Pokemon Stars Discussion Thread (Speculation)

[PkmnTrainerV]

Edit: Game Freak is hiring a motion designer, a map modeler, a UI designer, a concept artist, and programmers. I suspect all of these positions are for the same game. The programmers in particular caught my attention; if they were just creating a third version or remakes, why hire programmers? I think Stars is Gen 8.

Your question has been answered many times. Stars can use the SM map, UI, concept artists. The hiring are for Gen 8. So, Stars can still be Gen 7 or Gen 7.5

 

[Ereshkigal]

Your question has been answered many times. Stars can use the SM map, UI, concept artists. The hiring are for Gen 8. So, Stars can still be Gen 7 or Gen 7.5

It was a rhetorical question. I included that section to make it clear where my thought process is going on this.

Of course, I can easily be wrong. For example, my entire premise of how Nintendo is handling Switch sales could be the opposite of the real strategy, and for the same reasons I stated in support of it. Much of the same evidence would support the opposite as well. The discrepancies are easily explained in a manner that fits Nintendo's history and development strategy. I just chose the one I think is the best-fit scenario.

 

[IncineROAR]

I'm judging by the last few pages of discussion, there are really no new sources of information regarding the next Pokemon game. Has there been anything (speculative) and I missed it?

 

[godiego]

Nintendo non-portables are also generally the least successful of their consoles ever since the N64 hit the market. The Wii was a pretty good exception, but the Wii U, Gamecube, and N64 all did poorly. Add on the Virtual Boy, and grand total you have four out of seven home consoles being flops. That goes into my question much earlier of how Nintendo is going to treat the Switch; if they are going to treat it just as another home console, it will likely fail in the long run.

this is a very superficial analysis. Wii U aside (which can largely be attributed to coming out too soon after the Wii and relying too heavily on the Wii's branding, let alone the fact that XBox One hasn't been doing all that hot either), the N64 and GameCube are hardly flops; your perceptions of sales figures must be skewed. the N64 was the second-best selling home console of its generation and though it was dwarfed by PlayStation sales (~100 million units vs. ~30 million units), that would simply point to the og-PS being more of an outlier. similarly with the GameCube. it slips to third place behind the XBox, but then again the GameCube and XBox were both in the 20-25 million range whereas the PS2 was sitting comfortably in the 100+ million range.

the heart of Nintendo's woes lies in their tepid relationship with third-party devs and embracing "family friendly" a bit too much.

That's the thing I think everyone is forgetting to take into account: Nintendo needs this to be a win. If the Switch sinks, it'll probably take Nintendo with it, and then we likely lose Pokemon.

not really. Nintendo certainly isn't in the most comfortable positions, but it would take a couple more flops, maybe shifting focus back to handhelds, dropping their consoles division entirely to focus on developing and publishing exclusively, and then an endgame of selling/licensing their IPs. Nintendo really won't be going anywhere lest Mario and Pokemon go first.

The other side of this is that competition gets more predictable the longer GF delays. Right now, they're up against a surprise smash hit and two very popular games. There's also the fact that popular Nintendo titles are slated to hit the switch in the normal Pokemon launch windows; no matter when it releases this year, it's going to be at a disadvantage. And that's not even counting the games coming out that ignore the normal rules of development or sales, and thus cannot be predicted as easily. GF has every reason to take one look at the Switch game lineup and decide to just skip this year.

but why would i have to choose one? why can't i buy a Switch and BOTW now and then Pokemon at the end of the year? why can't i wait until the end of the year and buy a Switch and Pokemon and hell maybe even BOTW (since holiday sales)? or even buying BOTW and a Switch at the end of the year and buying the new Pokemon after the new year....... and so on with various permutations demonstrating my choices. there's more to it than just "lots of games are coming out, therefore more competition, therefore less favorable."

 

[Silktree]

However even if Stars is real which I don't think it is. I don't think it would come out this year because recently mainline Pokemon games have been announced in the first months in the year the game comes out barring remakes.

So you're only counting B2W2, XY and SM. The former were released in June in Japan, and the latter two obviously warranted the extra promotion.

 

[Ereshkigal]

I'm judging by the last few pages of discussion, there are really no new sources of information regarding the next Pokemon game. Has there been anything (speculative) and I missed it?

