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Pokemon Stars Discussion Thread (Speculation)

Do you think that Stars is real or Fake

  • Real

    Votes: 61 59.8%
  • Fake

    Votes: 41 40.2%

  • Total voters
    102
  • Poll closed .
Ports of 1-year old games would hardly be best. The goal should be to maximize overall sales, regardless of the system. Your scenario would do the opposite.
 
Then... I think they should try to promote Pokemon for Switch in the E3. How will Switch and Stars (with maybe a Charizard-Red/Blastoise-Blue/Venusaur-Green/Pikachu-Yellow JoyCon pack bundled be received?

Don't forget that the people who didn't have a 3DS (console owners) will be brought into Pokemon's audience.
 
Then... I think they should try to promote Pokemon for Switch in the E3. How will Switch and Stars (with maybe a Charizard-Red/Blastoise-Blue/Venusaur-Green/Pikachu-Yellow JoyCon pack bundled be received?

Don't forget that the people who didn't have a 3DS (console owners) will be brought into Pokemon's audience.
If they release such a pack, I bet there would be people going: "Kanto sequels are next!". :p

3DS would be handheld owners. Console owners would be WiiU owners.
 
If they release such a pack, I bet there would be people going: "Kanto sequels are next!". :p
Alola forms have shown that they are willing to bank onto nostalgia... (I guess I want Charizard JoyCons as I want flame red, and wing patterns on my JoyCons XD)
And, if they do a limited Charizard/Blastoise JoyCons bundled in a Switch instead of Neon JoyCons, they may sell more systems... I know that's cruel, but those are business groups.

They are easily the most iconic Pokemon of the franchise, so The Fully evolved starters+Pikachu will be the first choice when it comes to Poké-Cons.

3DS would be handheld owners. Console owners would be WiiU owners.
What I meant is that Switch will have a more diverse audience for Pokemon, and people other than 3DS owners will buy Stars too.
Suppose you're a console gamer, and keep away from handhelds. So, you have most likely not experienced Pokemon main games. You buy a Switch, and now, you are a part of Pokemon audience!
 
What I meant is that Switch will have a more diverse audience for Pokemon, and people other than 3DS owners will buy Stars too.
Suppose you're a console gamer, and keep away from handhelds. So, you have most likely not experienced Pokemon main games. You buy a Switch, and now, you are a part of Pokemon audience!
I don't think console gamers (the XBox and PS kind) will buy Pokemon, considering they typically prefer graphics over anything else, and Pokemon is lacking in that department.
 
I don't think console gamers (the XBox and PS kind) will buy Pokemon, considering they typically prefer graphics over anything else, and Pokemon is lacking in that department.

If they preferred graphics over anything else, they would've been PC gamers instead :p

Seriously though, I think the biggest reason people play console games is because they like to play games on the tv while hanging out on the couch. The biggest reason I've heard from people who don't own handhelds is because handhelds have small screens and small buttons, it's just less comfortable to play games on. And Xbox and PS owners probably aren't that interested in getting a Switch in the first place, Stars is mostly interesting for Nintendo fans that are console-only gamers, and people who have played Pokémon on handheld, but would love to play it on TV. Both probably quite a big group anyway.
 
I don't think console gamers (the XBox and PS kind) will buy Pokemon, considering they typically prefer graphics over anything else, and Pokemon is lacking in that department.

What about Wii and Wii U owners? Those weren't the most powerful consoles of their Gen.
 
The Wii had over 100 million consumers, most of whom didn't care about the lacking graphics. I doubt that the Switch will be that successful, but it has the potential to reach the 3DS' numbers despite the higher price tag.

Not to be forceful or anything, but I was hoping that my counterarguments against the Eurogamer report wouldn't just be ignored.
 
1. According to Nintendo, the decision to release a Switch port of the Zelda game was only made last spring. In contrast, back in November Eurogamer referred to Stars as being "well into development" due to the "parallel development structure" alongside SM. The project was supposedly paused around September for SM's sake, but it would have been at least a year in development by then. The obvious question is: Why would Game Freak have had at least a 6 months' head start on the Zelda team, who are part of Nintendo? If anything, Game Freak are the ones that can bide their time regarding the Switch.

Just because the Zelda team made the decision to release a Switch port that 'late', doesn't mean they haven't been considering it way earlier. Maybe they just decided to not make a Switch port first because it was too much work to turn a huge Wii U game into a Switch port, but later decided to do it anyway.

SM is a MUCH smaller game, and that's still an understatement. Deciding to make a port on the Switch might've been not so hard a decision and GF started on it immediately.

2. The fact that the Zelda team decided to port their game so late implies that the Switch was originally supposed to be released in late 2017, which isn't hard to believe at all. And yet according to Eurogamer, Game Freak initially planned a summer 2017 release date? Regardless of the original target for the Switch's launch, Game Freak not waiting until the holidays would have been a weird move.

