Despite the incredible success of Pokémon GO on smartphones, Pokémon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara doesn't sound so keen about bringing the mainline RPG series to mobile.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Ishihara was asked if the popularity of Pokémon GO - which has now been downloaded more than 500 million times - could see a shift in strategy, with mainline games such as the forthcoming Pokémon Sun And Moon coming to smartphones rather than Nintendo's systems.
He replied that keeping the concept simple was a huge part of the success for the Niantic-developed mobile game, and that simply shifting across the main games wouldn't necessarily be a good idea:
The chance of finding success in taking a product made for one platform and bringing it over to another is quite low.
He also added that Sun and Moon will offer a deep experience which simply couldn't be replicated on a smartphone:
When it comes to really spending a lot of time on a game, I think the experience is similar to reading a novel or watching a movie.
Elsewhere in the interview, Ishihara spoke about the fact that in the early days, no one really thought that Pikachu - perhaps the most famous of all Pocket Monsters - would ever become special. Fast forward two decades and all Pokémon Company staff have an image of Pikachu printed on their business cards.
To date the Pokémon franchise has generated ¥4.8 trillion ($47 billion) across games and related merchandise, yet the Pokémon Company's earnings remain largely unknown as it's not a listed firm. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company focuses on "reinvesting revenues in order to promote its brands". A brief financial report submitted to the Japanese government recently showed that the Pokémon Company's net profit was just ¥619 million during its fiscal year ended February - industry analysts claim that the majority of revenue from Pokémon games is found on Nintendo's financial statements instead.
Irrespective of how much money flows into the company coffers, 58-year-old Ishihara sees his role as ensuring that the brand maintains its status as a cultural icon - something which many would argue is already happening via Pokémon GO:
The biggest achievement for Pokémon over the last 20 years is that you can go just about anywhere in the world and you will still be able to talk about it. The next big goal for us is to maintain Pokémon as a part of the culture.
Finally, Ishihara admitted that he's particularly fond of Exeggutor, because when he was checking up on the original game during development he use Exeggutor as his main Pokémon and explored many places and captured many monsters with it. Now, Exeggutor is getting a new form in Sun and Moon, which has made the Pokémon Company president very happy:
My dream is finally a reality. I'm glad to see what Exeggutor has become.
What do you make of Ishihara's comments regarding the mainline series remaining focused on consoles? Are you a secret Exeggutor fan yourself? Share a comment to let us know.
[source wsj.com]
Comments 35
Good but obviously they can be used as a nice bridge to sell the mainline versions.
Thank God...
Good.
Well of course not the next pokemon game after sun and moon is going to be on the windows phone
I wouldn't mind seeing the concept on phones. I just don't want said possibility to overshadow handhelds, that's all.
Good.
And I had to comment because that picture just cracks me up! Hahahaha!
It's weird, because it would be a great fit. You don't need buttons to play it necessairily, and it would be just as simple to trade and battle with peoe at any time, moreso than being stuck with a handheld.
"I think the experience is similar to reading a novel"
Except you won't look quite as smart playing a 3DS. =P
This makes me glad that he's in charge of the Pokemon Company and not some moron who would ruin the series trying to cash in on the latest fad.
Spam your friends with facebook requests. 1% increase in the chances you'll find Snorlax.
not seeing something coming doesn't stop it from coming. the iphone alone has more models sold in a year than the entire run of the 3ds in it's lifetime. if there weren't a huge nintendo stake in the pokemon company, they wouldv'e gone mobile ages ago.
Nintendo said they had no plans of going into the mobile industry.
Take this info with a grain of salt.
Phew...
@AlexSora89
Unfortuantely, that's impossible. That's the reason why Pokémon GO got so popular.
Actually, I would not mind a new Gen 1 remake on iDroid.
OceanBlue and SurgeYellow? Maybe?
I miss the relative simplicity of Gen 1 and even the first remakes are getting a bit old now, especially for the lack of WiFi/online services support and the fact that the newest system capable of running GBA games is now 10 years old! Sell the first one for 20~40¤ and the second one as a cheaper DLC if you want both, and it should do fine. It could even have a 3DS/NX version.
Good. And to make it clear, I'm a proponent for mobile gaming and its continued growth.
Makes sense, different models for different user bases. The mobile market doesn't exist in the form that 10-15 million players would pay £35 or $40 for a new game of any sort, but Nintendo handhelds do.
But the mobile market does allow hundred of millions free downloads and microtransactions. Perfect for games like Pokemon GO but not a new mainline game.
Well obviously the real reason is they want to sell the mainline games on dedicated hardware. Smartphone sales would probably be the deathblow for Pokémon on Nintendo hardware. Also there's so many smartphone hardware configurations on Android that it would be difficult to to get a consistent experience across all devices, granted it's gotten much better than even a couple years ago which is like an eternity in the smart device business.
