News Pokémon Core Title Coming to the Switch in Over a Year!

[Alphahitman4]

I get what some of you are saying about how it can be good and that switch will drop in price but my point is that i only play poke on so id be getting th switch soley to play one game and additionally the DS' are compatible with different game boy models, so i can play many different pokemon game just with my 3DS the switch will alow me to only play switch games, cant even play wiiu games, what the hell.

 

[Sashlyr]

I get what some of you are saying about how it can be good and that switch will drop in price but my point is that i only play poke on so id be getting th switch soley to play one game and additionally the DS' are compatible with different game boy models, so i can play many different pokemon game just with my 3DS the switch will alow me to only play switch games, cant even play wiiu games, what the hell.

I think this will be just the first main Pokémon game for the switch, sure there will be more in the future, maybe some remake too, so is a good idea to save up some money to buy it when another Pokémon game is announced or something
Just wait until you think is worth

 

[Bolt the Cat]

I love how we know pretty much nothing about USUM and they're already hyping up the game after that. Do they really have that little faith in USUM? I mean, third versions don't really sell well, bu they've never teased a new game when they still have another one to promote. This sounds like damage control for everyone expecting Stars on the Switch, there's been so much negativity over USUM's announcements that they must have felt they needed to announce a Switch game is in development to placate the fanbase.

Anyway, I'm definitely excited for the potential this Switch game can offer, especially when it's the first main series console game. Should be a dramatic leap for the series.

 

[Professor Palutena]

It could also be something like Colosseum and Gale of Darkness.

as I've said before: A main game staying on the Switch hurts their primary market and probably won't happen unless we get some cheaper alternative for the Switch. Those of us in Canada are also hurt by the price hike.

Markets change.

For each sale they lose for leaving the 3DS, they gain in Switch sales, especially by the time it launches as people will have enough time to get one. Judging by the reception to yesterday's presentation, even without any gameplay shown, the sales aren't worth worrying about. All Switch marketing avoids the little kid fanbase that Pokemon has, and GameFreak is no doubt aware of this. Maybe they're targetting the older demographic intentionally.

I'm in Canada and the price hike is honestly irrelevant. I have everything pre-ordered already and I'm saving hundreds thanks to Amazon Prime.

 

[Perfect_Shot]

I get what some of you are saying about how it can be good and that switch will drop in price but my point is that i only play poke on so id be getting th switch soley to play one game and additionally the DS' are compatible with different game boy models, so i can play many different pokemon game just with my 3DS the switch will alow me to only play switch games, cant even play wiiu games, what the hell.

Obviously time to take interest in Monster Hunter or Fire Emblem series games, they will very likely hit the Switch sometime in the future, both are pretty fun imo.

Aside that, I agree with Bolt The Cat, this sounds so weak coming from Game Freak to announce so soon after the lackluster US/UM reveal. Can only hope that the more powerful hardware on the Switch lets them make it perform well (and ideally have some gameplay to go along with it).

 

[dotamin]

I love how we know pretty much nothing about USUM and they're already hyping up the game after that. Do they really have that little faith in USUM? I mean, third versions don't really sell well, bu they've never teased a new game when they still have another one to promote. This sounds like damage control for everyone expecting Stars on the Switch, there's been so much negativity over USUM's announcements that they must have felt they needed to announce a Switch game is in development to placate the fanbase.

Anyway, I'm definitely excited for the potential this Switch game can offer, especially when it's the first main series console game. Should be a dramatic leap for the series.

This! I feel like USUM has lost all the hype it had with this announcement. They better give it some good promo in the upcoming months or it might become first core series pokemon game to flat out tank commercially.

 

[Hackzo23]

I love how we know pretty much nothing about USUM and they're already hyping up the game after that. Do they really have that little faith in USUM? I mean, third versions don't really sell well, bu they've never teased a new game when they still have another one to promote. This sounds like damage control for everyone expecting Stars on the Switch, there's been so much negativity over USUM's announcements that they must have felt they needed to announce a Switch game is in development to placate the fanbase.

Anyway, I'm definitely excited for the potential this Switch game can offer, especially when it's the first main series console game. Should be a dramatic leap for the series.

