@OmnitronVariant I would also like to point out, that this is the same guy in charge of Pokémon: the biggest brand on the planet. Pokémon sells hardware, this has always been the case, and he told Nintendo this thing would fail....in favour of smartphones, where Pokémon freely throws themselves at every opportunity.
Of course, would Switch have been as successful without Pokémon? Hard to say. But it definitely read like the tail was wagging the dog, so to speak.
And with everything Pokémon has done over the years, pulled itself away from being associated with Nintendo Directs, gone all in on mobile in some very aggressive ways monetarily, Game Freak's consistent push to not publish their own games on Nintendo hardware, famously Sakurai doesn't pick the Pokémon characters for Smash, he gets told, and in the case of Greninja, they hadn't even given it a moveset yet when he got the order.
The amiibo thing is just one of the most obvious. At the point characters like Cloud, Ryu, Mega Man etc all have custom 8-bit sprites, sound effects, animations and music in Super Mario Maker, but Pokémon doesn't, you know something's up.
Same with Yoshi's Woolly World: you're telling me SquareEnix only allowed two songs in Smash at the time but Yoshi can dress up as Cloud, but not Pikachu?
It's a very delicate balance, and Nintendo just publishes in some regions and does QA (I think). But they need to keep that relationship healthy otherwise they lose one hell of a money spinner.
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Of course, would Switch have been as successful without Pokémon? Hard to say.
Considering there was no Pokemon on Switch for most of the first 2 years, no new generation for most of 3 years, Pokemon isn't in the top 5 selling Switch games and wasn't the kid-friendly series which made Switch sales go insane during covid, I think it's fair to say Switch still would have done well without Pokemon. Slightly less well certainly, but still very well.
At the point characters like Cloud, Ryu, Mega Man etc all have custom 8-bit sprites, sound effects, animations and music in Super Mario Maker, but Pokémon doesn't, you know something's up.
I mean... there are Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle mystery costumes with special sound effects etc. And Pikachi, Charizard, Jigglypuff, Mewto, Lucario, Greninja. Pokemon are a decent chunk of the mystery costumes.
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Topic: Nintendo Switch 2
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