Shigeru Miyamoto shared an insightful anecdote behind the reasonings for The Pokemon Company selling two versions of the same game. Some time ago Pokemon creator, Satoshi Tajiri, playfully asked how they could surpass sales of the Mario franchise and suggested that selling two copies of the same game could help achieve this goal and lo and behold the Pokemon Dual Versions were created. Here’s what was said:
“A long time ago, Tajiri-san, the director of Pokémon, before creating the first Pokémon game, once joked to me, ‘If you want to surpass Nintendo’s Mario, you can’t surpass it unless you sell two copies of the game to each customer, That is also one of the reasons Pokémon Red and Green were born. Like this, there are people who think, ‘somehow let’s surpass it.’”
Yet, he not knew what he hadth created. (A money machine, that’s what)
That’s interesting, I remember them justifying that decision with “we wanted people to interact with each other, so we created 2 games so they trade” I wonder if that was a lie or if shiggy is just miss remembering.
Both things can be true at the same time. What was originally a joke could’ve turned into reality when Game Freak realized they had a legitimate use case for selling two game versions. (Though of course the prospect to make even more money surely was a nice bonus for them).
And then they realized gamers were willing to buy both games just for the exclusive Pokemon and they kept it… all the way to today where you can buy Scarlet and Violet in a digital bundle for one penny extra vs buying them separate.
Funny thing is, Odyssey still sold more than Scarlet/Violet. And Sworld/Shield.
Really? I didn’t think Assassin’s Creed Odyssey sold that much