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How much of an impact does the extra screen time really have though these days? Sword and Shield did very well in terms of sales in it's debut and that is without the anime really focusing on anything concerning Galar. There is a lot of merchandise featuring Sobble and Grookey, and there isn't any promotion linking them to Ash or his friends. IMO, I think the days of mass promoting a generation like they did with generation 3 or 4 and with the new Pokemon front and center are long over.
They can use the anime to further promote new Pokemon and make them more popular or capitalize on their popularity for more merchandise. Piplup was quite popular as the secondary mascot for DP, which led to more merchandise centered around it during and after the fourth generation. For more recent examples, I remember seeing some merchandise based around Ash's Rowlet and Lillie's Snowy. While certain Pokemon like the starters can still get merchandise before the anime starts, getting more attention through being on the main cast obviously doesn't hurt. Considering that Scorbunny is almost certainly going to be the secondary mascot of PM and Koharu has a Yamper, I really don't see how mass promoting a generation is long over. Like I mentioned before, they still want to promote Sword/Shield to some degree despite the whole series not being centered in Galar and they already have two popular Pokemon established within the main cast right from the start. It's really just a matter of when, not if, they'll have Grookey and Sobble within the main cast as well.