I'm probably missing something here, but why does the Zelda team making that decision imply anything about the release date of the Switch?

3. Nintendo recently doubled their Switch sales forecast for the upcoming fiscal year (till April 2018). It's hard to imagine what would give them that much confidence if they didn't have Game Freak's support. But then, why did they have so much lower expectations until recently? Sure, the Switch's initial sales seem to have exceeded expectations, but that is not a reliable metric for the future (most consoles have similiar sales initially due to limited supplies). Could a Switch Pokemon game actually be a recent decision? Is anything Eurogamer said about Stars real?

What more confidence do they need than the Switch being sold out everywhere? :p That seems to me a good enough reason to double the sales forecast really.

4. I don't doubt that Eurogamer has sources at Nintendo, but it seems to me that these "leaks" are actually marketing stunts. Maybe the Stars rumor was just a ruse meant to gauge interest in a 2017 Switch Pokemon title, but the specific details are deliberately false. It's one thing to make us expect Pokemon on the Switch, since that generates hype, but telling us what the game is doesn't leave much in the way of surprise. Why do that at least six months ahead of the announcement?

Eurogamer has proven its worth with multiple correct leaks. It could be fake, it could not be, but they have a good reputation when it comes to these sorts of things. They reported it early cause they want to be the first to report it, that's all there is about it.
 
I am definitely with Silktree on this one. His theory makes a lot of sense, and GF are ALWAYS very careful before developing on a new hardware, and I don´t see them accepting to develop on Switch so soon.

And Masuda and Ohmori have said in 3 different interviews (all of them given in Spain) that they are not gonna develop anything on Switch until they see its reception. (yes, it could be PR talk, but it not necessarily is just that).
 
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While I think Stars is unlikely as it seems a little weird to move to another console mid-gen, especially for GF, the lag in double battles and mega evolution/Z move animations makes me want it more and more (Playing on N3DS). Plus, it may just push me to "make the switch", eh? Hahahahahaha, please end me.
 
If they preferred graphics over anything else, they would've been PC gamers instead :p

Seriously though, I think the biggest reason people play console games is because they like to play games on the tv while hanging out on the couch. The biggest reason I've heard from people who don't own handhelds is because handhelds have small screens and small buttons, it's just less comfortable to play games on. And Xbox and PS owners probably aren't that interested in getting a Switch in the first place, Stars is mostly interesting for Nintendo fans that are console-only gamers, and people who have played Pokémon on handheld, but would love to play it on TV. Both probably quite a big group anyway.

I think that's a cultural thing, in that it depends on which cultural family you fall into as to your typical preferences. I know Japanese prefer handhelds over home consoles.

Not to be forceful or anything, but I was hoping that my counterarguments against the Eurogamer report wouldn't just be ignored.

I agree with you, and I have nothing to add or argue with. You made a good argument.
 
Just because the Zelda team made the decision to release a Switch port that 'late', doesn't mean they haven't been considering it way earlier. Maybe they just decided to not make a Switch port first because it was too much work to turn a huge Wii U game into a Switch port, but later decided to do it anyway.

SM is a MUCH smaller game, and that's still an understatement. Deciding to make a port on the Switch might've been not so hard a decision and GF started on it immediately.
That seems like reverse logic to me. It's the bigger game that should require more foresight and development. Game Freak are the ones with the luxury of time in this case.

I'm probably missing something here, but why does the Zelda team making that decision imply anything about the release date of the Switch?
Because Zelda is the only launch game worth mentioning. What would have happened if the port hadn't been ready? We know that by the end of 2015, the Wii U version was supposed to be released in 2016. I'd say that the original plan was to port the game a year after the initial release.

What more confidence do they need than the Switch being sold out everywhere? :p That seems to me a good enough reason to double the sales forecast really.
It sold out because its initial supply of 2 million units, was pretty conservative to begin with. The 3DS sold 3.61 million units in its first month. And yet the 3DS needed a price cut to keep the momentum going; its first year wasn't a success.

Sure, the Switch's current sales show potential. But that is not enough to warrant doubling sales projections.

Eurogamer has proven its worth with multiple correct leaks. It could be fake, it could not be, but they have a good reputation when it comes to these sorts of things. They reported it early cause they want to be the first to report it, that's all there is about it.
They were wrong about Mario being a launch title instead of Zelda.

No doubt their track record with the Switch's concept and specs can't be dismissed. But I can see why their sources wanted to share that information 2-3 months ahead of the reveal... To give hungry fans something to discuss.

With Stars, making fans look forward to a Switch game makes sense, but actually telling us what it is 6 months in advance... seems counter-productive to me.
 
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...About this Stars thread:

What I'm looking at on whether or not the supposed next game will be on the switch or the 3DS is the cursed situation Game Freak has been forced into. This thread conflict looks like the arguments the Game Freak staff itself must have had to figure out in order to go forward. And I really have no clue what they have decided to do... But here are some things to think about.

