Pokemon Co. talks franchise growth, goals, why traditional installments aren't on mobile

Coming from a Wall Street Journal interview with Pokemon Co.'s Tsunekazu Ishihara...

- internally, no one really thought Pikachu was particularly special before the franchise launched
- now Pokémon Co. 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 Pokémon 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