Pokémon Company CEO: Developing for Switch was 'More Difficult Than We Expected' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2019 / 4,012 Views
Pokemon Company President and CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara speaking with Dime discussed developing the first mainline Pokémon game for consoles. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! released for the Nintendo Switch less than two months ago.
Ishihara stated that developing the game was "more difficult than we expected." He joked that some developer said it was "5 times harder" to make a Pokémon game on the Nintendo Switch when compared to the Nintendo 3DS.
Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! released for the Nintendo Switch worldwide on November 16, 2018.
Thanks NintendoSoup.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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They really should give the franchise to Nintendo EAD or something. Gamefreak was alright from the beginning to the DS era but really I feel like they just want to spend the same amount of money so they cut on everything else. Games since 3DS are really underwhelming tbh. I swear i gave them the excuse of the 3DS being underpowered for the lack of stuff on X/Y and Sun/Moon but if Gen 8 is bad I swear to godddddd. I'd rather have them taking a year off releasing and taking time to bring something fresh instead.
to finally have a good one? by whos standard, yours??? oh yeah gamefreak is crying since you trash talk there creations... last i checked all 3 games on 3ds where well reviewed and sold massive amounts for massive profit.
That is what happens when your company doesn't innovate like others!
And Nintendo certainly could have hired the muscle to help make environment, 3D models and what not for this game.
Why cant Nintendo EPD just take in the IP? Game Freak really doesnt have experience with home consoles. This is gonna end up looking like uprezzed Sun/Moon.
i mean, at least they got some experience in with the Let's Go games. The problem is that they need to move beyond Game Boy/DS-style game design and should have done so a long time ago. It kind of reminds me of Shigesato Itoi, who couldn't hack it with 3-D graphics so he ended up making Mother 3 for the GBA instead of the N64 or Gamecube.
But hey, Atlus cut its HD development teeth on Catherine, and went on to develop the incredible Persona 5. Hopefully Game Freak is up for the challenge.
Catherine also ended being an excellent game.
Well, the jump from the 3DS to the Switch is a big one, but still. Game Freak has more resources than almost every other developer on the planet, and they still struggle with a turn based JRPG that probably won't carry over most of the most ambitious elements the previous titles had (Battle Frontier, second region, pokemon contests, Pokemon Amie, sky soaring with the Eon Flute...) out of a sense of uniqueness for each title.
they're talking about going from a 240p machine to one in native 1080p it's not that surprising that a giant world like Pokemon is going to be a heck of a lot harder to create with that leap in resolution in mind. Nintendo had big issues going from the 480p wii to the 720p WiiU, it's hardly a shock that a larger leap would be more than a little bit of work for a studio.
Pokemon 2019 expectations: Lowered.
Calm down guys. Gamefreak made the Let's Go games. Those look fine for 3D Poke'mon, so the 2019 game will also look fine.
That's the problem though, we want it to look amazing, not just "fine".
Gameplay is more important than how it looks. It could be a 2D DS type game, but if they made several gameplay innovations I'd still buy it. I mean, just look at Octopath Traveler. That game is just carboard cutouts, with fancy shmancy UE4 lighting and particle effects. And yet that game is awesome.
I also think the gameplay is more important, and that's another area where they need to put more effort into. The core gameplay formula is great, but they really need to mix it up somehow, maybe by letting the player explore the world and tackle the gyms in any order they want ala BotW.
Yeah, I'd love that. Or making the enemy AI and teams really good. No more Bug Catchers, and Swimming Girls using all bugs, or all water types. Instead your first fights are against well balanced teams of UU Poke'mon. Gym leaders should exclusively use OU pokes, and their pokes should have unique moves that players can't learn or use to give them an advantage. So for example; The Sea gym leader has a Ferrothorn that knows Surf, and a Vaporeon that knows a move called Electric Absorb.
Considering small companies and porting companies said Switch was the easiest of all I'm not sure people were lying before or this is a case of being a little not competent as companies that release for current HW.
But how though?...
Gamefreak should have partnered with Monolith Soft or Nintendo EAD at least for their first Switch title. It would have made things way easier for them and we probably would have gotten an even better game as a result. Making HD games is A LOT harder than SD and most of Nintendo's developers already learned this painful lesson during the Wii U era. It is disappointing to see Gamefreak re-inventing the wheel and watching Nintendo go though this experience yet again. Nintendo should have done a lot of the leg-work for Gamefreak this time around as they now know what the jump from SD to HD is like and what it takes to make an HD game. Honestly, I am pretty sure this exact article could have been copied and pasted from when Miyamoto and Takahashi were developing their first HD games on the Wii U.
All these people in the comments talking schmidt about Gamefreak makes me sad
To be fair, it's not unwarranted.
I see zelda addicts insulting game freak a lot and its funny since botw has hilarious graphics problems
Breath of the Wild may have technical and graphical problems here and there, but that's something we were expecting because to go from Skyward Sword to Breath of the Wild was a GARGANTUAN leap for the franchise. The Zelda team aimed to shatter every single bar that the Zelda series had at that point with Breath of the Wild and it is very evident that the ambition and effort is there. And based on how much Breath of the Wild has sold and is STILL selling, it obviously paid off in a massive way!
