Game Freak’s Director Explains Why TEMBO THE BADASS ELEPHANT Isn’t Coming to Nintendo's Digital Platforms

Edit: Nope, they still want to give us that bullcrap reason.

You know things are getting bad when GameFreak and Sega produce a game and the thought of releasing it on anything Nintendo didn't even cross their minds as a thing they should do.....

Ok now i'm starting to get worried... What's next I wonder.

I still can't get over this excuse, worse than Capcom and that's saying a lot. So basically he's said "I forgot to put Nintendo on the cards, now I'm too busy". Ok, 1. How do you forget Nintendo when you work for GF? And 2. What are they so busy with then huh? This game? BS. They'd better be making a Pokemon game for WiiU if they're "so busy" now. "Too busy", SMH, my breakfast cereal they are!

As a Nintendo fan I've learned over the years that I must also have a secondary system, usually a Playstation of some kind, to check out the titles we miss. It's sad, but true.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you GameFreak.But back on the topic,wow!They just forgot about Nintendo that's a new one!Well business is business i guess.

Hopefully, Game Freak will not "forget" Nintendo again.

It's pretty much the same reasoning why Wii U hasn't gotten many of the games PS4 and Xbox One have, so it's not that surprising. The fact that Game Freak is involved and Nintendo systems won't be getting it for now, should actually emphasise how different of a situation Wii U is in, compared to Xbox and PS.

They just can't currently work on an ×86 AND PowerPC build at the same time, and that's basically what it comes down to.

I wonder how Nintendo will react to this?

Well, poor excuse, a joke to Nintendo fans. That said, I'm really enjoyed HarmoKnight (got it as Club Nintendo reward though), it's a great game.

Oh, well. No monies for you.

????????? WHAT???????

That is indeed a really bad excuse.

@locky-mavo They're busy with this year's Pokemon and then Gen 7 next year. New generations take more resources and are in development for a few years because of the time taken to design new Pokemon. By the way, both of those Pokemon games are 3DS exclusive. Main series Pokemon on a home console would be suicide business wise for Nintendo.

IDK why this doesn't surprise me. I get the feeling that Game Freak feels limited developing for Nintendo if their views on Pokemon are any indication.

They better be busy porting Pokkén Tournament to Wii U, cos that's the only excuse I'll accept!

I shouldn't care, I keep telling myself, but I do. Who am I to be upset about a company's decision to make a game that won't appear on a Nintendo console, hell all the cool game developers are doing it tha aese days. It just seems wrong that GF neglected to include Nintendo in some way.

The real reason they didn't make it for a Nintendo console is they didn't want to have to rename the game to something like "Tembo The Really Cool Kid Friendly Elephant"

"Information on the potential for other platforms is classified" This statement seems a little suspicious

I hope this game does well for Sega and Game Freak. I may pick this up for the Xbox One. Actually kind of nice to see Game Freak doing something besides Pokemon. Here's hoping for a Pulseman 2.

A forgettable game so even if it does get release, I'm not sure if I would buy it. So many indie games flooded the digital market already so I'll had to get those first.

They won't divulge the real reason why it's skipping Nintendo platforms because...

looks interesting i might get it on PC, it still stupid that its not coming Wii U,it even more stupid that the 3DS isn't getting it.
but this tell me as always

I think that's a lame excuse. However, the awesomeness of playing as a rampaging war elephant aside, the game doesn't look very interesting...

Uhm, so he basically dodged the question and made a weird little plug for Harmo Knight?

So the reason is..."blah blah blah...be happy we made some lame rhythm game or whatever.."

At least it's not Pulseman or anything I'd miss. We'll see how this new IP goes, not really sure on the style of it all.

Also, I don't see why everyone's so bitter about this. I can see it being a good means since Nintendo hogged Sonic for a FULL 3 game exclusivity deal, 2 of which didn't do so well (Sonic Lost World tried at least, Boom just wasn't good at all) and one that had mediocre results.

Gotta admit though, Sega's Marketing Team are sure weird when it comes to fan demands. Where's PSO2? Where Puyo Tetris? There's so much demand for both of the above games, yet no care went into even knowing if there's any progress in it? I'm at least glad we're getting an English Miku game for the 3DS, but it's been way overdue.

