New Pokemon games put fresh legs on long-running series

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet off to good start but Nintendo has high expectations to meet

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Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet give players more freedom to explore than past titles.  © Pokemon/Nintendo/CR/GF

KENTO HIRASHIMA, Nikkei staff writer

OSAKA -- The latest Pokemon video games faced a challenge common to long-running franchises: How to win new fans while keeping old ones. So far, they are off to a brisk start.

In total, over 10 million copies of Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet for the Nintendo Switch sold worldwide within three days of their Nov. 18 debut. They topped sales charts in Japanese video game magazine Famitsu for nine straight weeks through the week of Jan. 9, despite some bugs that marred their rollout.

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