According to The Pokémon Company’s International director of consumer marketing, J.C. Smith., Nintendo 3DS-exclusives Pokémon X and Pokémon Y are not ‘reboots’; they’re an evolution of the franchise. Smith said the games’ developer, Game Freak, has been hard at work producing Pokémon X and Pokémon Y for the Nintendo 3DS. Also, Smith confirmed that Pokémon series producer and director Junichi Masuda is working on the two projects.

“There’s never been a conscious decision to reboot. There’s always been an evolution of the look and feel; it just happens to be that we played Black and White, and Heart Gold and Soul Silver, and Diamond and Pearl, and Platinum — all of those games on the same platform. So it feels like it’s been a long time in the same way. But between the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color, and moving up into the DS now, it’s always had that change.”

“There’s never been a conscious decision to reboot, it’s just a decision to try new things and express the world in a new way.”

“This game has been a long time coming. Obviously, Game Freak wanted to make sure that when they created this new universe on the 3DS, that it looked fantastic; both in the polygonal style and also when people are able to see the 3D effects as well. It’s really exciting to see the Pokemon come to life a little more.

“They’re always working hard to make sure the games are as slick and polished as possible. But with the new expression of that game — they’ve had the DS for three generations of games now, so I’m sure it took some getting used to to fully utilize the 3DS. But even in this early stage of development, it’s looking really cool.”

“[Pokemon series producer and director Junichi] Masuda is still working on this project, and has been working on Pokemon games since the beginning. Moving to the new platform and having a new look and feel they decided that they wanted to pursue, just opened up their ideas to doing something a little different.”