After all of that complaining about Pokémon Sword & Shield during the build to the games' release, the games enjoyed one of the best opening weekends in Nintendo history.
It might be due to the fact it is now a lot easier to make our voices heard on social media, or maybe because fans are harder to please, but it feels as if people are complaining about things far more often than they used to. In many cases, people are complaining about things before they have even had the chance to give said things a try.
Sonic the Hedgehog, Marvel's Avengers, and the latest example, Pokémon Sword & Shield; as soon as news filtered through that the games would not feature a full Pokédex, fans turned on the developers. People began to pick holes in anything and everything they could find wrong about the games before they were even on the market.
A "boycott Pokémon" movement then started up where people urged others not to buy the games. Sword & Shield were released last Friday and judging by the early numbers reported by Gamesindustry.biz, the newest chapter in Game Freak's Pokémon saga is doing very well indeed. In fact, the release has caused Switch sales to spike too, so celebrations all round for Nintendo and Game Freak.
Not only is Sword & Shield the biggest retail launch in the UK in Switch history, but it's the third biggest for Nintendo ever. The only games to have enjoyed better launches are Wii Fit and Pokémon Sun & Moon. Plus, as touched upon above, people appear to be buying a Switch to go along with their chosen game. Sales of the console were subject to a 30% increase over the weekend, with the original model with improved battery life being the best seller.
After all of that, it really does seem as if it was the louder voices of the few that were cutting through during the build to the release of Sword & Shield. Game Freak did well to stand its ground and not buckle under all that pressure. Other developers and companies have not shown that much faith in their products, hence the release of Sonic the Hedgehog being pushed back three months.
Source: gamesindustry.biz