When looking at the Switch rollout, a lot of pundits speculate that the console was very rushed out to the market. There are a lot of missing features in the console that are taken for granted in most consoles right now - let alone most modern devices with a decent screen. Some people speculate that if the Wii U kept getting decent profits, the Switch could have been delayed all the way until 2018... Well, at the very most, I'd think.

In this way, I'm thinking that in Game Freak's eyes, their whole timing part of introducing Sun & Moon got caught up in the rushed out timing of the Switch. Perhaps their true plan was to make their next part of Gen VII on the 3DS, thinking that Switch would have come out much later than it really was. But then, Nintendo may have put pressure on them to promote the Switch somehow - and putting their next games on the 3DS wouldn't be a good way to do that.

Whatever they decided to do though... I'm kind of feeling bad for Game Freak right now, for whatever decision they make can't solve every major problem they're having.
 
i'm starting to think that pokemon stars may not happen this year because gamefreak are now finding character modeler and 3d game designer, since it takes a while to develop a game, and gamefreak are testing to see how pokemon would work on switch, I starting to think that stars may get pushed back till 2018, or maybe i'm wrong and they might finish in time?

also, I agree, gamefreak developing stars both 3ds and switch just wouldn't work for 3 reasons
1. they stated that stars is switch exclusive, so there's no possibillity adding stars to 3ds
2. sun and moon reached it's limit to 3ds, especially some of the stuff lagged and left out the materials from the game, which does make since to add to a new engine
3. I don't think they'll do a cross platform for stars, they did start off sun and moon on 3ds (which we assume that it'll stay on 3ds), also sun/moon reached it limit on 3ds, but if stars was on 3ds, don't you think it won't have enough room from the materials that were left out of sun/moon, it would a total waist if GF did that. Back to the cross-platform, what if this codename stars is just a switch hd version sun and moon, we already have it for 3ds, and they're probably developing for switcg using codename stars. What bugs me a bit is, kids already still use to 3ds, now they got pay a lot of money for switch to play pokemon. Also i'm starting to think switch is probably for spin-off games instead main games, because GF did pokemon maing games on handheld games, now, since switch are both handheld and a home console, I don't know how GF might pull this off with main series pokemon, what do you think of my opinion?
 
That seems like reverse logic to me. It's the bigger game that should require more foresight and development. Game Freak are the ones with the luxury of time in this case.

Yes, but my point was: the Zelda team maybe at first didn't want to make a port, because it was too much work. They'd already been working on the Wii U version for years iirc, and from what I've heard, quite some things had to be scrapped because they would only work on the Wii U version (like using the Gamepad's touch screen for some features).

Because Zelda is the only launch game worth mentioning. What would have happened if the port hadn't been ready? We know that by the end of 2015, the Wii U version was supposed to be released in 2016. I'd say that the original plan was to port the game a year after the initial release.

Maybe another game was going to be the launch game at first, like:

They were wrong about Mario being a launch title instead of Zelda.

Maybe they weren't wrong at all, things just changed at a later time ;)

It sold out because its initial supply of 2 million units, was pretty conservative to begin with. The 3DS sold 3.61 million units in its first month. And yet the 3DS needed a price cut to keep the momentum going; its first year wasn't a success.

Maybe they were afraid people would find it too expensive or whatever. Like you said, the 3DS wasn't a huge success at first exactly for that reason. They kept the supply low cause "all the Switches sold out!" sounds a lot better than "not even 25% of all Switches were sold". But 250 bucks was a huge amount of money for a handheld, while 300 for a console is pretty normal and cheaper than the Xone and the PS4 were at launch, so a lot less people have problems with that. So now that they've seen that, they feel safe to up the sales projections.

While discussing that, I'm not sure why the doubled sales projections prove that Stars isn't true (or I misunderstood and you meant something else). A Pokémon game on the Switch would be a good reason to expect more sales, right?

No doubt their track record with the Switch's concept and specs can't be dismissed. But I can see why their sources wanted to share that information 2-3 months ahead of the reveal... To give hungry fans something to discuss.

With Stars, making fans look forward to a Switch game makes sense, but actually telling us what it is 6 months in advance... seems counter-productive to me.

I repeat: because they want to be the first to report it. If you find spectacular news, you're not gonna wait to give hungry fans something to discuss, you're gonna report it before someone else beats you to it. They don't care about fans, they care about scoops.

EDIT: Wait I misunderstood and you meant why the sources revealed it that early and not EG. Though it sorta comes down to the same thing. If you're willing to secretly reveal stuff that isn't supposed to be revealed yet, then you don't really care about fans getting to know things too early in the first place, right? If you know a thing, you share it as soon as possible so you're the one who revealed the thing and can feel important for a while. These sources could even be people who don't work on the game themselves and heard about it indirectly and therefore care even less about that. Again, they don't care about fans, they care about scoops.
 
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