7 years and several dozen games later, Poke-mania is still going strong

[Great Rumbler]

In just the first 15 days of August, hungry Pokemon fans have already reserved more than 150,000 copies of Pokemon® FireRed or Pokemon® LeafGreen for Game Boy® Advance - a rate more than 200 percent ahead of the 2003 Pokemon® Ruby and Pokemon® Sapphire pre-sell. Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire went on to rank No. 2 and No. 3 in video games sold in the United States that year.

Pokemon FireRed and Pokemon LeafGreen will be available Sept. 7 at an MSRP of $39.99 each. The games will come bundled with the new Game Boy® Advance Wireless Adapter, which will let players trade, battle and chat with one another with no connecting cords. Those reserving copies in advance at participating retailers also receive a copy of the Pokemon Pocket Trainer's Guide.

"The advance sales on the Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire versions last year were phenomenal - combined, they sold through more than 4 million games in America alone," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "This pre-sell indicates more than twice the player interest!"

I stopped pretending to understand this phenominon years ago.

Planet Gamecube

[A Black Falcon]

It teaches Nintendo that making "new" games which involve very little new work can suceed!

[OB1]

It's a good thing that they haven't made a real Pokemon game for any of their home consoles otherwise it'd sell really well, something that Nintendo obviously doesn't want to happen!

[Great Rumbler]

It teaches Nintendo that making "new" games which involve very little new work can suceed!

I blame the consumers.

It's a good thing that they haven't made a real Pokemon game for any of their home consoles otherwise it'd sell really well, something that Nintendo obviously doesn't want to happen!

I've never understood that either.

[OB1]

I think someone big at Nintendo genuinely doesn't want any huge-sellers to be released on their home consoles.

[Great Rumbler]

I wouldn't know, Paul.*


*Name the movie that quote came from and I'll give you a billion dollars in fun money!!

[Geno]

Dude, George Harrison is NOA's senior vice president? I thought he was dead!

(Ignore me, I'm having one of my stupid spasms.)

[A Black Falcon]

They want the big sales to stay on the GB, where they know sales will be ridiculously massive. While a GC one would sell fantastically, sell many GCs, and be one of the GC's best selling games, no way in the world would it ever compare, or come even close to, the ones on GBA... that is probably their reasoning. Though if the goal is raising the GC ownerbase, it's a bad one.

[OB1]

Nintendo doesn't need to increase GBA sales, they need to increase GC sales.

[Great Rumbler]

GBA sales are already on par with the PS2.

[Dark Jaguar]

I believe their thinking isn't that they need to increase GBA sales, it's that they need to MAINTAIN those sales, and the only way to do that is to keep the stream of games coming. They likely figure if they focus on the GCN, and the big name titles for GBA drop as a result, the people will turn away from the GBA, and they don't know if they could recover, not with the PSP right around the corner. And yes, I also do believe it's not about selling more GBAs, just more games. Make a game for the GCN and you will sell FAR less copies than if you make one for the GBA.

I'm fairly certain focusing on the most succesful system makes good business sense.

[A Black Falcon]

OB1, by this point I don't think Pokemon games are increasing GBA sales, they are just selling to the already massive install base... while a GC game would increase sales much more noticably for that system. But as I said if they're just looking at it as 'which title will sell/make more', the GBA titles are the way to go. The variable really is how much they think the overall impact (as in sales of other games, not Pokemon) of those new sales they'd get on the GC would be if they released a full GC Pokemon RPG... that I don't know. But I would suspect that even considering that in most cases it still makes the best business sense to continue with the GBA games. Especially when you consider the massive cost differences to make said games.

[OB1]

Who said that they should make a real GC Pokemon game instead of a new GBA game?? Get one of their console devs to make a home console Pokemon game and it'll sell like hot cakes did back in the day! Of course it won't sell as well as the GBA Pokes, but it will most likely sell better than the measly 150,000 units that most of their recent GC games do.

[Dark Jaguar]

*Plays Pokemon Colloseum* Gee ABF, I wonder what a GCN Pokemon RPG would be like...

[A Black Falcon]

DJ, we all know that that is a half effort, not a true Pokemon RPG.

[Dark Jaguar]

I HAVE it, and it's a full game all right, just a very short one, ala Xenosaga.

[Great Rumbler]

Xenosaga was short?