Nope! We're just spinning our wheels keeping the conversation going.

this is a very superficial analysis. Wii U aside (which can largely be attributed to coming out too soon after the Wii and relying too heavily on the Wii's branding, let alone the fact that XBox One hasn't been doing all that hot either), the N64 and GameCube are hardly flops; your perceptions of sales figures must be skewed. the N64 was the second-best selling home console of its generation and though it was dwarfed by PlayStation sales (~100 million units vs. ~30 million units), that would simply point to the og-PS being more of an outlier. similarly with the GameCube. it slips to third place behind the XBox, but then again the GameCube and XBox were both in the 20-25 million range whereas the PS2 was sitting comfortably in the 100+ million range.

the heart of Nintendo's woes lies in their tepid relationship with third-party devs and embracing "family friendly" a bit too much.

To a certain degree, it has to be a superficial analysis; no one wants to read forty or more pages of text on analyzing Nintendo's history for what amounts to one person speculating on the release date of a Pokemon game. I'm wall-of-texting beyond the point of reasonable as it is, and am possibly disrupting the thread with sheer length of my posts already.

Also, you're missing something else: The N64 and Gamecube both were outsold by the Nintendo handhelds of the same era. Nintendo's home console was competing in sales not just with its Sony rivals, but with Nintendo's own portables. The handhelds themselves prove that Nintendo has the marketing power to do better than the N64 and Gamecube did, so that points to the systems doing poorly despite their respectable sales compared to last place. Nintendo also spends a lot more on advertising than Microsoft does, and doesn't have a more successful sales area to absorb losses like Microsoft and Sony do, so a gaming console failing or doing poorly is going to hit them harder than it will Sony or Microsoft.

Microsoft is naturally going to do poorer because they're both the newer company and unpopular in several regions from the start, so they simply don't have the marketing power to do as well as Nintendo and Sony; they're third-stringers as long as Nintendo and Sony don't mess up. So, I was not counting on them in my analysis simply because there's nothing they can do to be anything other than last place. Comparing Nintendo to them is like comparing Walmart to a mom-and-pop grocery store.

not really. Nintendo certainly isn't in the most comfortable positions, but it would take a couple more flops, maybe shifting focus back to handhelds, dropping their consoles division entirely to focus on developing and publishing exclusively, and then an endgame of selling/licensing their IPs. Nintendo really won't be going anywhere lest Mario and Pokemon go first.

If it were a case of lower profits, I could see your point. But Nintendo only recently came out of operating at a loss for years. And 2016 was not a good year for them either. Not to mention they already sold some of their IPs, and after the Wii U failed they actually did effectively drop their consoles division to fall back to handhelds for a time. They've already done nearly everything on your list.

but why would i have to choose one? why can't i buy a Switch and BOTW now and then Pokemon at the end of the year? why can't i wait until the end of the year and buy a Switch and Pokemon and hell maybe even BOTW (since holiday sales)? or even buying BOTW and a Switch at the end of the year and buying the new Pokemon after the new year....... and so on with various permutations demonstrating my choices. there's more to it than just "lots of games are coming out, therefore more competition, therefore less favorable."

Because almost no one measures game or console success in the manner you describe.

Go back to those links I posted up above with sales figures, then through the tabs. You'll notice they measure the first ten weeks first, then go on to annual sales. The first ten weeks are the most crucial period of a video game's release. They make or break it as far as sales go, since that's when all of the reviews and first impressions come out. They also make or break consoles in the same manner, and that's the data third party developers are going to be relying on when deciding whether or not to risk committing fully to the Switch. That's also typically the period where the players find out whether or not a game is going to do well, just by news stories of how many people are buying and playing it and reviews from their friends and trusted reviewers who did buy it.

There are the outliers like you describe, but those are not the people Nintendo needs to convince if they want the Switch to be truly successful.

 

[DoctorWhy]

Ah, good point. The article does say that. Here's what else the article says:



Now, let's take a look at a quote from this article:



That's interesting... Especially since, in Europe, Wii Sports was bundled with the Switch.

Just to confirm, here's a second source:



Well, a third source points out how this is possible, with this quote coming directly from a tweet within it:



And a fourth source confirms it.

So, basically, that's the answer: The Switch simply sold more consoles than the Wii did, and with basically nine out of ten owners of the Switch also buying Zelda.

