BW/BW2 What does Nintendo do?
- Thread starter Evolution
- Start date
The Pokémon franchise is actually relatively unique in its corporate structure, evident because of the fact that it produces an entire array of merchandise in addition to the games themselves. Nintendo though, doesn't make, design, or have anything to do with the development process of the games, rather they're used as a figurehead when people refer to the people behind Pokémon because of immense size and corporate scope they have in comparison to the actual, smaller developers. The entities behind Pokémon and how it gets from the concept pages to the player can be divided into three general categories/companies that all play a different role in how Pokémon is presented:
The developers of course, are the real people who make the games, the creative minds that have designed and refined the Pokémon world as we've known it on the screen for a decade-and-a-half now. When considering Pokémon developers, Game Freak is usually the team that comes to mind for their work on the main series of games and for creating the actual Pokémon designs, items, characters, etc. that are replicated many times throughout the franchise (in the TCG, spin-offs, anime, etc.), and as such Game Freak is the true "creator" of Pokémon, where Game Freak and Pokémon founder Satoshi Tajiri (aided in part by Shigeru Miyamoto) laid down the ground work for the main games, work that has been refined and constantly developed, redeveloped, and reinventing itself over the years, now with Tajiri's "successors" Masuda and Sugimori (who also had hands in the beginnings of Pokémon) taking over the reigns of the development process and in that sense directing the future of Pokémon itself, because the entire franchise is based around creative material derived from the main games, the original, "official" source of Pokémon content.
Of course Game Freak is not the only developer of Pokémon games, and other developers who have managed to obtain licensing to the franchise have contributed to the large library of Pokémon spin-off titles (making Pokémon games is considered to many of these developers a uniquely valuable asset because of the Pokémon franchise's popularity, large presence in contemporary culture, and to this end, especially profitability). Many of the creative minds behind Pokémon's history of spin-offs include developers such as Jupiter (Game Boy Camera/Pokémon Pinball/Pokémon Mini), HAL Laboratory (Pokémon Snap/Pokémon Stadium Series/Pokémon Ranger Series), Ambrella (Hey You, Pikachu!/Pokémon Channel/Pokémon Dash/My Pokémon Ranch/Pokémon Rumble), and Genius Sonority (Colloseum/XD/PBR/Battle and Get! Pokémon Typing DS), among others.
What's interesting to note though, is that while people generally consider Pokémon one of Nintendo's core first party franchises, all of these separate developers contributing to Pokémon make the franchise effectively a "pseudo-second/third party," unlike Nintendo's first party franchises like Mario and Zelda, whose games are developed in-house by Nintendo's own labs, specifically their EAD (coincidently these particular franchises are the brainchildren of the aforementioned Miyamoto, and being a main Nintendo executive, it makes sense the franchises he initially created continue to stick with Nintendo itself). In fact, for an example as a bit of gaming history, Game Freak, during its pre-Pokémon beginnings, also developed games for non-Nintendo platforms like the Playstation, Sega Mega-Drive, and even the PC, so in this respect they're distanced quite a long length from Nintendo in terms of "who makes Pokémon," as much as the two companies are tied together today solely because of Pokémon (had Pokémon not blown up in the '90's, things would probably have been different).
But developers are not the only story in the process of Pokémon, and next in its journey from concepts to the player is the Pokémon Company, that operates throughout the world under different entities/names (though Europe, and North America have been merged under the outside-of-Asia, "international" TCPi recently, though Australian Pokémon is still managed by an independent group). Now of course a common misconception is that, hey, if they're the Pokémon Company, they must make Pokémon games, right? But alas, this is not the case. Rather, The Pokémon Company is a marketing firm that takes care of only Pokémon due to the immense size of the franchise itself. They don't make the games, they sell them. Selling them of course does not include just putting the games on store shelves, but also involves keeping the games profitable and successful for their entire lifespan, which is usually for either the time until the next game or pair of games is released, or until the franchise makes a generational transition, like what is occurring with Black and White now. To continute the success of Pokémon games after their release, and to promote other attribues of the company (for example Pokémon movies), the Pokémon Company will often hold events like Pokémon distributions or tournaments to spark active, continued interest in the games. Though not pertaining to the topic, the Pokémon Company also manages the marketing of all other facets of the franchise, TV, TCG, etc., thus this is where they get the image of being the "all-Pokémon" company. Unfortunately, and what irks me a bit, is that because the Pokémon Company is solely a marketing firm, it's concerned almost entirely about money, which casts a bad reputation on the franchise as a whole. Because of the Pokémon Company and its objectives, many will consider the franchise "milked" when the company puts out material at a rapid pace, like the yearly basis on which the main games are released currently, and that the sole, negative intention behind the games is profit, which IS NOT a reflection on the intentions of the developers like Game Freak, who of course have the positive intentions as artists, trying to make a solid, tasteful, well-crafted game and a memorable experience that anyone can enjoy, something I think Pokémon developers can do exceptionally well due to the vast resources you have when working with the Pokémon franchise, as well as the comfort to know that Pokémon's nearly market success makes money irrelevant, as huge profit is a given, allowing them instead to focus entirely on development and designing, hopefully, an incredible game.
