The Pokemon Company’s CEO has spoken up about the Nintendo NX, his company’s recent successes, and future support for the upcoming system.
CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara’s interview with The Wall Street Journal also lends credence to established rumors about the true nature of the upcoming system, suspected to be a handheld/home console hybrid. “The NX,” he says, “is trying to change the concept of what it means to be a home console device or a hand-held device.” This is as close to a solid confirmation on the system’s nature as we’ve had. And it makes sense– the NX is also rumored to be a cartridge-based system, which almost completely eliminates load times, and Pokemon’s most successful titles are its mainline, cartridge-based, handheld games.
Ishihara also declared that “we will make games for the NX.” No word yet on whether these will be launch titles. On the mobile side of their plans, though, Ishihara had more to say about their most recent success, Pokemon GO. He said it was “10… or even 100 times bigger” than what they had expected. He foreshadowed the possibility of battling, as well: “Battling is a category that we do best at Pokemon, after all. It’s important to really carefully consider any feature that may increase the difficulty and raise the barrier to entry for more casual users.”
Pokemon is succeeding across the board– Ishihara also commented on Pokemon Card sales increasing 30-50%– and with the upcoming release of a new generation, new Nintendo 3DS, and YouTube miniseries Pokemon Generations, we can expect plenty more to come in the near future, even if it’s a bit longer until we see it on an NX.