Pokémon COO wants to keep the series going ‘for hundreds of years’
The COO of The Pokémon Company has said his aim is to make sure the Pokémon series continues for “hundreds of years”.
In an interview with The Guardian, Takato Utsunomiya was asked what his current role at the company involves.
Utsunomiya replied that his role was to ensure Pokémon will outlive us all.
“I spend all day every day thinking about Pokémon,” he explained. “Our goal is to keep Pokémon alive for hundreds of years, making sure it survives well past our lifetimes.”
Utsunomiya also pointed out that while it’s important to keep satisfying existing Pokémon fans – many of whom played their first Pokémon as a child and are now adults – it’s equally as important (and harder) to ensure young players keep discovering the series.
“It’s easy to just focus on adults,” he said. “They have a lot of disposable income, you can see their reactions in real time on social media.
“But we need to make sure that we are still keeping the younger kids interested. Kids are very honest – they won’t play something they don’t like. If your brand feels old or boring, they will immediately dismiss it.”
One way the series can expand in the future, Utsunomiya says, is to show more of how Pokémon behave in the wild, rather than just treating them like interchangable RPG party members.
“In the original games, there’s quite a gap between the descriptions in the Pokédex and what you actually saw in the game,” he explained. “But starting with [Pokémon] Legends Arceus and Scarlet & Violet, you see [Pokémon like] Bidoof creating dens in the game, and you have Pokémon travelling in packs.
“So there’s a newfound realism of their setting. When it comes to delivering the descriptions seen in the original Pokédex … there’s a lot more we can do there.”
The second
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