Why isn't Nintendo working on Pokemon prime or Pokemon 64?

@doskias:

Are you saying you want Nintendokemon?

........

You know, I originally wrote this post to mock yours. Now I'm angry that Nintendo hasn't made the thing I said.

Does anybody really want to have to yell at their screen to do stuff in a Pokemon game? Even if I was nowhere near anyone that could hear me yelling "Squirtle! Use Water Gun!" like an idiot, I would still rather spend a fraction of that time tapping the skill to use it.

Alright so how can you design a console based Pokemon game that's approachable for young people, encourages social aspects, and differentiates itself enough from the mainline handheld experience?

The first big hurdle to it's success would be the social aspects and the perception to parents. Parents, for the most part, are probably fine with the idea of their kids having a handheld Pokemon experience for long trips and general school commutes. With a console game they would mostly likely see it as a waste of time so adding some kind of social element like Wii sports would be important as would having a shorter segmented game play sessions. Ironically the console version would be better suited for shorter play sessions then the handheld experience.

You know the more I think about this the more it seems like any game targeted at kids would do poorly on a console.

It would need easy, very child friendly, connectivity to whatever mainline Pokemon handheld game is out at the time. Yet we know that Nintendo is literally incapable of this.

OK you know what Nintendo franchises on home console don't even make sense anymore. The Wii sold to families on Wii Sports and not other Nintendo franchises. In fact I can't think of a single Nintendo franchise that would work for a kid audience better on home console then on handheld.

Nintendogs? Get a handheld tie-in that transfers data or whatever (it could be a cheap download), and you could have a relatively profitable game.

I would rather they make the handheld games better. The battle system sucks. There should be no one hit KOs, even if the user has a type advantage. I was fighting Lance last night in HeartGold and we went back and forth dropping pokemon with one hit kills. Game is boring with little to no depth in the combat.

@manmadegod said:

The combat has quite a bit of depth, they just don't capitalize much on it in the story mode. Although I'm not sure how much they could capitalize on the current design in the main game, since it's kind of almost too complex for the target audience. If you had to worry about all the stuff you have to worry about on the competitive side all the time I think it would turn off a pretty significant portion of the audience.

So in that sense I would like to see them overhaul how the combat works. They need to find a way to make it feel deep without going way down the hardcore strategy rabbit hole. Which would probably have to involve balancing defense against the heavy offense focus.

It's all about personal opinions. You think Nintendo won't do a great version of Pokemon on console because it's impossible from a design standpoint. I think they won't do a great version of Pokemon on console because all they're willing to take a risk on is their hardware nowadays and because their terrible management is only greenlighting the most borring, safe projects that aren't going to help at all sell a modern console. I could also mention that the only develloper within Nintendo that seems to have all the input on where this franchise should go hasn't shown they could even make a good game ever that isn't based on the pokemon Red/Blue template. If I were in charge of that studio I would also be scared of gambling my reputation on a more ambitious game when I know we could just continue to roll with the old fomrula and no one higher up will demand anything more.

Honestly, if the game scaled with you and you could tackle the gyms in any order, I think I would enjoy them a lot more. I guess what I'm saying is that I want a more open world Pokemon game.

You know absolutely nothing about the structure of or culture within the studio responsible for the core Pokemon titles, so your speculation on that front means little, at best.

i would like to see a pokemon game on the console. where you play can play in 3D.

@hailinel: Will you ever come up with something better than ''you don't know dude so shut up'' to counter all my points? Yeah, I don't work at game freaks but I can see the result of their internal culture (and/or their mandate from management at Nintendo) for the last 20 years: they've made a bunch of itterations on the pokemon red/blue formula that were pretty good and all other Pokemon games didn't blow anyone away. 20 years and not a single real shot at something bigger for the franchise.

It's that mentality that's sinking the WiiU right now and it's also the reason investors and analysts agree Nintendo is run poorly. There is no ambition in any software they make nowadays and that makes them slide closer to irrelevance every day.

