The festivities for Pokémon Day are in full swing and as such, we’ve gotten a slew of information about the future of the franchise. Most of the news has been focused on the games and shows that will be hitting shelves and streaming services this year, but interviews with key figures from The Pokémon Company have also cropped up. One such is from BBC News, which has an interview with TPC CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara. According to him, he believes the franchise can potentially continue to its 50th and even 100th anniversary.
The piece, which you can read in full here, covers a wide breadth of topics about the Pokémon IP, but some key quotes from Ishihara reveal what he believes is the key to the series’ success. As Ishihara states, “The biggest reason behind their [the games] success is the fact that Pokémon became a tool of communication.” That was one of the design principles of the original Game Boy titles: utilizing the link cable to facilitate trading and getting people to interact with one another. To that end, Ishihara states that TPC is only focused on Pokémon and that he regularly needs to tell shareholders, “We’ll go bust when Pokémon is no longer popular.” Seems that won’t happen for quite some time.
Rounding out the conversation, Ishihara was asked about the Pokémon anime and what the future has in store for different games and other cross-media ventures. He emphasized that he wants to focus on “connecting the real and virtual worlds,” and then said, “If we continue focusing on our mission, Pokémon can probably continue to its 50th or 100th anniversary. But if we become complacent and go with the flow, that’s when Pokémon will go downhill.”
It is truly surprising to see that the Pokémon brand is even more popular now than in my youth, but I don’t know how long the series can truly hold out. In an era where IP is more important than creating anything new, it’s possible we’ll see Pokémon remain a staple for the rest of our lives.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
