In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, The Pokemon Companys chief executive, Tsunekazu Ishihara, touched on a number of things including the franchise’s growth and why the main entries to the immensely popular series haven’t found their way onto mobile devices. Read on for a wealth of information:
- Internally, no one really thought Pikachu was particularly special before the franchise launched
- Now Pokemon Company employees have an image of Pikachu printed on their business card
- Franchise has accumulated more than ¥4.8 trillion ($47 billion) from games and merch
- Ishihara didn’t expect Pokemon itself to become a global phenomenon
- Original idea came from Satoshi Tajiri and his childhood interactions with insects and fish
- Pokémon games were built on those simple experiences
- Making the Pokemon company bigger is not a goal, but reinvesting revenues in order to promote its brands is
- Pokémon Co.’s net profit was just ¥619 million during its fiscal year ended February
- Ishihara says the next big goal is to maintain Pokémon as a part of the cultur
- Keeping things simple has been the key to the franchise’s success
- On mobile: “The chance of finding success in taking a product made for one platform and bringing it over to another is quite low.”
- Ishihara says the experience of playing a traditional Pokemon game is similar to reading a novel or watching a movie
- Ishihara said he’s particularly attached to Exeggutor, since he tagged along while Ishihara checked the programming of the game, and together they explored many places within it and captured characters
- Ishihara said he wants to give Exeggutor more of the spotlight
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