20 Years of Pokemon: What Did Nintendo Do This Year?
February 27, 1997. This was the day that the portable gaming industry was redefined by one series: Pokemon. With its concept of catching, befriending and training various elemental creatures, the series has went on to have its latest iteration, Pokemon X and Pokemon Y, reach 1 million sales within the day of its release.
Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have been hard at work promoting the series for the past months, culminating with a Super Bowl ad with the mantra of “I can do that.”. Over the span of the next few months, a multitude of Pokemon content is to be released, starting today.
Classic Re Release
Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow, the “Generation One” games of the series, are going to be released on February 27, the very day that the series had its debut in Japan.
They will be sold on the Nintendo 3DS eShop for $9.99, or approximately ₱470 with the key feature of wireless trading as the Nintendo 3DS does not have link cable functionality. In addition, limited edition hardware models for both the Nintendo 3DS and 2DS lines will be released.
Pokemon Sun and Moon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmzDL1l3Fag
Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon, the latest games in the series, were only recently announced in a Nintendo Direct broadcast on February 26.
In-depth details for the games have not been elaborated yet aside from its target global release date of Holiday 2016, the addition of Traditional and Simplified Chinese languages and the games’ ability to receive captured Pokemon from the digital re release of the “Generation One” titles using the “Pokemon Bank” software.
Pokken Tournament
After a year in the arcades of Japan, Pokken Tournament by Bandai Namco will finally be released on consoles and in the western world sometime this spring.
Produced by Tekken creator Katsuhiro Harada, it is being shaped to have a competitive community from the get-go. The Pokemon Championship Series, the franchise’s equivalent of Riot’s League Championship Series, is set to have it as one of the games ran.
It will also be joining Evolution 2016’s game line-up, becoming the 4th Nintendo game to have a tournament held in the Vegas-based fighting game world championships, joining Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Mario Kart DS.
Pokemon Go
A thing fans have been clamoring the company about since the dawn of smartphone applications is having Pokemon games with them on their phones. Being a primarily console company, it wasn’t until 2015 that Nintendo decided to delve into the mobile gaming industry.
Pokemon Go is developer Niantic’s Augmented Reality (AR) take on the franchise. Instead of strictly being limited to the digital world, players will have to travel and search their environment for new Pokemon. Human interaction will be needed in order to progress, the known information says.
Previously, the developers also developed Ingress, another AR-based MMO game which received the Grand Prize at the 2015 Japanese Media Arts Festival.
All that said, are you excited for the 20th year of Pokemon?
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