So then where does Nintendo fall in terms of the production of Pokémon? Though I previously explained The Pokémon Company as a marketing firm, politically they are also a subsidiary, or an affiliate of Nintendo, the larger organization The Pokémon Company will often report to. Nintendo then, does not make the games or sell them, rather it publishes them, making official their introduction to the public and thus allow for the games to eventually be sold ubiquitously. Think of them as the executive power that grants permission for The Pokémon Company to put out a game made by the respective developer, they don't have as much of an impact on the actual production process than the other entities, and are involved more with legal and political processes.
So, it is actually the developers that design the Pokémon, names, etc., and Nintendo who is the authoritative figure allowing for the official introduction of a Pokémon game to the world at large.
- Developers
- The Pokémon Company (TCPi outside of Asia)
- Nintendo
The developers of course, are the real people who make the games, the creative minds that have designed and refined the Pokémon world as we've known it on the screen for a decade-and-a-half now. When considering Pokémon developers, Game Freak is usually the team that comes to mind for their work on the main series of games and for creating the actual Pokémon designs, items, characters, etc. that are replicated many times throughout the franchise (in the TCG, spin-offs, anime, etc.), and as such Game Freak is the true "creator" of Pokémon, where Game Freak and Pokémon founder Satoshi Tajiri (aided in part by Shigeru Miyamoto) laid down the ground work for the main games, work that has been refined and constantly developed, redeveloped, and reinventing itself over the years, now with Tajiri's "successors" Masuda and Sugimori (who also had hands in the beginnings of Pokémon) taking over the reigns of the development process and in that sense directing the future of Pokémon itself, because the entire franchise is based around creative material derived from the main games, the original, "official" source of Pokémon content.
Of course Game Freak is not the only developer of Pokémon games, and other developers who have managed to obtain licensing to the franchise have contributed to the large library of Pokémon spin-off titles (making Pokémon games is considered to many of these developers a uniquely valuable asset because of the Pokémon franchise's popularity, large presence in contemporary culture, and to this end, especially profitability). Many of the creative minds behind Pokémon's history of spin-offs include developers such as Jupiter (Game Boy Camera/Pokémon Pinball/Pokémon Mini), HAL Laboratory (Pokémon Snap/Pokémon Stadium Series/Pokémon Ranger Series), Ambrella (Hey You, Pikachu!/Pokémon Channel/Pokémon Dash/My Pokémon Ranch/Pokémon Rumble), and Genius Sonority (Colloseum/XD/PBR/Battle and Get! Pokémon Typing DS), among others.
What's interesting to note though, is that while people generally consider Pokémon one of Nintendo's core first party franchises, all of these separate developers contributing to Pokémon make the franchise effectively a "pseudo-second/third party," unlike Nintendo's first party franchises like Mario and Zelda, whose games are developed in-house by Nintendo's own labs, specifically their EAD (coincidently these particular franchises are the brainchildren of the aforementioned Miyamoto, and being a main Nintendo executive, it makes sense the franchises he initially created continue to stick with Nintendo itself). In fact, for an example as a bit of gaming history, Game Freak, during its pre-Pokémon beginnings, also developed games for non-Nintendo platforms like the Playstation, Sega Mega-Drive, and even the PC, so in this respect they're distanced quite a long length from Nintendo in terms of "who makes Pokémon," as much as the two companies are tied together today solely because of Pokémon (had Pokémon not blown up in the '90's, things would probably have been different).
