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Nintendo's E3 Direct confirms a main series Pokemon game for Switch

Doctor Oak

Doctor Oak

Staff member
Overlord
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One of the things confirmed in this year's Nintendo E3 Direct was, straight from the mouth of Pokemon Company President Tsunekazu Ishihara, that a new main series Pokemon game was in development for the Nintendo Switch.

Unfortunately, despite rumours about a possible Pokemon Stars version of Sun/Moon coming to the Switch this year, this new game will be at least a year away. It's seeming pretty certain now that, although Pokemon Stars may well have been a thing once upon a time, Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon have taken its place. It's very likely that when Pokemon debuts on the Switch at some point around 2018/2019, it will be an entirely new Generation.

There were plenty of other big reveals at Nintendo's E3, including news on Metroid, Zelda, Fire Emblem Warriors, and new Kirby and Yoshi games.

To catch up on everything that happened, read our roundup on GameCrash: http://gamecrash.co.uk/nintendo-e3-direct-roundup/ (Nintendo E3 Direct Roundup | GameCrash)

That's it for our E3 coverage for now, but if you'd like to keep up with the articles we'll be continuing to publish on GameCrash in the future, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter. We'll update our social feeds for every new article, and will link/retweet any other small bits of news we feel worth sharing too.
 

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Psycho Monkey

Psycho Monkey

Member of the Literary Elite Four
If Pokemon Switch is the beginning of Gen VIII it would certainly be an unorthodox move seeing as the Switch isn't technically a handheld even if it can be used as one. Of course I'm not using that as a reason to debunk the possibility since Game Freak has been doing a lot since Black and White to change things up on us but I still think making a new Generation entirely console based is a bit too risky at the moment. I'm personally going to speculate it to be another Gen VII entry to sort of serve as a "trial" to putting main series games on consoles to see how they sell. That would still shake up the status quo with Generations never being split between systems in the past but like I said, Game Freak has been no stranger to changing things up in recent generations.
 
Doctor Oak

Doctor Oak

Staff member
Overlord
Psycho Monkey said:
If Pokemon Switch is the beginning of Gen VIII it would certainly be an unorthodox move seeing as the Switch isn't technically a handheld even if it can be used as one. Of course I'm not using that as a reason to debunk the possibility since Game Freak has been doing a lot since Black and White to change things up on us but I still think making a new Generation entirely console based is a bit too risky at the moment. I'm personally going to speculate it to be another Gen VII entry to sort of serve as a "trial" to putting main series games on consoles to see how they sell. That would still shake up the status quo with Generations never being split between systems in the past but like I said, Game Freak has been no stranger to changing things up in recent generations.
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Making it a trial would imply that there were any other option if they decided the Switch wasn't a good fit. The Switch is Nintendo's future, and its entire point is that - from now on - it will bring both Nintendo's handheld and console markets together under one banner.

Fundamentally, there's no reason why Pokemon would be any less on home on the Switch than the 3DS. It's still a portable system, and is already at a point where households are owning multiple consoles - so it's as individual a system to each owner as the 3/DS line has been.

It will be truly revolutionary to be able to play a main series Pokemon game on TV as a proper console game, but that doesn't take away from the handheld side of things at all.

Perhaps the game currently being worked on won't be a new Generation of Pokemon games (though it seems likely), but as Ishihara has confirmed, it absolutely will be a main series Pokemon game. Fundamentally, whether that's a brand new generation, a further reheated version of Sun/Moon or Gen IV remakes is all pretty irrelevant to the main point of it being a core GameFreak-developed Pokemon game on the system. Ultimately, the next Generation of Pokemon games WILL be on the Switch.​
 
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sSoul

sSoul

Previously Swirled
New fans/people who game freak pleases: Yo, I am hyped for USUM(Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon) Others: WHERE ARE OUR GEN 4 REMAKES?!
 
sSoul

sSoul

Previously Swirled
I see where your coming from but we had FRLG, HGSS, and most recently ORAS, so naturally the next gen on the remake train is Gen 4, but with all the alola forms that are Kanto Pokemon, game freak could be trying to do something we never could have predicted
 
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