PokéNews (Sept. 20, Round 2): Pokémon Bank / Tsunekazu Ishihara on NX, Pokémon GO

Today’s Pokémon News (Round 2), with Pokémon Bank update for Pokémon Sun and Moon coming in January, but also…

• Tsunekazu Ishihara interview
• Pokémon goodies

Pokémon Bank

Today, The Pokémon Company uploaded a new trailer for Pokémon Bank:

But what’s interesting is not so much the trailer itself, but the description. It reveals that the next update for Pokémon Bank will be released in January 2017. As announced previously, it will add compatibility with Pokémon Sun and Moon, and allow players to transfer their Pokémon from the following versions:

• Pokémon X and Y
• Pokémon Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire
• Pokémon Red Version / Blue Version / Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition

We can imagine that The Pokémon Company prefered to avoid releasing the update during the holiday period and at Pokémon Sun and Moon launch. They most definitely haven’t forgotten what happened in 2013 when Pokémon Bank was released on Christmas day in Japan…

Tsunekazu Ishihara interview

Today, the Wall Street Journal published a short interview with Tsunekazu Ishihara (CEO of The Pokémon Company). In that interview, he confirms what was pretty obvious (and didn’t really require a confirmation):

We will make games for the NX.

But what’s really interesting is the quote just before that one, which says the following:

The NX is trying to change the concept of what it means to be a home console device or a hand-held device

This quote more or less confirms the various rumours regarding the NX, which seems to be some sort of hybrid.

Tsunekazu Ishihara also talks about Pokémon GO, and explains that the reaction was “10 times or even 100 times bigger” to what they were expecting. He also confirmed that additional features such as battles and trading were coming later down the line, but didn’t say when they would be added.

Adding those features will not be easy, as the developers have to take into account more casual players:

It’s important to really carefully consider any feature that may increase the difficulty and raise the barrier to entry for more casual users

Right now, Niantic is working on launching Pokémon GO in more countries, but it’s not easy. For example, in China and Korea, the use of Google Maps is extremely limited, which is quite problematic for a game that entirely relies on Google’s service.

Finally, Tsunekazu Ishihara doesn’t give any actual data regarding the positive impact of Pokémon GO on Nintendo 3DS, and Pokémon games (Nintendo 3DS, TCG). That being said, he does reveal that sales are “running 30% to 50% ahead of what would normally be expected.”

Source: Wall Street Journal

Pokémon goodies

Finally, here’s more pictures of the Evil Teams goodies, launching on October 8th in Japan (exclusively at the Pokémon Center stores):

Source: The Pokémon Company