The reason we are giving Game Freak crap is because they have failed to show the ambition, spark, and drive to innovate and raise Pokemon to new levels the series has never seen before like the Zelda EPD team did with Breath of the Wild, or what the Mario EPD team or EAD Tokyo team did with the Galaxy series and Odyssey. While Zelda and Mario are constantly growing and evolving, (with the sales reflecting that growth), Pokemon is just staying the same. And that is leaving us very disappointed because this is POKEMON we're talking about. It's not some new IP or a B tier 1st party Nintendo franchise like Kirby, Yoshi, or Fire Emblem, it's one of the biggest, most popular video game franchises on the planet. Now that it is finally getting a mainline console game that is built entirely from the ground up, you're damn right our expectations are going to be much higher. With a franchise is big as Pokemon on a modern console quality system like the Switch, "More of the same, but with prettier graphics." Would be a disappointment.
PAO oh really?? pokemon sells more than zelda and is not as old a franchise so gamefreak in sales is superior to zeldas devs
then the whole bad graphics here and there?? NO it has trash resolution, severe texture pop up problems making certain areas look like a gamecube game for seconds and even minutes sometimes, also framerate and the art style used as an excuse to cover up the fact they were in a nightmare trying to not make the game look like it belonged in last gen instead of the current.
gamefreak did very well making pokemon lets go look nice and the next game will look better not worse so you can go talking trash about gamefreak and defending zelda botw and its wrong since you said the jump from skyward sword to BOTW is huge and intense YET pokemon was a handheld game franchise that looked pixelated for almost forever, so the leap to the switch is waaay more complicated and amazing then zelda making it on the switch. This is the problem with zelda fandom they think it is flawless and spit at other games and devs criticizing problems their beloved zelda also have.
ResilientFighter
And Zelda has grown and expanded its sales, fanbase, and popularity since the beginning from Zelda 1 to OOT to TP to BotW. Meanwhile Pokemon has not had a generation break 20 million since Gen 2 and has constantly been at the same range, with no growth since the GBA. And that's what I was saying, Zelda is constantly trying to top itself while Pokemon is just more of the same.
As for the jump from from Skyward Sword to Breath of the Wild, I was not talking about just graphics, I was also talking about gameplay, overworld, scale, etc. Breath of the Wild is a Zelda game in the modern, open world structure and it was the most expensive project Nintendo has ever done up to this point and obviously it paid off because combined with the Wii U version the game shipped and sold close to 13 million by the end of September and will likely reach 20 million, perhaps even on the Switch alone, a milestone that Pokemon has not reached since Gold/Silver, a game that was released almost 20 years ago.
Breath of the Wild was a complete change for Zelda. It was absolutely nothing like any other Zelda game that came before it with the closest comparison being the original game from 1985. Gen 8, while it will obviously be the best looking Pokemon game, but that will likely be it. Just Gen 6/7 with prettier graphics. In other words, Same. Old. Shit..
That's what I'm getting at, Zelda tries to evolve and grow while Pokemon is just staying the same.
Go check the sales POKEMON WINS
You started talking about sales facts are facts and just wait until gen 8 releases and outsells zelda botw on switch and you can spit at it all you want but it won't be boring and full of graphic messes
And zelda botw is slow it is no witcher 3 while you act like it is far better you probably think its the best game of the decade, pokemon is pokemon it is not trying to pretend to be something its not due to staleness forcing it to evolve into an open world, with low resolution and gross texture pop in.
Pokemon has brought new fans into the series every new gen that releases why do you think there is such a diverse fandom in Pokemon where you get people of different ages arguing which gen is better while it doesn't matter since it is a franchise with so much power it managed to get millions of people worldwide to even play it on there phones and go outside to catch digital creatures, lets see zelda get people to leave there homes to go searching for things under the rain or in the snow. When will zelda ever be so ground breaking it has thousands of people go to competitions for cards and battles that give huge prizes over 3 decades i could go on but its pointless you talk trash about gamefreak and say they are stale and think botw is the greatest thing since sliced bread while the truth is it a graphical mess far too different in style to the other games that are more entertaining like majoras mask and twilight princess
Just to remember if you want to talk money, better not do it against pokemon, as it is the one brand/ip that have most revenue in the world (even over Star Wars).
Im glad Nintendo forced them to make games on a system that recquires them to do mooooore work than before. If they thought they could continue doing the same shit since the DS.......
At this point, I really hope that Nintendo assigned one of their other development teams to help guide Game Freak in HD development, like Monolith Soft or the Zelda team behind Breath of the WIld. If that were true or confirmed, that would give me a lot of hope. But right now, I'm expecting the bare minimum.
Well, Gamefreak is making Town as well, so they can at least make a decent rendering engine. And Gen 8 has been in development far longer than Lets Go, I think it's going around that it will be 4 years that Gen 8 will have been in development when it releases. Leakers like King Zell are claiming that they're treating the game as the Breath of the Wild for Pokemon.
So while this does sound discouraging at first, and I'm worried as well, I think we should wait to see what it is they have to show us. Something's also telling me that that mass exodus of Level 5 developers has something to do with how Town looks. It looks a lot like Ni No Kuni, so perhaps artists from Level 5 joined Gamefreak.
Oh boy i am not expecting anything near BoTW level ambition for Gen 8. Honestly haven't y'all learnt from the 3DS games ? I just hope there is something new and interesting.
you mean the BOTW that has horrible resolution, bad framerate, ridiculous texture pop in, and outdated graphics? you want pokemon gen 8 to have all that?
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