While celebrating Pokémon Day, CEO of the Pokémon Company Tsunekazu Ishihara revealed in an interview with the BBC that he believes that the franchise will have to keep evolving, and that the company can’t afford to “become complacent and go with the flow”.
According to Ishihara, this drive to not get complacent comes from the fact that the Pokémon Company doesn’t do much aside from working on various things in the Pokémon franchise.
“Pokemon is the only thing we do at the Pokemon Company,” said Ishihara to the BBC. “Whatever profit we make from Pokemon gets reinvested in Pokemon.”
He also brings up the fact that, considering the history and legacy of the Pokémon franchise, the Pokémon Company would go bust if the franchise wasn’t popular anymore. On the other hand, continuing to focus on its mission would allow the company to celebrate longer-term anniversaries for the franchise.
“If we continue focusing on our mission, Pokemon can probably continue to its 50th or 100th anniversary […] We’ll go bust when Pokemon is no longer popular.”
“If we become complacent and go with the flow, that’s when Pokemon will go downhill,” he continued.
Ishihara brings up various Pokémon games and how they have helped the franchise remain fresh. An example he spoke about was Pokémon GO.
“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,” he said. “So that’s how I think of what we want to achieve next.”
The interview comes on the heels of a Pokémon Presents event, where the company made a couple of major announcements. One of these was the unveiling of Pokémon Champions – a new title for Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android.
Announced with a trailer, Pokémon Champions focuses on battles similar to what fans of the Pokémon franchise might expect. The trailer showcased some of the gameplay alongside live action footage of people playing Pokémon games across various console generations.
Alongside featuring its own roster of Pokémon, Pokémon Champions will also allow players to bring in their own collection through Pokémon HOME. The game is also focused on multiplayer, and will feature crossplay between its release platforms.
Alongside the new title, the event also gave us a new trailer for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, along with a late 2025 release window. The trailer gave us our first look at the game’s three starter Pokémon: the grass-based Chikorita, the water-based Totodile, and the fire-based Tepig.
The trailer also gave us a look at the main setting for Pokémon Legends: Z-A: Lumiose City. Players will get to explore the city to quite an extent as they travel through its streets and make use of teleportation lifts to get access to building rooftops.
The trailer also showcased the combat, which will be quite similar to what we last saw in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. A real-time combat system will allow players to make use of careful positioning and dodging. Players will also have to be careful about attacks that might affect targets in a large area.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A will also feature the return of Mega Evolution as a mechanic.
