Pokemon is one of nintendo's worst performing franchises. I can't imagine them investing in decent graphics for it.

What??? Pokemon is arguably Nintedo's best perfoming franchise lol. It sells like 10 million units in 3 days despite being very mediocre/borderline bad

I think he's being sarcastic ;p

I know this is sarcasm, but what’s crazy is how Xenoblade — one of Nintendo more “niche” properties — has graphics which are 10x better than anything GF could pump out, despite being outsold 10:1 by Pokémon. Same could also be said for Metroid to an extent.

GameFreak's been playing it safe when it comes visual style and design.

They own 1/3 of the Pokemon IP and The Pokemon Company who oversees anything Pokemon depiction is okay with it.

I'm not expecting any radical change but at the very least I hope they optimize their games better, if not graphics - at least focus on performance.

I was going to say, they have no pressure to improve and they will always reward themselves as the primary developer on the IP. I do think they take feedback on the bugginess of the games seriously, especially with Nintendo being one of the other thirds who own the IP. Unfortunately Nintendo has always caught flack for the lack of ambition with the Pokemon games but the minute you compare it to thier 1st party output it's clear if Pokemon was developed in-house it would truly be another level of experience. The Pokemon Company & Nintendo I think both have higher ambitions than Gamefreak and I think that is slowly pushing them in the right direction