More than any other current publisher, Nintendo has had the most roller coaster of a journey, mainly because they have had many ups and downs in terms of their systems and the sales of said systems. They’ve been on top multiple times, and have also been on the bottom multiple times. With the Wii U, it was one of the (if not the most) most devastating blows to Nintendo ever. Which is why the Nintendo Switch was so important to them, but there was risk of course, mainly that it wouldn’t sell. And even the Pokemon Let’s Go team was worried.
That’s right, even the teams making the games for the Switch were worried about it and its sales. Junichi Masuda, longtime Pokemon producer and director of Pokemon Let’s Go noted that while working on the game, the team was very nervous:
The major concern we had when development first started was how well Nintendo Switch would sell. After all, we were working on development before the hardware had even been released, so we really couldn’t predict at all whether the console was going to sell well or not. Of course, we were all quite relieved to see it hit record sales figures after its release! (Laughs.)”
Another struggle for the team was the “keyword” that they would use to help define their title:
“We have always decided a keyword for our projects, but the truth is that we didn’t have a single definitive keyword this time. Instead we had the idea of creating a game that wouldn’t be frightening and that everyone could play together in their living room. That’s because these games started off from the desire to rebuilt the Pokemon series for the new home gaming console – Nintendo Switch – based on the 1999 Game Boy title Pokemon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition. If we simply brought Pokemon Yellow to Nintendo Switch as it was, though, we would only see a limited number of people play the game. That’s why we forged ahead with adding Pokemon-catching mechanics from Pokemon GO and the two-player Support Play feature, and we really included as many new ways to play as we could manage.”
The success of the Switch and Let’s Go speak for themselves.
