UK broadcaster the BBC sat down with The Pokemon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara, who has been in charge of the company since 1998, to chat about the franchise and the Pokemon Day announcements. He reiterated that the company can not become complacent with the immensely popular franchise. Mr. Ishihara says that if they do succumb to a lack of new ideas to propel the series forwards then it will “go downhill.”
“If we continue focusing on our mission, Pokémon can probably continue to its 50th or 100th anniversary. But if we become complacent and go with the flow, that’s when Pokémon will go downhill.”
Try making a good game maybe? For once.
Dude. Then do something, I don’t know what kind of “mission” they are focusing but the games they have been putting up recently were not good at all. Legends arceus was aight but it was horrid to look at. And let’s not talk about scarlet and violet, I don’t even understand how a multibillion company can release such a mess of a game. Game freak needs a new team with fresh and passionate devs that actually give a damn about the franchise, Pokèmon is already going downhill, I hope they will prove us with ZA that they are taking a better direction but that trailer didn’t look promising.
Scarlet and Violet were also massively successful games. The problem will never go away so long as Pokémon fans continue to complacent with the garbage Game Freak shovels into their agape maws.
Exactly, this whole statement has just been confusing me. They’ve been “going with the flow” for around 3 decades now. Release game with a lot of new monsters, wait around 3-4 years, and release a game in a new setting with new monsters. It’s very formulaic, and any gimmicks they’ve introduced to put a new “twist” on things lately hardly changes things imo.
Forget the 50th or 100th birthday, let’s see what they actually do for there 30th, if it’s as disappointing as the past 5 years, then they don’t stand a chance of having any relevance in the future.
Every Pokemon game has been a joy to play. There’s a reason they’re so popular, and of course it’s why the people complaining on the internet are the minority.
It’s because the majority of people playing are noobs that I haven’t been playing since the beginning. It’s very clearly in declining, and only as hardcore fans are the ones actually trying to do something about it. Don’t be that guy. Don’t be that guy that doesn’t hold the mega billion dollar corporation accountable. Be the guy that demands an excellent product rather than this garbage they are shoveling us.
I was 16 when pokemon red came out. I still play every single pokemon game that comes out today. It’s the only games I play, I don’t play anything else. Don’t have a reason to either, I’m pretty happy with it.
You have zero standards and horrible taste in gaming. Thats why you enjoy it. Its because of suckers like you that they get away with pumping out trash because you buy it anyway. Gacha games have ten times the quality of pokemon now. Its that bad.
I don’t know what a “gacha game” is, I’m 43 so it’s harder for me to keep up with new things. But I been playing Pokemon since the first games back in the 90s. It’s the only game I play, it’s why I enjoy it. I don’t have low standards for enjoying what I enjoy. When you’re 43 and have kids you just want to stick with what you enjoy. You’ll understand when you’re older.
Yay, we’re finally going to get a Nintendo version of Palworld!
You mean it can get worse?
Spend some damn time developing one then. You’re not a fucking indie, grow some balls, put some money forth, and give it time to cook. Fucking capitalistic pigs.
Ok that was too much maybe. Just take out the offensive parts and you’ll have a just statement.
Do you expect the biggest media franchise in the world to make a high-budget, high-quality video game??? Be realistic, now.
He could be right. Some other big resources in their games are not affordable.
Sonic. You astonish me.
Pokemon has sold over 480mil games.
What could they possibly ‘not afford ‘ here ?
OK, stop rushing the games then! Give the devs time to cook!
ZA looks like it’s doing away with turn-based, given the real-action fighting and radius with moves & introducing more intricate aiming, I wonder if that’s what they mean
Boy them graphics tell a different story
I liked X and Y but the last turkey great games were Black2 and White. The Switch for me is when they completely destroyed the franchise.
It’s really amazing how short of memory Pokemon fans have. Acting like S/V quality of games is all they’ve ever made. Sword and Shield were very good games (although the Wild Area was meh) and every mainline game in history has been consistently good. The fan base acting like the misstep on S/V is the standard for Pokemon games and not the exception to the rule SMH
Sword and shield were WHAT NOW?! Dude PLEEEEEEEEEASE
As someone who’s been around for the entirety of the franchise’s history, I can tell you that the games have LONG been on a downward trend since the jump to 3D with the 3DS games. X/Y were okay, but they, too, had major performance issues, feeling rather incomplete. The franchise took an even further nosedive after this.
Furthermore, the games have always had major game breaking glitches. The gen 1 games especially were basically held together by duct tape, they were RIDDLED with glitches.
Sounds like you’re the one with a short term memory… and one of the reasons the franchise became complacent if you’re calling Sword/Shield “very good” …
Sword and Shield were Trash
You can’t be serious with that Sword and Shield comment.
Build up some good will by doing remakes of R/G/B or other older gens, then make sure you don’t have a repeat of the glitchy release of S/V – you’ll find that fans will be very forgiving.
Unfortunately, Scarlet and Violet showed TPC’s and GameFreak’s lack of convictions years ago, with an incomplete package fraught with frame rate issues, glitches, laughably bad graphics for 2022, and other issues. However, they were the fastest-selling Pokemon games yet. Admittedly I and many of my friends contributed to that (I have a pact with two of them that we each get a different starter for breeding and trading purposes later), and that is what leads to complacency- the thought that “no matter what we do, we succeed- we don’t need to put in the effort.”
Downhill, huh? Like the whole series since gen 5? Like the last gen, that couldn’t be played on the Switch itself?
Boy mate, those people are so full of themselves, but when someone even dares to make a better product, this scummy company will do all they can to sued them into kingdom comes. I so hope they lose against Pocketpair. Hell, even Digimon is better these days than Pokémon… and I used to like the series. But with all the boring mobile games and remakes, this series killed itself (not money wise but originality.)
All of you saying (and I don’t disagree) that they need to “do something” about the decline aren’t getting what’s actually said here. Tsunekazu Ishihara isn’t acknowledging any decline at all.
He’s talking about a “hypothetical” decline, completely oblivious to the current situation of the franchise, and completely oblivious to the fact that Scarlet/Violet released in such a shitty state. He genuinely seems to think that there’s nothing wrong with their current trajectory, and that as long as they “stay the course,” they’ll be fine.
I think this is even MORE concerning, to be honest.
What is needed is competition. Palworld was a shock to TPC I think. Palworld showed that the quality can be there, even from an indie dev like them. Its also probably why TPC is trying so hard to sue them, because they know what they represent: competition. Other small games have come and gone but none of them came close to scratching the big P company, except Palworld that is. Palworld was a huge success not only here in the west but in Japan as well. We need more games like Palworld to put a fire underneath TPC’s shoes so they actually do something. Same thing is happening with Overwatch 2 and how they are changing so many things because Marvel Rivals is completely smashing the market right now (in a good way)
hopefully this marks a change in attitude
The only actual good Pokémon games with very little to no issues are spin-offs & hardly any of them made by GameFreak directly. If they weren’t co-owners, the franchise’s core games would have been removed from their control years ago. Til they stop being so, I’m not gonna stop calling them cheap. (I’ve let go of the lazy part of my criticism.) ScarVio proved they were cheap when they released a broken, buggy mess of games.
But whatever. One less franchise I have to spend money on. Save for the occasional Eevee centric product. And Let’s GO! Eevee is the only one made by them. So far.
I think something that this common section needs to realize is that he’s not talking about the games. He’s talking about all media. I don’t think the state of the games is stellar or anything, but this comment has very little to do with gaming l, just as the Pokémon company as a whole has a lot more going on than just the video games.