So if it really is that great, I'll get it on PC, supposing that Sega go the Steam-Powered route.

A person only has so much time to play video games. And between the exclusives on Wii U and 3DS (and the occasional AAA game on the twins) I've already developed quite a backlog.

Honestly, this would have just been Game #57 in a long list of Wii U and 3DS games on my to-play list. Which is exactly why I probably won't get it on PS4/X1.

Uh....what?

The Wii logo didn't fit? What kind of crappy excuse is that?! Then again it is just another bland 2D platformer, so it's not like we're missing out on much. Still, what the heck Game Freak? NINTENDO TRUSTED YOU!

To me this reads as "Sega didn't want to front the money for an Wii u port, Nintendo may decide to publish it after Sega contracts are up"

Besides the terrible excuse, if that even is one, why put a platformer on every system, but the system platformers sell on? That baffles me even more...

@IceClimbers It's only been a year and a half since the beginning of Gen 6, and they haven't even announced a 3rd version yet. It will be a while until Gen 7.

That's a hilariously sad excuse. T_T

So basically "it didn't look cool on the poster " yeah ok. Sega used the overused excuse that technical issues prevented it, but this reveals they haven't even STARTED making it for Wii U.

And for a moment, I thought GameFreak would actually correct this idiotic statement... oh well.

@SCAR392 Problem is, that argument isn't really reliable, either. A good number of developers expressed the exact opposite, stating that development on WiiU went much smoother for them than other platforms.
The main issue isn't whether X86 or PowerPC is better, but that developers abuse this difference to dramatize the development process and cop out of certain platforms, when in reality, the difference can be balanced out in a matter of 2 weeks (or one month if the devs are really stubborn).
But thanks to petty companies like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, and especially Square Enix, this is getting overbloated lately, with exaggerations mostly concerning nonexistent financial issues that supposedly prevent them from learning new things - that's like saying "I'm to poor to be smart", and it shows, in this case.

Did anyone out of these companies get angry at anyway? Their employees could not seriously agree to this nonsense?

@Octane Yeah, even Rayman Legends sold highest on Wii U, despite the fact that they lost a lot of Wii U sales with their delay and free mega demo.
It's like they don't want to make money, many people would buy it on Wii U and/ore 3DS.
Of course, it's not like PS4 or XB1 have any actual good platform games, so it will fill a major gap in their libraries (and yes I include LBP 3 - I played the first one and it was so boring, just doesn't compare to anything by Nintendo or even the indy stuff on Wii U like the Toki Tori and Mighty Switch games).

Later is way too late. Will probably be on PSN+ by then. Same with Axiom Verge. "Maybe later" is no reason for me to wait, even though I would rather have it on Wii U

I understand the "wrath" of Nintendofans because of the reasoning. To be honest that reasoning behind not developing the game was hilariously stupid.

But when it comes to GameFreak they have the possibility and permission to develop whatever they want to whomever they want. That's ok. Game itself doesn't appeal to me so I can't be bothered to be angry myself.

GF doesn't own squat of the Pokemon. They are a developer and Nintendo would have every right to take the game away from them. So saying that GF is too important to Ninty or things like that is just silly. They will probably still make pokemon games far into the future I would assume. Nintendo as a company very rarely takes offense on stupid things people say.

This was just a stupid statement from a silly game developer that people take too much into.

Now calm down and go play some games. WiiU and 3DS both have a lot of good ones to use your time on even without the angry Elephant (Somehow that art style reminds me so much of Rovio games).

That was incredibly ignorant and a slap in the face. I guess they really think that we are just that stupid. Well, I guess I'm so dumb I will forget how my wallet works when they release games. Plenty of other great games out there from companies that don't talk to you like you're an idiot and make up lame-ass excuses.

I'd stopped getting Game Freak's games anyway. This non-excuse ensures I'll add them to my list of developers I don't buy games by.

People shouldn't be mad at Sega or game freak for this. It all goes back to Nintendo. if they designed the wii u for gamers in mind and tried to make it compete with the other platforms, stuff like this wouldn't happen.
They can't stay stubborn forever.

