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NoirSon on 28 January 2013
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Miguel_Zorro said:
NoirSon said:
Pokemon is partially the baby of Gamefreak and the idea of making a RPG on the limited portable system. Over time as the portables have increased power, they have been drawn forward but at the time of its release much like Dragon Quest before the Square Enix merger, they've kept it simple and true to the core concept that got them the fans they have had today.

In doing so, it probably has taken the teams a while to get used to the new technology although thanks to the Pokemon generation cycle they are probably in good position in time for Pokemon X and Y.

But the fact is more so with the current generation, portables are the gods of Japanese gaming, console gaming isn't where the focus would go to especially after the last few attempts.


But Pokemon doesn't just sell well in Japan.  Look at the sales:

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=pokemon

It sells even better in North America, and almost as well in Europe.  Are we really convinced that a solid home console game wouldn't be viable?

It is not that it wouldn't be viable, it is more that it is questionable and adds a lot of potential costs with potentially smaller reward.

Take a look at the Monster Hunter franchise. It was a Capcom attempt at getting into some online experiences similar to Phantasy Star Online via the console market. But the first two titles on the Playstation 2 weren't exactly blockbusters. If switching a PS2 developed game over to the PSP wasn't as easy as it was the series probably would have died on the second game.

But they did move it to the PSP and even with the replacement of online multiplayer for what would seem like inferior local multiplayer the game became a massive success that defines a new subgenre. They have released Monster Hunter games on the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 and few reach the success of the portable games, even a port of MH3 matched or topped the world wide total of the original console release within a year of its release. Pokemon going for a full online console route was impossible with the N64, the GC had the Collisieum and XD games that came close to offering a nearly main game type experiences with their single player modes but didn't  do nearly as well as even some of the portable Pokemon spinoffs.

By the time the Wii rolled around the writing was on the wall and despite now currently having the ability and enough experience with online gaming to get a decent MMO or big budget Pokemon game with ploygons out there for a console but it goes against two things, the initial target audience (children) and the costs to maintain it, which Nintendo rarely invests to maintain such.