Pokemon Scarlet And Violet’s Tech Problems Are On Game Freak, Not The Switch

Game Freak is to blame for how bad Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are performing, even if Nintendo should upgrade the Switch soon too.

[-Foxtrot]

Sad thing is because people blindly buy these games resulting in the sales being huge for them launch wise, they will never change.

I just find it hilarious most of these big gaming sites are generously giving it a 7 or 8 when the technical issues are pretty in your face obvious among other things. Imagine if other exclusives from Microsoft or Sony did this, they'd be ripped apart limb by limb

[PhillyDillyDee]

I agree with your point about blindly buying a product but this is pokemon. Fans will buy it because there isnt (much) competition.

Interestingly, the metacritic reviews place gen 9 at 77 and gen 8 at 80. So to me it means they did a lot right this time and the only thing keeping the game out of a 90 or above average is the abysmal performance.

I think Gen 8 averaged 80 because it was a decent bump from the handheld games but did nothing to change the formula.

I do hope they spend the next few months ironing out performance. Time will tell though.

[luckytrouble]

Had a stream going on the side last night and the streamer was doing fights in these big outside arenas. The game was regularly dropping to maybe 10 FPS if I'm being generous. Really choppy even in the battles at that point. It was inexcusably bad and unfortunately you're bang on about the fact that these games will be blindly bought regardless. Even the biggest critics of Pokemon have already dropped their $60 just so they have something fresh to complain about.

This is absolutely something that is happening at all though because this is Pokemon and Nintendo. Even if people don't want to admit it, any performance based article will find people critiquing Sony or Microsoft for having the inferior system because one game version runs at 57 FPS while the other runs at 60 FPS. I've never understood why it's just accepted that some Switch games get to run so insanely badly by comparison.

[H9]

I am wondering why it took so long for people to realize this, Game Freak are some of the laziest devs in the Industry and because of the money they have no intention to change, what makes it more absurd is people blaming the switch, if Monster Hunter Rise and Xenoblade were mostly stable then there's absolutely no reason for this not to be, it's just laziness

[execution17]

Idk if they're lazy... it's just that they might be too much on their plate buy releasing too many games in a short amount of time

[Stanjara]

Wrong. They are pumping way more pokemon games than they can handle.
Probably crunched to death.

For such a huge Nintendo IP, I'm baffled that Nintendo didn't provide these guys with some technical team from their first party devs or hire them a third party support.

[--Onilink--]

Because Gamefreak is not a Nintendo developer, they are actually equal partners with Nintendo and Creatures in The Pokemon Company.
Nintendo doesn’t have a direct say on how Gamefreak operates and wouldn’t necessarily just “lend” some of their teams in the same way that internal teams do.

Now, given how Gamefreak operates in one of the most strict release schedules in the industry, its clear that the best approach would be to (significantly) increase in size, but as to why they haven’t done that, its basically a guess at this point unless we ever get some better insight into TPC operations

[H9]

Why do you think they were capable of doing so many all the time, it's because of how identical these games have been, reusing everything, anything new comes out broken, their laziness is the source of it all

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

Maybe Nintendo should devote some extra resources and help Game Freak out a little more, considering Pokemon games are big system sellers for them. That and Game Freak are clearly struggling since development jumped to the Switch.

[--Onilink--]

I doubt its that simple. All 3 of them have equal share in The Pokemon Company with each one having a very specific role.
Gamefreak is the one handling game development while the other 2 handle other stuff. So Nintendo probably cant just step in in that regard without some changes in how they all operate

[Good-Smurf]

On Latest DF Direct Weekly John Linneman didn't hold back criticising the game's poor performance and basic buggy graphics even calling it a game technically came from 2001.
Shocking that this still happened to one of the most popular and profitable IP ever and it better be since they appear to spent peanuts on R&D of their 3D games.
Seeing stuff like Monster Hunter Stories 2, I think Capcom would do far better on Pokemon 3D games than Game Freak themselves.

[lellkay]

The game is garbage and Nintendo and Gamefreak should not be able to repeatedly get away way it.

Expect and demand better.

The reviews on websites have been so disingenious with their reviews as well. If any Sony or MS game had even a few of these issues they would get absolutely dragged for it.