>>49872805Ideally it would have been expansions for XY and ORAS.
But that couldn't be, they needed all hands on deck for SM and SM NEEDED to come out when it did to properly lower everyone's expectations and bank on the normies GO brought in.
If the GO normies played games prior to Gen 7 they wouldn't have defended it removing the National Dex, and if Gen 7 didn't come out when it did in the state it did there would have been a clear disconnect from how much worse it was by comparison to Gen 6 which was already considered bad.
It was a perfect stepping stone, the way they did it. Simplify the game as much as they could in Gen 7 in a way that expectations would still be hopeful for the next entries and then prolong that mindset long enough for it to feel like the norm when Gen 8 continues the trend