I don't think they have little faith in USUM. I bet they were really sad at the fact they got such a backlash when they announced USUM. Everyone who was upset at either no DPPt remakes, or no new game on the switch.
When he announced the new game for the switch it almost seemed forced.
Even the way he announced it seemed, "there, are you happy now? we were gonna surprise you with this new game, but so many of you were crying about it, so we have to tell you now." If you were to read between the lines.

Its just sad that they had to do that. Cause really, why would they announce that game when they havent released any information about USUM.

 

[PIXELMAGE]

Outdated? Wait? WHAT?! How is the Switch outdated? It's Nintendo's most popular console yet! And did you really think they would stick to the 3ds forever? The 3DS is so obsolete, it can hardly run Sun and Moon without dropping FPS, staying with 3DS is a bad idea and this always happens with Pokemon, Pokemon has never stayed on one console and never will.

I know that the 3ds is out dated, but the switch is trash as a handheld. Nintendo really needs a new flagship hand held console in my opinion.

 

[DuoForce]

I know that the 3ds is out dated, but the switch is trash as a handheld. Nintendo really needs a new flagship hand held console in my opinion.

How is it a trash handheld? It's basically a to-go console! People never imagined playing games like Skyrim on the go until the switch was announced, and we don't need another handheld as it would be vastly overshadowed by the switch. Me personally, I think this is a win-win for everyone, we're getting Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon on the 3DS with Pokemon Switch coming out the following year, with Pokemon switch, people can play it on the big screen and take it to go, pleasing the fans who've always wanted a console Pokemon game. Pokemon Switch is also a great idea because it is not limited to FAT32 which can only had 4GB of data, that and the 3DS cannot handle another game after USUM due to all the frame-rate drops on the o3ds (and even the n3ds at times). Nintendo cannot stick to the 3DS forever. Today is the day of the Switch and the 3DS's days are numbered, say goodbye to 240p 3DS Pokemon and say hello to 1080p Pokemon Switch

 

[Chariblaze]

On the one hand, of course they're making a new Pokemon game--see you in 2019 baby!

On the other, having actual confirmation that Pokemon's next push will be on Switch is kinda interesting in a broader Nintendo sense. There was some confusion/weirdness early in the year when Nintendo's president Kimishima said stuff in a financial meeting about how Nintendo sees Switch as a console first, and how Nintendo's console and handheld businesses are still very much separate. That seemed antithetical to the entire point of the Switch: Unify these two platform lines, so Nintendo can have their one platform with ALL the games!

But main-series Pokemon has of course always been a handheld-only series, so if Pokemon is coming to Switch, Switch is now absolutely the new handheld system, and Kimishima's comments were more of a short-term comment for investors--"Yeah, we got Switch, but we also still got that 3DS money rollin' in!". Those people who were worried can now breathe a sigh of relief.

Personally, I was rooting for a separate 3DS successor. I don't want dual-screen gaming to die, darn it! At least we're finally getting a dual-screen Metroid as a last hurrah. Time marches on, I suppose. Maybe dual-screens will catch on again in 2030 or something.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

On the one hand, of course they're making a new Pokemon game--see you in 2019 baby!

On the other, having actual confirmation that Pokemon's next push will be on Switch is kinda interesting in a broader Nintendo sense. There was some confusion/weirdness early in the year when Nintendo's president Kimishima said stuff in a financial meeting about how Nintendo sees Switch as a console first, and how Nintendo's console and handheld businesses are still very much separate. That seemed antithetical to the entire point of the Switch: Unify these two platform lines, so Nintendo can have their one platform with ALL the games!

But main-series Pokemon has of course always been a handheld-only series, so if Pokemon is coming to Switch, Switch is now absolutely the new handheld system, and Kimishima's comments were more of a short-term comment for investors--"Yeah, we got Switch, but we also still got that 3DS money rollin' in!". Those people who were worried can now breathe a sigh of relief.

