Pokémon boss thinks franchise can reach 100th anniversary
Pokémon boss Tsunekazu Ishihara believes the long-running series of games, television shows, movies and trading cards will continue for the next 70 years.
Yesterday (February 27) was Pokémon Day, which celebrates the day the original Red & Green Game Boy games were released in Japan. Next year, the franchise will celebrate its 30th anniversary but speaking to the BBC, The Pokémon Company’s CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara believes there’s a lot of life left in Pocket Monsters.
“[Our main goal is] to enrich both the real world and the virtual world,” he explained. “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 it will go downhill.”
“Pokémon is the only thing we do, so whatever profit we make gets reinvested in Pokémon,” he continued. “We’ll go bust when Pokémon is no longer popular.“
Looking to the future, he revealed the franchise wants to continue “connecting the real and virtual worlds” like they’ve achieved with crossover augmented reality game Go and mobile card collecting game Pocket. Yesterday, The Pokémon Company announced their new game Champions, which will be available on Mobile and Nintendo Switch consoles and will allow players to battle with Pokémon caught in other games.
“This is what I think is the biggest strength of Pokémon, and it’s important for us to come up with this kind of idea, so that’s how I think of what we want to achieve next,” Ishihara explained.
Yesterday (February 27), a “late 2025” release window was also confirmed for Legends Z-A alongside a revamped combat system.
“Trainers will move around in real time during battles, and Pokémon will unleash their moves when their Trainers command them to.In addition to type matchups, there will be new gameplay mechanics to consider, such as the precise timing for using moves, the different lengths of time moves will take to launch, and how big an area the moves will impact. This unprecedented style of battling is one of the most thrilling parts of this title,” reads the new Legends Z-A website.
A second season of Netflix’s Pokémon Concierge is also set to hit streaming later this year while 2027 will see the premiere of an “exciting” new collaboration with Wallace & Gromit creators Aardman.
In other news a new Tinder-inspired game discovery platform has been revealed, with Ludocene currently raising funds on Kickstarter.
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Ali Shutler
NME