But developers are not the only story in the process of Pokémon, and next in its journey from concepts to the player is the Pokémon Company, that operates throughout the world under different entities/names (though Europe, and North America have been merged under the outside-of-Asia, "international" TCPi recently, though Australian Pokémon is still managed by an independent group). Now of course a common misconception is that, hey, if they're the Pokémon Company, they must make Pokémon games, right? But alas, this is not the case. Rather, The Pokémon Company is a marketing firm that takes care of only Pokémon due to the immense size of the franchise itself. They don't make the games, they sell them. Selling them of course does not include just putting the games on store shelves, but also involves keeping the games profitable and successful for their entire lifespan, which is usually for either the time until the next game or pair of games is released, or until the franchise makes a generational transition, like what is occurring with Black and White now. To continute the success of Pokémon games after their release, and to promote other attribues of the company (for example Pokémon movies), the Pokémon Company will often hold events like Pokémon distributions or tournaments to spark active, continued interest in the games. Though not pertaining to the topic, the Pokémon Company also manages the marketing of all other facets of the franchise, TV, TCG, etc., thus this is where they get the image of being the "all-Pokémon" company. Unfortunately, and what irks me a bit, is that because the Pokémon Company is solely a marketing firm, it's concerned almost entirely about money, which casts a bad reputation on the franchise as a whole. Because of the Pokémon Company and its objectives, many will consider the franchise "milked" when the company puts out material at a rapid pace, like the yearly basis on which the main games are released currently, and that the sole, negative intention behind the games is profit, which IS NOT a reflection on the intentions of the developers like Game Freak, who of course have the positive intentions as artists, trying to make a solid, tasteful, well-crafted game and a memorable experience that anyone can enjoy, something I think Pokémon developers can do exceptionally well due to the vast resources you have when working with the Pokémon franchise, as well as the comfort to know that Pokémon's nearly market success makes money irrelevant, as huge profit is a given, allowing them instead to focus entirely on development and designing, hopefully, an incredible game.
So then where does Nintendo fall in terms of the production of Pokémon? Though I previously explained The Pokémon Company as a marketing firm, politically they are also a subsidiary, or an affiliate of Nintendo, the larger organization The Pokémon Company will often report to. Nintendo then, does not make the games or sell them, rather it publishes them, making official their introduction to the public and thus allow for the games to eventually be sold ubiquitously. Think of them as the executive power that grants permission for The Pokémon Company to put out a game made by the respective developer, they don't have as much of an impact on the actual production process than the other entities, and are involved more with legal and political processes.
So, it is actually the developers that design the Pokémon, names, etc., and Nintendo who is the authoritative figure allowing for the official introduction of a Pokémon game to the world at large.
Nintendo publishes the games
If you've ever played a video game, you'll always notice that at startup there's fancy corporate logos on the screen. The publisher comes first, and then the developer. An example: Treyach developed COD: black ops, while Activision published it. In stuff like books, there's also a developer (the author) and a publisher. In some cases with big firms or indies, the same party develops and publishes a particular content.
Really? I thought Sugimoro does all the artwork for the Pokemon. Or are you talking about the graphics in general. Also, I think those guys are hired by the Gamefreak Team anyways.
^ Satoshi Tajiri made them. actually nintendo didnt want to support it while it was being made because they didnt think it would sell. thus third part companies backed it up. once it was released it spread like wild fire through word of mouth and nintendo accepted it as one of there franchises...thus why GF and other companies are still helping make it. they were there from the the beginning.
and i think pokemon have become more....fantasy looking. just look at reshiram. but im not saying thats a bad thing.
and i think pokemon have become more....fantasy looking. just look at reshiram. but im not saying thats a bad thing.
Third parties never had a hand in developing the development of Pokémon, rather Tajiri had pitched the idea so many times to Nintendo and failed, that they sent Shigeru Miyamoto as a representative from Nintendo to work with Tajiri on the games' appeal (they knew it would sell immensely in Japan, they just didn't think the Western audience would appreciate it at all, as the style of RPG had never previously been of particular popularity in the West). Tajiri came to consider Miyamoto almost as a mentor, hence the Japanese names of "Red/Ash" and "Blue/Gary" are "Satoshi" and "Shigeru," respectively. But third parties never had anything to do with it, though Game Freak itself, is as I mentioned before a second party developer to Nintendo.
(*shakes head in disappointment*) Would someone like to enlighten me as to what "the real thing" is?