Exactly. The Switch was designed as a response to the Wii U's failure, and one of the issues the Wii U had was a lack of games and long droughts. Combining their handheld and console lineups helps solve that issue, so keeping the 3DS defeats that purpose. They likely only said they're not replacing the 3DS because it was still making money and they had some other projects still in development that they wanted to see through like Metroid Samus Returns and USUM before closing the book on it (remember that they had to release the Switch earlier than they wanted because the Wii U was doing so poorly and most of the game we've seen so far on the Switch were probably intended to be Wii U games that they had to transition to the Switch). Hoping for a separate 3DS successor would've also defeated that purpose, which is why I never really expected one. Like it or not, the Switch IS the 3DS successor, that also happens to be the Wii U's successor. But this is starting to get off topic.

More on topic, I have two main questions about the direction 8th gen is going that I want to see answered:

1. What are they going to do to take advantage of the console environment?

The Switch is going to be a first for Pokemon, it'll be the first home console that we get a main series Pokemon game on and that has major implications for the series. The Switch is a much more powerful piece of hardware than the 3DS and attracts an entirely new audience that is going to expect more out of the series. Console games are well known for being meatier, more open ended experiences which is something Pokemon hasn't really done well lately and in fact has been avoiding in favor of attracting more of a mobile audience. If Game Freak has interest in appealing to both the handheld and console audience that the Switch will bring them, this philosophy will need to change. So will they make that leap from the closed linear region design they've been sticking with for the past several generations and opt for something that gives the player a little more freedom?

2. How will they handle updates to older regions?

One of the big controversies in the series right now is how they're handling games that take place in older regions and the amount and nature of the content in those. Or in more simple terms, how they're handling third versions, remakes, and sequels and what kind of content they're including in those games. Between XY outright not having any kind of update, ORAS having less content than expected, and people being afraid of USUM being a vanilla third version instead of a sequel, it's easy to question what they're doing with these kinds of games, new generations are always a given but it's getting hard to predict what they're doing with the other games of the generation and it's starting to have a negative impact. So is Game Freak going to do anything about? There are some interesting options if Game Freak is willing to take advantage of them. For one, there's DLC, which could really address the issue of Game Freak coming out with a similar game with a little extra content for $40 which is something the fanbase is getting tired of. Instead of fans having to buy a $40 game all over again which they'd be less inclined to do (and third version sales have been much lower than other types of games), they could spend $10-$20 on DLC for the game they already have and get an upgraded version that way. And for people that didn't play the original, they could sell a bundle of the game with the DLC. This might actually be more profitable for them than the traditional third version business model, since more people will likely be willing to pay the extra $10-$20 game than to go out and buy the separate game and the number of sales should outweigh the lower price. VC could also open up the possibility of more sequels. Making a sequel to a game like Kanto might have been hard to justify before because fans that haven't stuck with the series since the beginning wouldn't have had the opportunity to play the original version and might get lost with a continuation, but now that they can port whatever game they want to VC that's no longer an issue. They could even bundle a copy of the original with the sequel if they want.

 

[Mitja]

On the "3DS dead soon? Switch not just replacing WiiU? Nintendos word on continued support for 3DS is just marketing-ploy?"-topic...

I don't think the 3DS is just staying for a bunch of finishing titles (USUM, Metroid2 etc.) and then abandoned. The Switch as it is right now, is a replacement of the WiiU. Yes it has the gimmick of functioning on the road and without a TV, but its portability is not that great yet (or so I heard. correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the feeling that it's good for partygames on your friends porch, rather than a long travel-trip) and the intended way to play the bigger titles is with it in a regular console set-up in mind. And the option for them to port 3DS games to the Switch now being a reality (look at Monster Hunter news), also gives an incentive to use the 3DS for a while longer than you'd expect. Profit on a game developed for 3DS should look really tasty if it can just as well be sold to switch-users.

The future path in this whole pseudo-handheld console VS handheld dilemma I predict, is that they won't phase out their proper handheld-line, but also that they won't want to keep having 2 different hardwares to develop for.
In other words, what will really replace the 3DS, will be a cheaper handheld sibling of the Switch. Meaning they will have the same basic hardware and 100% share titles. Like the DS/3DS it will have 2 screens, one being a touchscreen and the other an optional bigger detachable screen.

