Pikachu QR.jpg

Pokémon is a franchise that, due to its enormous fan-base, popular culture appeal and core premise of collecting lots of 'mon, has the potential to be an even bigger money spinner than it already is. We've previously highlighted amiibo as potentially being key to this, and would be surprised if amiibo cards aren't a prominent part of Pokémon Sun and Moon, but The Pokémon Company also seems to have other tricks up its sleeve.

Joe Merrick over on Serebii has picked up on a sneaky detail from last week's info dump on Sun / Moon that was somewhat overlooked. The new games will have a QR code scanning feature, and it's already been confirmed that it'll tie-in with an upcoming arcade game in Japan. Pokémon Ga-Olé is out in July and is replacing Pokémon Tretta - if you're unaware, this is an arcade machine for which you collect discs that represent different 'mon, and you place these discs on the machine to trigger battles. If you win you get more discs, and it's a loop that can certainly be fun for kids and big kids alike, but also potentially expensive for those wanting a full collection.

In any case, the Pokémon Ga-Olé discs have QR codes on them, and apparently some of those codes will be compatible with Sun and Moon. No further details are available, but you don't need to be an industry analyst to figure out that having tokens that unlock Pokémon or smaller extras in the 3DS games could incentivise players to get involved with the arcade machine.

That arcade aspect is likely to be largely limited to Japan, unless The Pokémon Company makes a play for the West with the machines. Alternatively QR codes could be distributed in various ways, and the likelihood of people scanning them and sharing them online for free also seems very high.

It's another interesting development for the upcoming games; they're due to be showcased in less than a week at E3, don't forget, so we'll certainly stay tuned to see what the Nintendo Treehouse team has to share.

[source serebii.net]