Eh, I think that was true in the late 90's and early 00's when Pokemon was trying to carve out a niche but I don't think the target audience of the franchise is largely based around that age anymore. As it has expanded to include gen Z in their early 20's as well as millennials that grew up with it being popular at the time they were kids. With the release of Pokemon Go and the Pokemon Let's Go series and even Arceus, it shows they definitely do target an older audience that might have not kept up with the franchise but are familiar with the brand. I'm pretty sure that's why they milk the Kanto and Johto regions so much. Even if you weren't a fan of Pokemon as a kid those mons are more recognized by the older crowd.

You also have to separate the mag's target audience from the developer's target audience. I'm sure Corocoro is targeted to younger readers.

Well thats why we have reviewers. No company is going to advertise that their game is glitchy and buggy on the box. Its so easy to get information about games these days. Metacritic, youtube, twitter, gaming sites etc. So tricking people is pretty much impossible at this point.

The customer shouldn't be expected to do a fucking research job in order to find out if the next main Pokémon game is going to be a technical mess. It's the company who has the responsibility to deliver a functional product.

And maybe they can't trick us, the avid "gamers" who are constantly looking up info on their favourite hobby. But what about parents or grandparents, whose kids are the main bulk of those 10m sales? I doubt most of them know that Metacritic or game reviews are a thing.

Instead of telling people that they are a bunch of idiots for trusting that a shelved product of the biggest entertainment franchise ever should be in optimal conditions, maybe we should be calling out the multi-bilion dolar company who's responsible for the whole mess. 

It's pretty nuts that the first 3 million and first 4 million launch happened just a couple months apart.

The power of digital!

No it's still very much the same now despite older fans clinging to the hope that it's no longer the case, the primary target always will be the younger audience they are the reason it's the biggest franchise older fans just think the is a shift to them when in actual fact the franchise is just adjusting to a more modern younger audience.

Nothing about LG or Arceus says older audience, LG is the for more casual audience while Arceus is a different take on the formula it no more targets older audience than 3d Mario does over 2d.