So maybe come up with facts that suggest I'm wrong instead of just assuming Nintendo can do no wrong. It's pretty clear at this point they've done plenty.

I always though Pokemon Stadium was really cool, being able to see your pokemon fight in baller ass 3d.

Also Pokemon Prime the 3D First person shooter would be dope.

You know what their products are, but you don't know what their culture is like. You can't infer one from the other.

That exists. It's called Pokemon Colosseum and it wasn't that great.

I'll agree with both points here: there is a lot more to Pokemon then meets the eye, and none of that comes across when fighting the CPU.

I think they need to make the battles last longer. If I throw out a level 50 Venusaur and you throw out a level 50 Charizard then there is nothing I can do. I'm dead in one turn with fire blast. That's been my experience with the game. It would be better if I can get a few turns in to try and get something done to set up my next Pokemon/the rest of the battle.

@pyrodactyl: If you want to make a Pokemon spin-off with action elements in it, I say why the hell not. Go right ahead. I think it can coexist with the core games of the series just fine.

But if you are telling me that you want to monkey around with the underlying mechanics that make a mainline Pokemon game what it is, then hell no. That's what happened with Castlevaina; SotN is a fun game, with (at the time) interesting RPG mechanics and a fresh look at the Metroid formula. It also has so little to do with the original games that I wish they named it something else.

If you want a to make the equivalent of a Mario Kart for the Pokemon franchise, go for it. But calling something Pokemon, putting a bunch of characters in it from the main games, and having recognizable music won't make it a "Pokemon game" if you turn it into something that it never was. That's like trying to tell me you made an Action RPG Fire Emblem game. Cool and all, but it's not Fire Emblem if it isn't a turn based strategic RPG.

I wouldn't say that's the best example, because Venasaur can absolutely survive a Fire Blast. But probably not two. (Unless it's Mega Venasaur with Thick Fat.) But your point is valid. There are only a handful of Pokemon and strategies that make defensive play an option. The vast majority of strategies are based around power and speed and setting up a Pokemon that can sweep the opposing team by itself. I'd be happy to see the combat move toward a more balanced approach.

I'd like to see a big, expansive, fleshed-out Pokemon story with voice acting and bombastic JRPG cutscenes. I'd also like the entire game to be in 3D WITHOUT a top-down perspective. Fully realized 3D areas. I'd like battles to take place in the world itself and not in a cutaway "battle scene." I'd like to see other players on their adventures and interact with them, again, in the world itself and not through menus. I'd LOVE for the entire Pokemon world to be open and accessible during the end game. There should be online daily gyms where everyone has a single shot at taking down a randomly generated leader a la Spelunky. There should be cooperative "raids" where players team up to storm Team Whatever's hideout and take down their boss, or invade a legendary Pokemon's cave to attempt to drive it away or capture it. There is so much untapped potential in the Pokemon series, most of it relating to online functionality.

These are all things that would be much technically easier to do on a console than on a Nintendo handheld.

Most people asking his question or "Why isn't Link voiced?", "I want a darker Legend of Zelda" "I hate pokemon's battle system" and so on are generally not the main target of these games and seem to want the game in a way to satisfy their different tastes. They usually miss what those games are really about or have the wrong idea of what makes those games and their formulas successful.

Also Nintendo is Japanese and most people whining about those games are not. Everyone knows the western players favour darker, grittier games. Last but not least, creating something on console that can't be duplicated on handhelds is a bad move for some games. There's a reason why Animal Crossing on console is pretty much the same as on handhelds. I don't need to tell that portables market is where the money is in Japan either.

A kid safe MMO along the lines of Wizardry 101 for Pokemon should have been easy money about 5 years ago and yet today we still don't have Pokemon games that are that easy to play multiplayer let alone massively. I would like to believe "they" just aren't interested in taking the franchise in that direction. The cynic in me thinks they lack the technical expertise or the imagination to even try.