The Pokemon Company's COO Addresses Possibility of Slowing Down Game Releases

The Pokemon Company is "having conversations" about how to ensure that future Pokemon games are quality products while being released on a regular release schedule. At the Pokemon World Championships in Yokohama, Japan, ComicBook.com had the opportunity to participate in a group interview with Takato Utsunomiya, the chief operating officer of The Pokemon Company. While the interview was limited to overall questions about the brand as opposed to specifics about the game or anime, ComicBook.com did ask whether there was a specific schedule that the Pokemon brand was beholden to when it came to the release of new Pokemon games. 

"I think in general, if you look at the past, the path we've taken up until now has been this constant release, always regularly releasing products on a fairly fixed kind of a cadence, you might say," Utsunomiya responded via a translator. "Always having these products able to be introduced and new experiences for our customers, and that's how we've operated up until now. I think we're still operating in that way, but there's more and more conversations, as the development environments change, about how we can continue to do this, while making sure that we're ensuring really quality products are also being introduced." 

Utsunomiya's response was the closest we may get to an acknowledgement about the issues faced by Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, which has faced significant technical issues post-release. The games have required several significant patches since its release, which has marred what has otherwise been a top-selling game for the franchise. 

Game Freak, the developer of the Pokemon main series games, has released new Pokemon games on an almost annual schedule since the franchise launched in 1996. Over the past 27 years, only 7 years have passed when Game Freak has not released a new main series game. We will note that the introduction of Pokemon Sword and Shield provided a new wrinkle to the release schedule, as Game Freak opted to release DLC in 2020 instead of a new game or remake. DLC for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is also due to be the 2023 release, with the first portion coming out in September.