Too much stress for a game in which the publisher is not Nintendo, but by Sega in first place?; Sorry.

I don't understand why these people thing we are too stupid to understand a simple fact. I wish they would just come out and say "We are not bringing this to Nintendo platforms because this is a business, we need to make money and current Nintendo install base numbers make it too risky for us to invest in development for them". Is that too hard to ask?

Since the game is being made by Gamefreak most people would automatically assume that it would be a shoe in for Nintendo systems considering the relationship between the two companies but you have to realize that Gamefreak is a third party company, and don't always have to develop for Nintendo systems. Still simply the fact that the game is being made by them will likely make most Nintendo gamers sit up and take notice so it must be a business decision to not release the game on their systems.

Okay...here's the real reason: "We won't put it on the Wii U because we're not sure if it will sell well." There. They could've just been honest and say that, but they had to pull one of the dumbest excuses I ever heard. A poster decided this? A FREAKING POSTER!? For the record, I'm not mad over it not coming to the Wii U or 3DS. I can handle not having every game released there. It's just their apparent reasoning for it.

This comment section will be the beacon of understanding and acceptance.

"I drew a mockup with those logos" ?
What ? Ive heard some stupid reasons by now, that this one takes the cake xD.
Well, i guess we can be glad that he didnt draw a C64 logo on that mockup...

@Tsuzura It would be if they provided a legitimate reason instead of an awkward plug for another game that isn't the topic of debate.

So its just the same excuse from last time? classic

I think it's funny how people keep stating that the Wii U is in trouble....this isn't coming to the 3DS either!

The excuse is lame! Like I posted before, I would have bought this game if it were released on either the 3DS or Wii U. It looks really cool. However, I'm not going to go buy a $300+ system to play an "indie" game.

This has got to be one of the stupidest excuses I've ever heard from a developer. I'll be expecting Pokken Wii U soon then.

Wasn't there more comments here yesterday? Like a whole bunch with an accurate understanding of the situation instead of angry "betrayal" nonsense?

@King47 I'm not sure that's an accurate way to put things. Aside from your arbitrary and asinine labeling (I play games exclusively on Wii U and 3DS — does that mean I'm not a gamer?), do you not remember the Wii U's E3 announcement and hype trailers? Nintendo DID think it was building it for "gamers." They talked about the HD graphics which they said were much more powerful than the previous generation HD consoles (though time proved them to be only mildly more powerful), and about the robust online multiplayer and smooth digital store. They talked more about the Gamepad's application in hardcore games as a handy map, inventory or alternate viewpoint than they talked about its asynchronous local multiplayer. And the trailers showed Mass Effect and Tekken and Ghost Recon and Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty, etc., etc...

They have shown before they don't quite understand how quickly the industry moves forward or what most players are looking for. But they absolutely designed the system theu thought would most appeal to what you call "gamers." They were simply wrong. I'll buy their next because their games still appeal to me and because my time and money is limited. But there's no reason to think that a next system or any change in target demographic would better fit what you're talking about. Their ideas of what a "gamer" wants and yours are just different.

He could have said, 'Hey play Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze's Rambi levels, they are quite similar to this'.

@Tsuzura Ha!This comment i love it!

I'm really bothered that both companies, who almost always work for Nintendo, decided to put this amazing looking game on anything except Nintendo. It's really upsetting, this would've been perfect for Wii U. Even in the description for this game it says "From the geniuses behind the Pokemon games." :/

We were told the real reason:

"We thought about other hardware during development, but our hands were pretty full with those three platforms!"

Those three platforms have very similar architecture. Its a small digital game. The question for them to answer is whether the tech decision is a smart business decision.

@BulbasaurusRex That's why I said next year. Gen 7 started development as soon as X/Y were out though.

@Shiryu The install base excuse might work for the Wii U, but that's complete BS when there's a platform with an install base that's higher than the Xbox One and PS4's COMBINED and the developer is highly familiar with.

So this is what happens when a gaijin works for gamefreak? He trolls Nintendo hardcore. It just looked right to put Xbox on the poster? This is how decisions are made?

