Pokemon Sleep and Pokemon GO Weren’t Designed To Be “Healthcare” Titles

gameranx.com:

The Pokemon Company has been around for decades, and they have adapted to the ever-changing video game landscape better than most. It would’ve been incredibly easy for them to latch onto their mainline RPG franchise and ride off into the sunset with it. But instead, they decided to branch off and do various spinoffs that tapped into other genres. While not every one was a mega-hit, plenty of them sold well, and thus the spinoffs continued. But over the last seven years, titles like Pokemon Sleep and Pokemon GO have gotten people wondering if the company is trying to do something else with their titles.

By that, we mean how the two games are just as much about staying healthy as about catching and collecting Pokemon. In an interview with ComicBook.com, The Pokemon Company COO Takato Utsunomiya revealed that it wasn’t meant to be about “wellness” or “healthcare” but rather about putting Pokemon into people’s lives in new ways:

“Just to clarify a little bit on the positioning of the products, we didn’t really begin Pokemon Go or Pokemon Sleep with the idea that we wanted to get into the wellness or healthcare category. It was really more of a focus…an interesting idea where people maybe walk with their Pokemon a lot. Or for example, having this game where through your sleep you’re able to interact with Pokemon. That’s another way that maybe they sleep more. But the main idea there is that it’s more integrating Pokemon into people’s daily lives. And by doing that we’re able to increase their love for Pokemon, or also get more people interested in Pokemon and increase the fan base in general.”

So not unlike many other franchises, they were interested in broadening their reach, which is understandable. Another way to look at