Game Freak talks about their philosophy of bringing new non-Pokemon IPs to other platforms

sportskeeda.com:

Japanese developer Game Freak has become synonymous with the Pokemon line of RPG games. They rose to fame with Pokemon Red & Blue in 1996, cementing the iconic turn-based formula for years to come.

This is what pushed them towards stardom, becoming one of the most popular developers on the Nintendo platform. However, they have also worked on a number of unique IPs, as well as multi-platform releases over the past decade.

Speaking with VGC, the studio's key employees, including general manager Masafumi Saito, shared key details about the studio's journey so far. They discussed how new IP releases are important to the team and their mindset going forward. Here's a rundown of the details.

Game Freak's general manager, Masafumi Saito, had the following to say in the interview:

This is true. In addition to their bread-and-butter, the Pokemon series, the company has been involved with a variety of new IPs across different platforms. In fact, the first time a non-monster catcher offering from Game Freak saw mainstream success was with Drill Dozer back on Game Boy Advance in 2005.

For newer offerings, this initiative is known as the Gear Project. It includes Tembo the Badass Elephant, Harmoknight, and the Pocket Card Jockey games.

Saito further talked about how original games shouldn't be limited to "small-scale projects":

While Game Freak is often affiliated with Nintendo, they are an independent third-party studio. This is what has enabled them to work on other non-Nintendo games alongside third-party publishers.

They did face trouble initially with balancing experimental offerings alongside Pokemon. However, that collaboration process with other companies seems to have become easier as time went on. Tembo the Badass Elephant, for