Oh that was a real statement.

Will probably get it on PC. Looks pretty hilariously.

There should be no good reason why this doesn't get a 3DS release. Also, I couldn't help but think of the recent Donkey Kong games when I watched the trailer for this game.

I don't really care, (I'm certainly not outraged) but I can't believe they're talking about that poster like it's a legitimate excuse...

At least PC version is available so I don't really care about this issue.
Praise the Gaben, The Lord of Steam!

What a first class jerk. People still think he wasn't insulting Nintendo and it's fans? Why this idiot was allowed to make this statement officially is beyond me, but it seems about par for the course for Sega these days.

It's pretty funny to read the comments here of Sony and MS fans saying they are not interested in the game, but Nintendo fans are. Great "business" call Game Freak and Sega. Way to read the market. And don't come late porting this game to Nintendo systems when it bombs on your platforms of choice. That bridge is now burned. See you at your next disaster of a quarterly report Sega. Enjoy the ride into oblivion. Hopefully your slot machine business works out for you.

And Nintendo needs to stop with this we don't compete nonsense. These developers and hardware makers are competing with them and trying to put them out of the hardware business at the very least. Nintendo needs a guy like Yamauchi right now. A ruthless businessman. Iwata has done great with keeping the game quality up but is a totally hopeless and inept businessman. He needs to stop saying Nintendo doesn't compete every chance he gets. It's like throwing blood into the water around a bunch of sharks. And everyone is now just taking a piece out of them any chance they get, counting on them doing nothing about it. It's been very damaging to Nintendo in the long term.

It's just me, or the game has a lot of mechanics from Donkey Kong?

Just watch them announce it for PS2 and Dreamcast, "we don't want to leave out people who haven't bought a console in a decade".

@Chicagoway

....what Sony and Microsoft fans are here denouncing the game?

I'm likely to get it for my PS4.

@Kaze_Memaryu - The people that thought Wii U development was "smooth" were developers that focused specifically on Wii U. The only reason they have to work on ×86, is because it is the majority. In real life, ×86 isn't better or worse than PowerPC, and vice versa.

We are still back in 2012-2013, as far as 3rd party support goes on Wii U. The only thing that has changed, is that Xbox One and PS4 came out and they just can't currently focus on both next generation iterations of architectures. That really is the core reason of it all.

It's just like you say, how everyone is acting all like they just can't do it, when we know it is false, but the point is that they would rather not spend that EXTRA money and do things when they are most convenient. They COULD throw down $3 million or however much it would cost for a Wii U port, for every game, but the cost eventually isn't as high by default, and they would rather go for that.

Most of the games coming out on Xbox One and PS4 could be on Wii U, but they would have to spend about as much on Wii U as they would for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, combined. Nintendo and 3rd parties already knew this(even before Xbox One and PS4 came out), going into 8th generation, which means they planned on working through these types of situations to begin with, so it's not that big of a deal.

@IceClimbers

It is interesting that it's not planned for the 3DS, but it's not planned for the Vita either. It's possible that it's being made in an engine these platforms can't handle--like Unreal 4.

Then again, despite sales of the 3DS, it's 3rd party support has been pretty lackluster for it's entire life--it's a far cry from the heavy support the DS saw.

It really doesn't matter the installed base Nintendo has these days if the Nintendo consumers still aren't going to support 3rd party or indie efforts.

@SCAR392

Most games right now on XBO or PS4 could probably work on Wii U, but they'd look like crap. They're making the games for new-gen now, and merely scaling textures, models, etc back to put the game on the old systems.

My girlfriend and I witnessed this first-hand when she bought Dragon Age: Inquisition for the X360. It was a tad clunky, the textures were blurry, and colors and light were washed-out. It was clear the game wasn't optimized for the generation as the previous DA titles were. It was an obvious down-scale of the new-gen version. She got fed up with it, had some money, MS did some great sales, and she picked up an Xbox One and bought Dragon Age again--and the difference is night and day.

As the generation moves on--say, in another year or two, the games being made won't be cross-gen anymore and they'll increasingly be built in more robust engines--like Unreal 4, which the Wii U can't handle. So porting to the Wii U is going to move into a "next to impossible" territory.

