Pokemon Scarlet and Violet had the highest preorders in the series' history

Pokemon Scarlet Violet review
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet had the highest amount of preorders in the series' history, The Pokemon Company has revealed. 

As reported by Japanese outlet Oricon (and translated via DeepL), the chief operating officer of The Pokemon Company, Takahito Utsunomiya, has revealed that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet has sold more preorders than any other game in the series' history - a franchise that started 26 years ago. 

Speaking at an event for the game's launch in Tokyo, Utsunomiya said that the number of pre-orders has reached the highest level of any Pokemon game in the series previously. Utsunomiya also said that The Pokemon Company has shipped 440 million Pokemon-related game units in total since the series started in 1996 with the launch of Pokemon Red and Green.

Finally, Utsunomiya also gave fans an insight into roughly how long they will be exploring the Paldea region. According to the same story, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's main story is expected to take around 30 - 40 hours, if you're a Pokemon professional, or approximately 60 hours if you're new to the series. This is apparently due to some of the new, and perhaps more challenging, features of the game. 

As of today (November 18), Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have now launched worldwide after being revealed earlier this year. A day before its release, it was noticed that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are the lowest-reviewed main series game in 17 years. There's still a chance for this to change, but right now the pair's Metacritic score is still sitting at a humble 77/100. Although impressive for any game, this is rather low for a Pokemon title. 

Find out if Scarlet and Violet landed on our best Pokemon games list.

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.