Pokemon's greatest hits are stuck on old consoles and that needs to change

Pokemon is the most profitable franchise in the world, which is worth noting because it celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. A franchise as lucrative and long-running as this naturally knows how to appeal to fan nostalgia. That's why we've gotten so many great remakes of classics Pokemon games, but for a series known for its respectful treatment of its own heritage, it's surprising that Game Freak didn't use the most obvious way to sell nostalgia: porting, not remaking, older Pokemon games.

Remakes are great, but they're rare and don't always live up to fans' memories of the original. Many fans raised their eyebrows when Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire removed Pokemon Emerald's Battle Frontier and people keep asking why A brilliant diamond and A shining pearl it was almost completely devoid of any content Platinum. But more than anything, Pokemon it needs to re-release its older games because they tend to be more expensive to buy secondhand than the consoles they were originally on.

Related

I've played over 100 hours of Pokemon Gen 4 and this is the best start

As a seasoned Pokemon player, I went through Gen 4 with every starter multiple times and only one consistently led my team.

Retro Pokemon games can cost a week's worth of purchases for some

Generation 5 was certainly great. Pokemon Black 2 a White 2 were extremely robust, full of content that expanded on the originals (with this being the first time the “third” game was replaced by sequels). It was the first time the main series really focused more on the story over the gameplay, and the animated sprites are still gorgeous to look at. For many Nintendo DS fans Pokemon the era in general actually produced some of the all-time greats of the series. Too bad the copy Black or White easily $100+ online without box or manual.

continuation, Black 2 and White 2sell for more than double on Amazon. In fact, all major titles between 1st and 5th gen are now surprisingly expensive. Meanwhile, a basic Nintendo Switch Online subscription gives players access to over 100 NES and SNES games, all for just $15 a year. Over 100 games that together cost less than 1/15 of the price Pokemon White 2 on Amazon.

There's clearly a supply and demand issue when it comes to older games, and Nintendo knows very well that retro titles sell. That's why retro titles have always been affordable since the Wii came out. It's not like Pokemon he didn't actually put mainline titles into Virtual Console before: Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silverand Crystal everything came out on the 3DS Virtual Console before it shut down. But with the closure of the 3DS eShop, players who didn't buy them in time will have to find a working console and shell out money for an overpriced copy of the originals if they want to play any of the main games before the Nintendo Switch.

Last appearance for some classic Pokemon games

Nintendo Switch would make retro ports more lucrative than ever

While Pokemon fans have always argued about if and when games got worse, quality debates probably reached a fever pitch in the Switch era. Sword and ShieldThe infamous Pokédex cuts cast a shadow over him that still lingers in the eyes of many older fans. A brilliant diamond and A shining pearl were also met with disappointment from fans as they weren't really updated to the standards of the games that came after them, and that's not even getting into how they didn't include content from Platinum. And the less it is talked about Pokemon Scarlet and Violetperformance issues the better. The two of you Legends titles have done better in terms of wins over fandom, but that's still a pretty low batting average over the last 7 years.

That being said, the Switch Pokemon the games are not financially or critically painful. The lowest “top critics average” among them on OpenCritic is Pokemon Scarlet and Violetat 71 out of 100 points. According to Nintendo's sales data, the pair of games Galar and Paldea have sold more than 25 million copies as of December 2025, far more than the system vendor. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. New Pokemon the games aren't bad, and the voices that say otherwise are a vocal minority. However, there are strengths in older titles that newer titles do not have, and vice versa.

Related

No one seems to understand the voice acting that would destroy Pokemon (for gamers like me)

Among the calls for Pokemon Gen 10/Pokemon Wind and Waves to introduce voice acting, I can't help but feel that such a feature is a monkey's paw.

Nostalgia is not inherently bad

Image via Game Freak

“Back in my day” isn't a great argument for why something is good, but nostalgia is valid as long as it's not blinding. Each Pokemon the game has a fan base, so even if the older games haven't aged either, there's still value – both financially and game-preserving – to put a classic on a modern console without changes. Pokemon it's also big enough for nostalgia to be a really strong incentive for fans to buy, even if they admit their favorite childhood entry may not have been as strong as they remembered.

Perhaps Game Freak didn't do any ports because they're afraid that easy access to the original games would hurt the sales potential of the remakes. But the gaps between the release of the original games and their remakes are getting longer and longer, so releasing the occasional port shouldn't dull the hype much, since remakes take so long anyway. FireRed and LeafGreen it came out less than 8 years later Red and Green did in japan Golden heart and SoulSilver it was about 9 years after that Gold and Silver, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire they were 12 years apart Ruby and Sapphireand A brilliant diamond and A shining pearl it was a full 15 years later Diamond and Pearl. Black and White they've already broken Sinnoh's record for the longest remake gap, and as of this writing, there's still no news on that front.

Image via Game Freak

Whether it's for nostalgia or just to let new fans see what the older games were like, it's about time the older Pokemon the games have been re-released as close to their original form as possible. Remakes can still do their job to bring older titles up to modern standards, but ports would help quiet the crowd that decried the newer games and help preserve the game. Nostalgia, blindness aside, I miss the Nintendo DS and don't want to sell my kidney to get a copy Pokemon Platinum.