Epic also just made Unreal 4 free, so the move from Unreal 3 to Unreal 4 development is probably going to be very fast. I downloaded it last week, and while I'm still going through tutorials, it's absolutely loaded with potential. It's a pity Nintendo couldn't be bothered to work with Epic to get this on the Wii U.

I don't agree with the folks saying this is 'betrayal', however I still think this is a crappy excuse. You couldn't have just edited the damn poster in PS?

Rage aside, I'll still probably pick this up on my PS4, but the excuse is still worse than Capcom's excuses.

So, they didn't release it to Nintendo Wii-U because the logo didn't fit with the art on the poster? That's über lame...

@IceClimbers They may have already started development, but it will be another three years or so before they get released. Like I said, it's only been a year and a half since X & Y were released, so we've still got quite a while to go until the next generation. Z Version may be released next year but not the next generation of mainstream games in the series.

@SCAR392 True, and I don't mean to defend Nintendo's choice, either. It's a minor point where it wouldn't have hurt Nintendo to go the other way. But as you said: it's as it is, and developers will go the easy route - which is developing for three largely similar platforms, with the effort of developing for just one of them, and a potentially higher profit base. Sad, but kinda inevitable.

Looks like a mix between Sonic and Donkey Kong.

He basically just passively insulted everyone's intelligence with that Sesame School style response. The decision was made by a Gaijin no less; is this a trend of westerners pushing their agendas on to Japanese developers.

Interesting development.

Alex Brooker from The Last Leg has a buzzer for this kind of situation...

@Kaze_Memaryu - Exactly. That's why I'm saying Nintendo and 3rd parties probably knew these development challenges would happen, so it's not really worth worrying about it.

@Quarthon - Actually, Wii U has next generation PowerPC parts and architecture that Xbox 360 doesn't have, so it's already better on a technical side by default. That's besides that porting from ×86 is an entirely different process than porting from PowerPC. All the games are made to work on last generation, first, THEN 8th generation. 3rd parties haven't even tried to port Xbox One games to Wii U, because they are still busy porting Xbox 360 games to Xbox One and whatever other tasks are easiest.

Also, Epic already said you could get Unreal Engine 4 running on basically anything. The only thing that could possibly be different is graphics, and that's not the only thing going on in games. It's kind of like how Capcom said Resident Evil 4 was only possible on GameCube. The GameCube version had better graphics, but PS2 could still run the game. That's a worse case scenario, but the game itself can still run with less graphics. That's how it always has been. Or how Glover looked better on N64, but PS1 ran the game with less graphics. The same applied to almost every game(games looking better on Xbox/GCN compared to PS2, or games looking better on N64 compared to PS1/Sega)

This is probably the worst excuse for anything ever. I can't think of a time when someone ever gave such a bad excuse. IDC that much that it isn't on Wii U but wow...

@Timppis
Game freak owns part of Pokemon along with Nintendo, so no, they can't actually take the series away from them. As for Nintendo not "needing" them, they sorta do, beside Game Freak being partial owner of the IP.

Ever notice how not a single company has successfully replicated Pokemon? Several have tried, and all 3 are niche at best. Sure, they could find somebody else to make the games, but Pokemon is the 2nd most profitable game franchise in the world and one of Nintendo's biggest, they seriously don't want to screw that up.

As for this excuse, its sorta reasonable, aside from the "we forgot" line. My guess is they don't want to risk angering Nintendo by speaking negatively about the Wii U and stuff like that, lest they bite the hand that feeds them.

@locky-mavo
Game Freak have never made a console Pokemon game or spin-off, only the main-series games. They aren't a big company at all, the staff only consists of 73 people. Most of them are probably working on Gen 7, and maybe a sequel to ORAS or something.

@Zombie_Barioth Game Freak does Not own pokemon. Not even part of it. Nintendo, pokemon company and Creatures own all the IP rights and the latter two are subsidiaries of Ninty. I don't know where the knowledge of Gamefreak owning part of Pokemon comes from but it simply isn't true. It's widely circulated misinformation.

