After Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's performance issues, the developer is having "conversations" about how often new games release

Pokemon Scarlet Violet starters best evolutions
(Image credit: Nintendo)

The Pokemon Company is having "conversations" about its future release schedule and how to maintain the quality of its games. 

During the Pokemon World Championships - which took place in Yokohama, Japan over the weekend - The Pokemon Company COO, Takato Utsunomiya, has spoken to ComicBook about the company's release schedule for new Pokemon games. As we all know, lately we've got a new Pokemon game every single year - sometimes twice, in the case of Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

"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 tells the outlet, "always having these products able to be introduced and new experiences for our customers, and that's how we've operated up until now."

The chief operating officer continues: "I think we're still operating in that way, but there are 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." 

It's no secret that upon its release, late last year, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet suffered a few issues - to put it lightly. Things got so bad that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet basically turned into horror games thanks to a range of disturbing bugs, and fans basically gave up on the game, declaring that "enough is enough." 

Thankfully, the majority of these problems were ironed out and now the game plays fine, but it has led fans to be a little sceptical of future Pokemon releases - especially if they come out close together. We recently had a Pokemon Presents showcase which was lacking a brand-new main series title, so maybe this is the start of The Pokemon Company choosing quality over quantity. 

Find out what did feature during the presentation with our everything announced at the Pokemon Presents August 2023 round-up. 

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.