spot back in XY and started making silly teams (like mono-type teams) to try out new stuff. That made me like a lot more Pokémon and start playing with way more variety in future games (and even when I go back to replay some older ones).

Hell, in BDSP I went out of my way to use only Pokémon that I hadn't used before. It also made it more difficult since I had some serious type weaknesses, but that just made it more fun than if I had used the "usual ones".

 

[pedro702]

The latest main series game is Legends Arceus, apparently.
Source(s):

"Despite its title not containing the full name of "Pocket Monsters" in Japanese, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is considered to be a part of the core series by the official website." ~ Trivia section on PLA's Bulbapedia article

I tried it out on an emulator and liked it enough that I might buy a used copy in a couple months, but there's still a lot of work that GF needs to put in to bring the games to a shadow of the quality of stuff like BotW, Xenoblade Chronicles or Fire Emblem. Especially for the 60 buck price tag (+ whatever they charge for DLCs, since the SwSh's Pass was relatively "successful" so we can count on future games also having DLCs).




A bit contradictory there, at least that's way I see it. If you haven't used so many of the "old" pokemon, what's the issue in having them in new games and available to use along with the new ones? It'd give you a chance to try them out, even if it's not in their original game.
Not to mention that there are people (like me) that like to go around catching all of them for the Pokédex.

That said, I think GF should just stop making more Pokémon (as in, more monsters) and start doing games with the 8 gens they have by now.
Focus less on "we must make number big because big number good" and then have most of the Pokémon be ignored by people (or worse, pulling more SwSh strats and cutting the pokédex and pissing off the people that won't have their favourites in the next game), and start focusing on making more interesting stories and post-game content.
Maybe even add some sort of randomizer to the games that makes the routes/caves/etc able to have different Pokémon in different playthroughs, allowing the player to make vastly different teams more easily when starting new games later on.

main series game without even online battles? heck they added the trades in the last minute, it has no versions, no online battles, so if they turn pokemon into single player rpgs with no battles, the ip is not gonna get very far, its considered main becuase it was developed by game freak if it wasnt it wouldnt be main imo, but yeah i consider it an enhanced spin off, to be a main series it has to have versions and online battling as core.

 

[Arilys]

main series game without even online battles? heck they added the trades in the last minute, it has no versions, no online battles, so if they turn pokemon into single player rpgs with no battles, the ip is not gonna get very far

By that logic, gens 1, 2 and 3 aren't mainline games since they're single player rpgs with no online battles Which makes that "the ip isn't gonna get very far" bit even more ironic.

Also, about trades being added at the last minute: the games have been rushed since gen 5 or 6, when they decided to start releasing a new game every year instead of having 2 or 3 years to make them like they did for earlier games.
Hell, look at BDSP, those released in November last year and STILL don't allow us to use the GWS building for trading. Plus, I think they don't even plan on adding anything like the Battle Spot for easier, quicker battles with random people (correct me if I'm wrong though).

its considered main becuase it was developed by game freak if it wasnt it wouldnt be main imo

GameFreak making a game doesn't mean it's mainline. They made Pokémon Quest, and that one's obviously not mainline.

At the same time, BDSP was made by ILCA and those are considered mainline because they're remakes of other mainline games.

but yeah i consider it an enhanced spin off, to be a main series it has to have versions and online battling as core.

I'm just going by the info on the biggest Pokémon sources - Bulbapedia, the main Pokemon wiki, and Joe Merrick the owner of serebii.net.
Bulbapedia even has an article explaining the logic behind what makes a game be mainline or a spin-off here. Basically, it has to do with how they call it in Japan, Korea and China (Pocket Monster = Mainline; Pokémon = Spin-off). Since Legends uses Pocket Monsters, it makes sense to think that it's mainline. GF isn't really the kind of company to break out of a pattern this suddenly

There's another article here that goes more in-depth about what makes a mainline game, mainline.

I could even go as far as saying that for me personally, a mainline game is one where you where you fight 8 gyms and then the Elite 4, and where you can complete the Pokédex with all the Pokémon (except the Mythical ones like Jirachi, Darkrai and others that were event-exclusive). That would make me wrong because of Sun/Moon only having 7 trials instead of the normal 8 gyms, and Sword and Shield not having the full Dex , though.