Could another company develop a good main series Pokemon game? Maybe or maybe not. However it wouldn't be first time in video game history that game series changes developer. But as I said Nintendo probably doesn't care what individuals of 3rd party developers say.

Great. I sure hope they "forget" about Nintendo next time.
And by next time I mean for the next Pokémon game. Game Freak's lazy ass needs to be replaced with a competent developer, and Nintendo has PLENTY of those (AlphaDream, 1-UP Studio, Intelligent Systems, Monolith...)

@CrazyMetroid
Please... do show me the research and sources this is so "Well known" from?
I would love to see it as a shareholder, as a business enthusiast and also to shove it up my friends ass, who did his masters thesis on Pokemon.

So please do show me where it is shown, because this to me is about as factual as things like "We only use 10% of our brain", "There is massive raft of debris in the Pacific vortex" and "Toilet water rotation depends on your hemisphere". Which of course, are all false

@CrazyMetroid
So... Rare still owns Donkey Kong and EA Owns NFL, NHL and FIFA? Because they have quite similar copyright claims on their title screens.

Game Freak has a copyright claim on every single game they develop. Which seems quite natural. However Pokemon as an intellectual Property is not their property, never has been and I would assume never will be (unless something weird happened). They are a small development team licensed to create Pokemon RPG games for Nintendo handheld consoles.

@CrazyMetroid What I'm talking about is that he, being the director and person who designed the poster which apparently influenced the decision, is one of the only westerners on the team, and he's even pushing a western agenda, that Wii U (or Nintendo, in general) is basically not worth putting 3rd party multiplat titles on.

I'm not wrong in saying he's a westerner influencing a Japanese studio either; it's obvious they're not making this game for a Japanese audience given the title and the fact it's coming to XBox One, a system that's non existent in Japan.

It's ilogical that Game Freak doesn't owned Pokemon (at least, a part), when Satoshi Tajiri is the original creator since years, along with Ken Sugimori (characters creator) and Junichi Matsuda (Music compositor, Director nowadays), and both are key in Game Freak and in all Pokemon in General.

Oh well, all THIS because Game Freak doesn't develop this game of a elephant for Nintendo consoles?, "one" game that the publisher is Sega, not Nintendo?, if well, the reason sound like a rare excuse, if Read ALL well, he says: "Information on the potential for other platforms is classified"; he doesn't say that "No" to Wii U or 3DS (also Vita, PS3, for example); and if read ALL, before he said: "but our hands were pretty full with those three platforms!", It's say, in this moment they are very busy developing this game (they are 47 peoples, please), and will need time and money for the another consoles.

Better, let time pass and you will see that possibly there will be something good for the Wii U or 3DS or some of this game better, keep calm and enjoy the game

@Timppis
http://www.pokemon.com/us/legal/

The only thing Nintendo is specifically credited for is trademarks, the only thing they own are character names, logos, and the trademark for Pokemon. Game Freak isn't a subsidiary of Nintendo either, its a privately held company, of which they might have sold some shares to Nintendo.

As for the last point, I didn't say another company couldn't, only that Game Freak is the only truly successful creator of this particular sub-genre, so it's unlikely another company could handle it.

I never said Nintendo cared what they say either, only that Game Freak probably doesn't want to risk it. They're so heavily associated with one another that it wouldn't look good for them to be speaking negatively about Nintendo's consoles. All we'd see are headlines reading "Wii U is selling poorly says Pokemon Developer" and stuff like that.

I would say this style of game would fit best on Nintendo platforms but SEGA is doing business and Game Freak are keeping quiet. Can't say its the most appealing game depending on the price and how engaging it is over its length. Let's hope it isn't a forgettable game that turns up in a free game reward or sale quickly after launch because it has potential.

GameFreak forgot about Nintendo systems. What would they say if we just forgot about their precious Pokémon?

What's weird is that this seems like the kind of game that would fit perfectly on a Nintendo system. In regards to what darthllama said, having "Badass" in the title would have to be the dumbest reason not to port it to a Nintendo system, unless Nintendo has a policy against having any game with with even such a mild excuse for a cussword in the title, in which case Nintendo would be incredibly dumb.