Outside of money changing hands, there's a reason Super Mario Run is being developed for Apple first.
Baloney.
Smartphone games work well when built for rather than ported to the platform.
Let's be fair: the addictive reasons people play Pokémon are to collect the creatures, fill the Pokedex, grab the gym badges and conquer the Pokémon League and then other players. Nobody ever bought a Pokémon game for the plot.
With this in mind we already have the foundations of a smartphone Pokémon game: Go.
Battles with other trainers could be facilitated by gyms. Players could have the option to search for all real world players near a Gym and then initiate a 1-1 battle with them provided they accept the invite. The winner would get some XP and stardust, with diminishing returns for repeatedly battling the same player over and over.
Players could have the option of battling wild Pokémon rather than catching them, but this would yield less xp and stardust than catching them and if course no candy. This would stop battles breaking the IAP economy.
Every major metropolitan area (pop>200k) could have one gym in the city centre owned by Niantic that would have a permanent team of elemental Pokémon attached to it. Beating said gym would get you a gym badge.
The twist would be no city would ever have more than 1 badge gym, meaning you would have to physically travel to 7 other cities to grab all 8!
Once a player had all 8 badges they could then challenge the Elite 4 who would be based in your nations capital city. Beating the Elite 4 would grant the player a 100k egg that would guarantee hatch into a Legendary. Players could only challenge the Elite 4 once per calendar quarter to prevent capital residents having an advantage.
If Pokémon Go had all these features, it would be par.
@Ninten-san
You mean the impossibility of Pokémon mainline RPGs on mobiles is what allowed Pokémon GO to become popular in the first place? Oh wait, I get it now...
If people want to play the main series, play it on Nintendo. Get N or Get out
I really don't see the appeal of putting the main series on mobile. I'd rather play the game with buttons AND a touch screen.
Exeggutor, Mr. Ishihara? Well, everyone's tastes are different, I suppose.
I totally see the point. I have "The world ends with you" on both mobile and 3DS and even though the graphics and controls work great on my Iphone (Most mobile games fail at the controls part) it´s lacking in some areas, such as the stylus takes less screen real estate than my thumb and the battery life is worse when gaming, but I think the root cause of me not really getting into mobile games is more complex than that. Maybe it´s the context ... that I´m drawn into multitask-mode when using my phone and not so much on the 3DS (I´m not checking email, feedly, snapchat, gitter, slack, twitter, youtube and feedly on that)
@Dr_Lugae
But the markets overlap. Those playing games on the 3DS likely own a smart phone and play games on that.
Plus the economics are different. You are potentially tapping into a market of billions of devices instead of millions. So you have a shot at convincing many more people to spend $5-10 on a game and make more money. I mean we've already seen this with Pokemon Go. It's already crossed $500 million in revenue with no signs of slowing. A $60 game has to sell 8.3 million to top that and a $40 game has to sell more than 12.5 million copies to reach that. The reality is Pokemon Go will likely beat $2 billion in revenue before it's all done which puts its performance much greatest than all but a handful of console games.
As if Nintendo would allow that to happen.
Duh? Most mobile games are simple, playable in super short bursts and inexpensive. Pokémon games are neither of those things
@Tlink7
I was thinking most of what you said could be said of handheld games in general.
well this is obvious, the purpose of their mobile games is to promote their mainline games which is NOT on mobile
Hybrid unconfirmed!!!
Considering people buy Nintendo handhelds just for Pokemon, this is no surprise. Which is why Nintendo going third party is a long way off.
@ekreig i half agree with you but emulation on mobiles is trash. On screen buttons suck.
@AlexSora89
Everyone would ignore the consoles if the main Pokémon games came to mobile, that's what I meant.
@Ninten-san
Yeah, sorry for getting things mixed up.
@RadioHedgeFund Nobody ever bought a Pokémon game for the plot?
That's one of the reasons I keep replaying the games over and over though. You have to admit the post game is considered barren by loads of people for a reason. The plot is part of the package.
Pokémon Go is losing popularity because its just not as engaging as the main series. Go's appeal was that (like other mobile games) it could be played in short bursts and that it's played in unison around the world. But lets be frank, the level of depth found in Go and any other Pokémon mobile iteration would never be able to hold a candle to the main handheld games. I mean really, what's with the two moves per pokemon thing? There's not even a sliver of depth there.
Bottom line is, while yes, the mobile game is popular now, mobile games popularity never really lasts. Save for a few examples. And once the next big thing comes out, people will be all over that. The mobile industry is quick and fleeting. Whereas look how many people stick to the mainline games months, years and even decades after release. I think there may be more money with a mobile iteration with the short term, but I doubt it'll be able to stand up to the handheld serie's longevity.
Miyamoto said the same about the main Nintendo IPs going to mobile..that would never happen.. and hello Mario Run.. taken straight from New Super MArio Bros 2...
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