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The funny thing about your comment isIf Gamefreak/TPC have got themselves into a situation that delaying a game has ramifications on merchandising, anime releases, etc, then quite frankly that's their problem, not consumers.
They control merchandising, they set their own schedules. This problem has entirely arisen because of their decision to turn Pokemon into an annual, and now bi-annual, franchise.
They were still able to release merchandise and anime back when they were doing one generation per platform. And quite frankly, no one was upset when Gen 2 Pokemon started showing up in the first Pokemon movie or Pikachu's Vacation, even though the games weren't out yet
1) Gen 2 actually was delayed by a year, it's why the ~80% complete 97 space world demo and the final game we got in 99 are so radically different.
2) The first Pokemon film in Japan (1998) was meant to tease that holiday's release of gen 2 in Japan, since the gen 1 anime was scheduled to end at the launch of gen 2. When the games were delayed, the anime team had to send Ash to the filler land known as the Orange Islands for a year. There was an expanded version of the film released in 1999 in Japan, to try and redo the prior years plan of having the film tease the upcoming games. By the time we got the film in English November 1999, the Japanese release of GS was a week away.
3) GF was basically tied into keeping all the gen 2 Pokémon they showed off in the 98 film when the game got delayed. Who knows what the final GS dex would have looked like if they hadn't already teased pokemon like Marill and Snubull. If you've not seen the 97 spaceworld dex you should because a TON of Pokemon got cut or changed between then and the final game.