 

[pedro702]

By that logic, gens 1, 2 and 3 aren't mainline games since they're single player rpgs with no online battles Which makes that "the ip isn't gonna get very far" bit even more ironic.

Also, about trades being added at the last minute: the games have been rushed since gen 5 or 6, when they decided to start releasing a new game every year instead of having 2 or 3 years to make them like they did for earlier games.
Hell, look at BDSP, those released in November last year and STILL don't allow us to use the GWS building for trading. Plus, I think they don't even plan on adding anything like the Battle Spot for easier, quicker battles with random people (correct me if I'm wrong though).



GameFreak making a game doesn't mean it's mainline. They made Pokémon Quest, and that one's obviously not mainline.

At the same time, BDSP was made by ILCA and those are considered mainline because they're remakes of other mainline games.



I'm just going by the info on the biggest Pokémon sources - Bulbapedia, the main Pokemon wiki, and Joe Merrick the owner of serebii.net.
Bulbapedia even has an article explaining the logic behind what makes a game be mainline or a spin-off here. Basically, it has to do with how they call it in Japan, Korea and China (Pocket Monster = Mainline; Pokémon = Spin-off). Since Legends uses Pocket Monsters, it makes sense to think that it's mainline. GF isn't really the kind of company to break out of a pattern this suddenly

There's another article here that goes more in-depth about what makes a mainline game, mainline.

I could even go as far as saying that for me personally, a mainline game is one where you where you fight 8 gyms and then the Elite 4, and where you can complete the Pokédex with all the Pokémon (except the Mythical ones like Jirachi, Darkrai and others that were event-exclusive). That would make me wrong because of Sun/Moon only having 7 trials instead of the normal 8 gyms, and Sword and Shield not having the full Dex , though.

you know what i meant about online battle, in those times you couldnt do online battles because the gbc and gba didnt had online support... but you could do local battle against people, no idea why they removed this feature, what is good about building a nice team if you can only batttle against ingame npc characters and never test it against a real person? seems to me they added trading in the last minute to say the game had some online features at all.

For me a mainline games is a game made by game freak or a remake of a game freak game, and that it has a story and has trading and battling, this one has trading but no battle so imo i dont think off it like a mainline game, only as a spin off, no diferent from other games like pokemon ranger, pokemon mystery dungeon and so on.

the entire premise of pokemon since it was created was to emphasize trading and battling other people since gen 1, any game that doesnt do both isnt mainline for me imo.

 

[Arilys]

you know what i meant about online battle, in those times you couldnt do online battles because the gbc and gba didnt had online support... but you could do local battle against people, no idea why they removed this feature, what is good about building a nice team if you can only batttle against ingame npc characters and never test it against a real person? seems to me they added trading in the last minute to say the game had some online features at all.

For me a mainline games is a game made by game freak or a remake of a game freak game, and that it has a story and has trading and battling, this one has trading but no battle so imo i dont think off it like a mainline game, only as a spin off, no diferent from other games like pokemon ranger, pokemon mystery dungeon and so on.

the entire premise of pokemon since it was created was to emphasize trading and battling other people since gen 1, any game that doesnt do both isnt mainline for me imo.

Yeah, fair enough, it's a bit subjective, so I won't argue too much on whether PLA is or isn't a mainline game. It's weird enough that people will disagree on it until we know if the next game will be like it

That said, the series' original intent was more about collecting (and trading, to a certain extent), since Satoshi Tajiri was an insect collector and he wanted other kids to get a similar feeling through a video game after Japan became more urbanized and it became harder to go out and catch bugs.

"As urban areas of Japan spread and more land was paved over, habitats for hunting bugs were lost. Tajiri wanted his games to allow children to have the feeling of catching and collecting creatures as he had.[6]" ~Early Life section here

"Tajiri advanced the connectivity between handheld game consoles beyond Tetris style competition, by suggesting that Game Boys could use their link cables to trade collectibles.[17]" ~End of second paragraph in the Career section here

I honestly think the battling was just an afterthought so the games wouldn't be considered too boring for just being about catching Pokémon like they were stamps.

Besides that, I think that a lot of people don't bother much with the online battles. At least most of the people I know only play the main story and are done with the games. They might trade a bit or do a few battles just to try it out, but that's definitely not the main reason they get the games lol