>>723213237
>The games don't sell THAT well
The past two flagship Pokemon games, Sword and Shield and Scarlet and Violet, are in the top 50 list of best selling video games of all time. Of all time. The lesser releases around those games "only" sold around 14 to 16 million copies a game. The worst selling mainline Pokemon game, Crystal, still sold well over 6 million copies, a figure most game devs would kill to have.
No, the games do sell THAT well. Like, to put this into perspective, there are popular and beloved video game franchises whose sales figures spanning their entire history pale in comparison to a single Pokemon game.