This is totally going to be D/P remakes, and they will be revealed on May 5th, 2018.

As much as I'd prefer for them to use remakes for the setting ground on a new hardware (where they'd focus on "re-inventing" the basic game on the technical level), in order to have more focus on the actual content with a new generation for the same system (and merely polish the newly established style).. GF has so far been keen on doing it the other way around: moving to a new hardware with a new generation and then have the remake-entry as a smaller polished copy/paste sideproject built on the same engine.

So the only way I can see this turning out to be DP-remakes (...which I would prefer not to happen in the first place, due to the whole remake thing starting to look really nonsensical, but that's another topic..) is if they are actually 3DS games that are simultaneously ported for the Switch, rather than actually developed exclusively for it (imagine all the extra profit!).

But personally, I have a feeling this is not going to be either. Not a new generation, and not DP-related, but rather some kind of fanservice/ultimate Gen-I-pandering, like some kind of Kanto revisit.

It's almost like they are trying to make you buy the new console. Curse these profiteers!

Nah, it's more like an overwhelming amount of people are demanding a core game for the switch (just read any USUM-reveal comments, it's full of disappointed opinions from people who for some reason thought the SM follow-up games would somehow actually be developed for the switch, despite the whole concept of a follow-up game being that it is part of the same game-series...), and they decided to hint at something that they've started working on in case it turns out to be relevant.

I don't think they've actually planned to "jump ship" to the switch with the main series, so I'm skeptical of this being straight Gen-8, and that's why some kind of nostalgia-powered sideproject that can also be put into the "core" category is more likely here, as a testing ground perhaps as well.

This! I feel like USUM has lost all the hype it had with this announcement. They better give it some good promo in the upcoming months or it might become first core series pokemon game to flat out tank commercially.

Don't worry... if the marketing for the previous 2 installments is any indication, we are going to have the whole game spoiled before we get it in our hands.. knowing about the Delta episode and Mega Rayquaza before ORAS even came out was ridiculous... same with the realization that we already know 90% of the new Pokémon and alola forms before SM came out.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

As much as I'd prefer for them to use remakes for the setting ground on a new hardware (where they'd focus on "re-inventing" the basic game on the technical level), in order to have more focus on the actual content with a new generation for the same system (and merely polish the newly established style).. GF has so far been keen on doing it the other way around: moving to a new hardware with a new generation and then have the remake-entry as a smaller polished copy/paste sideproject built on the same engine.

So the only way I can see this turning out to be DP-remakes (...which I would prefer not to happen in the first place, due to the whole remake thing starting to look really nonsensical, but that's another topic..) is if they are actually 3DS games that are simultaneously ported for the Switch, rather than actually developed exclusively for it (imagine all the extra profit!).

But personally, I have a feeling this is not going to be either. Not a new generation, and not DP-related, but rather some kind of fanservice/ultimate Gen-I-pandering, like some kind of Kanto revisit.

To be fair, that strategy makes a lot of business sense. New generations are far and away the biggest moneymakers for this series and offer them the greatest creative freedom, so they're a good game to start out with because they can show how the new hardware improves upon the older hardware more easily and draw in a huge audience to the new console. Whereas third versions, remakes, and sequels are just building off an existing framework and so they would be more limited in what they could do to improve and wouldn't sell as well. Doing it this way would mean that those versions would just be seen as an appetizer before the main event and the majority of the fanbase would be waiting for the new generation before getting a Switch. This is what happened with Zelda on the Wii U, they had trouble getting BotW out in time and they relied on remakes and spinoffs to keep the Zelda fanbase's attention but it didn't work out too well because most people were waiting for BotW. Ultimately what happened was that BotW ended up a cross gen Wii U/Switch game that came too late to really drive Wii U sales. They do not want this situation to happen with Pokemon, so Nintendo is going to want a new generation on Switch early.

So yeah, I can't see this game being anything but 8th gen. It might feel a bit too soon for a new generation, but you can chalk that up to Game Freak opting for two shorter generations on 3DS instead of one longer generation, 7th gen's timing couldn't have been any more awkward for this series.