That's only launch window sales. Actually, launch weekend sales. That's it. BOTW outsold Wii Sports based on their first weekends, nothing later is counted.

 

[Ereshkigal]

That's only launch window sales. Actually, launch weekend sales. That's it. BOTW outsold Wii Sports based on their first weekends, nothing later is counted.

That is a very good point. It's still far too early in the launch to truly make any reliable predictions.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Okay... here's some food for thought!

Would GF consider implementing some of the Switch's features into Pokemon Stars?
My Ideas-:
1. HD rumble could be used in Pokemon refresh, and to go along with the animation of moves-: for ex. Earthquake creates a very high rumble, and water gun creates a comparatively lower one.
2. Motion Controls to use Pokemon refresh in dock mode.

Here's some features for Gen VIII/releases after Stars-:
1. Some, if not all features utilising an open world environment. (PokePelago comes to mind, along with Ultra Space and Distortion World)

 

[Ereshkigal]

2. Motion Controls to use Pokemon refresh in dock mode.

Motion controls to perform Z-moves would be awesome.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Motion controls to perform Z-moves would be awesome.

That would be possible only in docked mode, and should be optional, since I don't think players will like dancing to use z moves XD.

It'd surely make players take the individual dances seriously, though.
You just planted in my mind a random image of me dancing in front of the TV along with my Raichu (and I'm a TERRIBLE dancer)...

 

[Ereshkigal]

That would be possible only in docked mode, and should be optional, since I don't think players will like dancing to use z moves XD.

It'd surely make players take the individual dances seriously, though.
You just planted in my mind a random image of me dancing in front of the TV along with my Raichu (and I'm a TERRIBLE dancer)...

Definitely optional. But, I'm imagining dancing around too, and I just wouldn't pass up the opportunity.

After being able to use shouts in Skyrim by yelling, my housemates already want the gaming room soundproofed anyway XD

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Definitely optional. But, I'm imagining dancing around too, and I just wouldn't pass up the opportunity.

After being able to use shouts in Skyrim by yelling, my housemates already want the gaming room soundproofed anyway XD

Slightly on offtopic territory... but I plan to place my future Switch in the living room... and I'd be tempted to host dance competitions with the Z-Moves there XD.

I thought about the functionality of IR scanner. Any ideas on that?

 

[Ereshkigal]

Slightly on offtopic territory... but I plan to place my future Switch in the living room... and I'd be tempted to host dance competitions with the Z-Moves there XD.

I thought about the functionality of IR scanner. Any ideas on that?

I had to set up a gaming room to stop complaints. Plus, the police were called a couple times over victory cry... Luckily, I have a basement.

IR Scanner, I think, will be pure Gen 8. I can even see them setting it up so you can indicate which attack you want a Pokemon to use just by the hand signal you give. And possibly rock-paper-scissors as in-game competitions.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

Here's something interesting that popped up a few days ago.

 

[StandbyForBattle]

@EmpoleonProd I'm thinking Pokemon Stars will get pull back till 2018, now they are hiring 3d designers, character model, who has has experienced with Wii U, PS Vita, and 3ds. Look like 2017 is a break year for pokemon and we might see Stars in 2018 and DP remake in 2019, Possibly Gen 8 in 2020

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

@EmpoleonProd I'm thinking Pokemon Stars will get pull back till 2018, now they are hiring 3d designers, character model, who has has experienced with Wii U, PS Vita, and 3ds. Look like 2017 is a break year for pokemon and we might see Stars in 2018 and DP remake in 2019, Possibly Gen 8 in 2020

It was spoken a while ago that Stars could use the same SM engine, therefore not requiring the extra staff. The hirings can be for Gen VIII

 

[IncineROAR]

I'm so bored with Sun and Moon that I've started replaying Pokemon ORAS. There's nothing in the postgame of SM that makes me want to stay engaged, and it seems like it will be a while before the next Pokemon game.

Unless GF is subtle with its news of another title in this generation like it was with ORAS, I'm pretty sure we aren't getting anything in the main series until next year, which I think will be a whole new generation.

 

[PurplePopplio]

I, too, am bored with Moon. So I am playing Yokai Watch till we wait for something conclusive. Seems like it's going to be a long wait.

 

[lavandula]

Ya... I'm playing Monster Hunter XX now.
There isn't much I can do on Pokemon Moon, and I decided VGC 2017 is not really for me.