SweetieGames

If you have been anywhere online in the gaming community recently, you will have seen countless people playing or discussing the latest Pokemon spinoff, Pokopia. While it’s not unheard of for a new Pokemon game to have huge amounts of hype surrounding it, I haven’t seen excitement on this scale for the franchise in a long time. Nobody seems to have a bad word to say about it, and those who haven’t invested in a Switch 2 are heavily considering spending the nearly £500 purely to check the game out.

Despite the fact that the Switch 2 was Nintendo’s fastest selling console to date, selling over 3.5 million units in just 4 days, I didn’t really see many people show a huge interest in the games that were exclusive to it. Sure, there was plenty of Mario Kart content showing off people playing as the Moo Moo Farm Cow, but I know that I for one was not overly interested in picking up a Switch 2 at launch purely because 1) my original Switch worked fine and 2) there were no exclusive games that I was desperate to play. After the initial Mario Kart and refreshed Tears of the Kingdom hype died down, I barely saw anyone mention the Switch 2 at all. Not until Pokopia came out, and now it seems like every person on earth wants one!

The love for Pokopia has really demonstrated a point I made in a previous post on this blog: the need for console exclusives. The platforms we play our games on has never been more diverse; you can truly play games anywhere, anytime depending on what you’re looking for, and many people are turning to PCs rather than buying consoles. PCs allow you to customise your gaming experience by what matters to you and the games you enjoy, and many people only have a console now as they’re the cheaper alternative. If consoles truly wish to remain relevant for the foreseeable future, there needs to be highly engaging console exclusive games. Truly exclusive, and not games that will come to other platforms in a year’s time. I’ve seen plenty of people hold off on buying new games such as the lastest instalments of the Final Fantasy VII remaster because they know it’ll be on PC in time.

Regardless of if you play games primarily through PCs or a console, Nintendo has ensured that their products will be bought by anyone: their IPs have fans of all ages and are completely exclusive to their consoles. You want to be in on the latest Pokemon trend? You’ve got to buy a Switch 2. I’m surprised that there aren’t more companies doing this.

Pokopia hasn’t interested me enough in dropping my hard earned cash on a Switch 2, but I know it’s only a matter of time. I’m interested to see which game will make me crack and buy a Switch 2. For my PS4 it was Persona 5. For my original Switch it was Animal Crossing New Horizons. For my PS5 it was Baldur’s Gate 3. I can’t wait to see which exclusive will interest me enough to invest!