[Geno]

Pokémon's games are over 90% gimmicks.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yes, Xenosaga was PAINFULLY short. They are going with this chapter based thing, which is the reason WHY it's so short, but still, I sorta miss the days of games that took 50 hours to beat instead of 5! (Yes, that's exxageration, more like 15~20, but you get my point.)

[A Black Falcon]

15-20 hours isn't short, DJ...

[N-Man]

Sigh. It could have been so beautiful.

They could have hidden Pokemon in other games, and you could have gotten them by finding secret shit, and then linked back into your Pokemon cart to use them...

They could have made Ash (or whatever) an actual bloody character, put in a mildly interesting storyline, and have fights in other contexts than I-want-to-fight-the-goddamn-gym-leaders-for-the-twenty-sixth-time *breathe* -and-attain-nothing-but-the-vague-concept-of-being-the-"very best". I suppose he looked too much like Ness to become a mainstay of the Nintendo characters' crew. Oh wait, they're never making an Earthbound game ever again so it doesn't really matter.

They could have made a massive groundbreaking MMORPG on the 'Cube that would have established it as the premier online console, with player-controlled gyms, epic battles and genetic Poke-engineering.

Instead they just slapped together a bajillion more halfassed Pokemon and remade the same two games over and over again, and the kids just eat it up - which, btw, makes one of my friends desperate for the future generations.

Ahh well.

[Dark Jaguar]

It is if you're me you know ABF. Games I take 50 hours to beat, review sites take 20 to beat. Games I take 99:59 hours to beat (actually iit's probably a lot more, but the clock stopped), are probably more like 40 hours long. I just never EVER feel rushed to beat an RPG. I always take my time, talking to EVERY SINGLE PERSON until they repeat themselves and so on, and sometimes I just find myself far from a save point and leave the system on ALL DAY while I go out, so my clock time very often has no real bearing on the time it takes to beat the game if you just rush through only doing what's needed to see the end credits.

[Geno]

What's the fun of an RPG that you rush through? You gotta stop and smell the roses every now and then.

[OB1]

Please, Colloseum is as much a real Pokemon RPG as nick is an actual Nazi.

[big guy]

SHAKE SHAKE!!!

[Great Rumbler]

Alright, you can stop doing that!!

[big guy]

i think pokemon would be better if they added a shaking aspect to it.

[Geno]

What do you think the new Pikachu Orgasm game is all about?

...

Oh, they haven't made that yet. Nevermind.

[big guy]

but they should.

i wanna see that electric mouse cum.

[OB1]

:confused2 :crap:

[Great Rumbler]

Ha-ha, that is totally more information than we need here.

And now for something completely different.

[OB1]

*waits for something completely different*

[Geno]

Um... Pokémon Shoot-Em-Up! Pikachu goes on a killing spree!

Is that different enough?

[Great Rumbler]

Yes, but hardly less disturbing.

[Geno]

Okay, fine... Pokémon: An Actual Storyline-oriented RPG for Gamecube. How's that?

[Great Rumbler]

That's better.

[Dark Jaguar]

That HAPPENS to be Colloseum! I OWN it! I know of what I speak!

[OB1]

You're seriously kidding yourself if you consider Colloseum to be a full Pokemon RPG. It's like calling Super Monkey Ball a golf sim because of it's put-put mode.

[Great Rumbler]

Has anyone here even played it besides DJ?

[OB1]

Yeah my friend got it and I played it for a while. Anyone that calls it a full Pokemon RPG has either a) never played the Gameboy Pokemon games, b) has extremely low standards, or c) is loony.

[big guy]

no

[Bubsy_the_Bobcat]

I can't believe there are still people out there who like Pokemon...

It was fun at first, but then it got out of control. There was Pokemon everything. I wouldn't be surprised if there was Pokemon toilet paper during the climax of the Pokemon fad. The Pokemon fad is the only fad that I've ever been sucked into, but I got out of it quickly. :clap:

[Great Rumbler]

I used to play a lot of Pokemon games, but not anymore.

[Geno]

They're all the same games, just with different towns and different Pokémon. It was more fun when it was just Red and Blue. (And maybe Yellow.) Gold and Silver weren't too bad, but after that it just got stupid.

I don't care even care about the classic Pokémon games anymore. There are so many other games I'd rather be playing.