One of the saddest continuing threads in our gaming world today is that of how certain video game developers rush out titles despite all the bugs that are infested in them. Granted, it’s not easy to get every bug out. But on the flip side, if you have a ton of bugs that are hurting the world and its gameplay, you NEED to get rid of them. For the longest time, The Pokemon Company was a publisher that rarely, if ever, had a misfire on the launch front. However, with the arrival of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet last year, everything changed…for the worst.
The game was littered with bugs, and while it didn’t break the gameplay” like other titles, it did hamper the experience. That sucked because many people enjoyed the significant changes The Pokemon Company had made to the gameplay, overworld, storyline progression, and more. As I personally noted in my review of the titles, the games were “broken yet beautiful.” A nice thing to say, but if they didn’t have those bugs, they could’ve easily been the best Pokemon titles ever.
In contrast, earlier that year came the release of Pokemon Legends Arceus, which was easily one of the best Poke-titles ever made and was a clear step forward that influenced Gen 9 heavily. However, even with that great title, many criticized the graphical quality that was evident in various parts of the overworld.
So the question is, does The Pokemon Company need to not rush things out to ensure better quality? In a chat with ComicBook.com, COO Takato Utsunomiya noted that they are “looking into” what could be done with future releases to ensure quality:
“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 stated. “Always having these products able to be introduced and new experiences for our customers, and that’s how we’ve operated up until now. I think we’re still operating in that way, but there’s 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 was noted elsewhere in the interview that they were “having conversations” about how to handle said future releases. That’s good because fans don’t want a repeat of Gen 9’s flaws. Plus, they have time to figure things out as the next Poke-title likely won’t arrive until the next Nintendo system arrives.