Just how long can a video game franchise last? That’s not an unreasonable question to ask because of how interest in a property can wane depending on the game’s quality. For The Pokemon Company, they’ve been making its series and its spinoffs for almost 30 years. In an interview with The Guardian, COO Takato Utsunomiya discussed his vision for the franchise and its future. Unsurprisingly, he had a very “long-term” vision of how long it could go:
“I spend all day every day thinking about Pokémon,” he stated. “Our goal is to keep Pokémon alive for hundreds of years, making sure it survives well past our lifetimes.”
That is certainly one way to look at things! He further went on to note that one of the goals of The Pokemon Company was to ensure that each game appealed to the next generation of Pokemon Trainers versus just the adults who grew up with the series. Another thing he noted was that they wanted to show more of what Pokemon are like in the wild:
“In the original games, there’s quite a gap between the descriptions in the Pokédex and what you actually saw in the game. But starting with [Pokémon] Legends Arceus and Scarlet & Violet, you see [Pokémon like] Bidoof creating dens in the game, and you have Pokémon traveling in packs. So there’s a newfound realism of their setting. When it comes to delivering the descriptions seen in the original Pokédex … there’s a lot more we can do there.”
Indeed, but as fans of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet will remind the company, you need to ensure the game isn’t buggy, either!
