>>58563028>1996 Red/Green>1997 Blue>1998 Yellow>1999 Gold/Silver>2000 Crystal>2001>2002 Ruby/Sapphire>2003>2004 FireRed/LeafGreen & Emerald>2005>2006 Diamond/Pearl>2007>2008 Platinum>2009 HeartGold/SoulSilver>2010 Black/White>2011>2012 Black2/White2>2013 X/Y>2014 OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire>2015>2016 Sun/Moon>2017 UltraSun/UltraMoon>2018 Let's Go Pikachu/Let's Go Eevee>2019 Sword/Shield>2020 Expansion Pass>2021 BrilliantDiamond/ShiningPearl & Arceus>2022 Scarlet/Violet>2023 The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero>2024>2025 Z-A>2026 Wind/WavesThe only gaps are a year between Crystal and RS (and Crystal is still the worst selling Pokemon game ever), a year between RS and FRLG (and RS is still the second worst selling core entry ever only above BW), a year between Emerald and DP (and Emerald sales were still not good compared to other games), a year between DP and Platinum (finally a game that sold nicely), a year between BW and B2W2 (and BW is like I previously said THE WORST selling core entry, unless you count B2W2 that sold even worse) and finally the already mentioned year gap between ORAS and SM and the one between SV DLC and Z-A.
If having a gap without new content was enough to give such a big boost to games Emerald's sales wouldn't be second worst of all mainline games, BW wouldn't be the worst of all core entries, etc