The beauty of Pokémon design is that it changes, and that we don't have the same group of people making more of the same thing that people want to accept, which could just become stagnant over time. It's really amazing what new recruits over the years have been able to change, because having multiple different "styles" makes the Pokémon universe much more rich and varied, and that's what the enjoyment is all about, its about the changing experience. I think Game Freak, especially with Black and White, has really shown its fanbase that this is the kind of ideology they want to pursue, the ideology they've been following all along. Creativity by nature merits change and liberalness, and I think many makers of games would consider creativity a measure of how much somebody is willing to make a change and remove itself from the status quo. That's how great games, that's how games that people remember, are made. In 1990, somebody said, "why don't we do something DIFFERENT," and six years later when Pokémon came out, it showed. Game Freak should always strive to make something DIFFERENT, because it's that drive that's always made Pokémon what it is, THE REAL THING, past and present, regardless of what cynical "fans" think or want to believe.
@XieRH
This explains the lines v
This explains the lines v
The explanation doesn't really change my opinion on the lines all over its body. I still think it's unnecessary, just like the numerous spikes all over Garchomp's limbs. Zekrom is forever going to be one of those pokemon whose lineart I will always dread doing if and when I draw it.
Well actually I think there is some sort of machine theme with Zekrom and Reshiram so that might be he cause for the look. I was wondering, does Nintendo even play a part by approving things in the game? Or do they only publish.
@Hyperbeem im pretty sure they do. shegiri miyamoto is in the credits (in HG at least) as a developer and producer (probably a couple of other things but those are the ones that stand out). being the head of nintendo would mean yes it runs by them and he probably says yes or not to some things in game and what to release and what not to. could you imagine....being a play tester for BW....
^Miyamoto doesn't have anything to do with Pokémon anymore, at least working with Game Freak – after Red/Green/Blue were released and Game Freak became more stable, he figured the ball was rolling already and left the process to Tajiri knowing he could handle it. Nor is he the head of Nintendo, I hate to be brash but er, I'm not certain of your facts . I think you may be referring to Satoru Iwata, currently he's the head honcho CEO of Nintendo (Reggie Fils-Aimé handles NoA). Iwata on the other hand is very involved with Pokémon, apparently he has a close affinity with the franchise because he's worked with The Pokémon Company's CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara for a long period of time. Ishihara was also a producer for Game Freak on Red and Green, though since then he's moved to the larger marketing firm and rose up the ranks, so to speak. So, if you're ever watching the credits or staff roll to a Pokémon game (both main series and spin-offs), you'll see either Iwata, Ishihara, or both as the executive producers (at the very end before the credits close), meaning they basically supervised the whole process, what Tajiri did for the first and second generations of Pokémon (since then he's been in hardly the shape health-wise to continue his work…).
. I think you may be referring to Satoru Iwata, currently he's the head honcho CEO of Nintendo (Reggie Fils-Aimé handles NoA). Iwata on the other hand is very involved with Pokémon, apparently he has a close affinity with the franchise because he's worked with The Pokémon Company's CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara for a long period of time. Ishihara was also a producer for Game Freak on Red and Green, though since then he's moved to the larger marketing firm and rose up the ranks, so to speak. So, if you're ever watching the credits or staff roll to a Pokémon game (both main series and spin-offs), you'll see either Iwata, Ishihara, or both as the executive producers (at the very end before the credits close), meaning they basically supervised the whole process, what Tajiri did for the first and second generations of Pokémon (since then he's been in hardly the shape health-wise to continue his work…).Haha, no problem . Miyamoto is a Nintendo higher up though, he just doesn't own the whole gig . He's actually the manager of the Nintendo EAD, which I mentioned in my first post makes all the games you'd consider Nintendo's "core" first party games and franchises, so for example he's of course famous for creating the Mario and Zelda franchises, along with some other notable ones like Pikmin, Nintendogs, the Wii Series games, etc., so you'd see him in the credits for those I'd assume.
. Miyamoto is a Nintendo higher up though, he just doesn't own the whole gig . He's actually the manager of the Nintendo EAD, which I mentioned in my first post makes all the games you'd consider Nintendo's "core" first party games and franchises, so for example he's of course famous for creating the Mario and Zelda franchises, along with some other notable ones like Pikmin, Nintendogs, the Wii Series games, etc., so you'd see him in the credits for those I'd assume.