Pokemon president talks about Switch, HD Rumble uses, potential for Pokemon

The following comes from a Toyo Keizai interview with Pokemon president Tsunekazu Ishihara, as translated by NE...

- he knew about Switch years ago and witnessed its various “twists and turns”
- the important factor will be making best use of HD Rumble
- there are about twenty buttons on Switch, so new players may feel like it’s a big hurdle if they haven’t played games before
- HD Rumble can create intuitive expressions
- you can create something like, “I hit the enemy and it felt hard. I should use a more powerful weapon and hit it strongly.”
- it’s possible to feel defense stats by the HD Rumble rather than a number displayed on screen
- Ishihara believes there is a possibility that the relationship between games and people can be brought to a higher level
- the main Pokemon series has been developed as a fully portable experience up until now
- with portable gaming, the advantage is that there isn’t any gap between gameplay at home and playing outside
- Switch is a home console that you can take on the go, so its characteristics are a bit different to portable systems
- the screen is slightly larger and has higher specs
- if Pokemon is released for Switch, they would have to take a different approach
- spin-offs such as Pokken Tournament and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon also exist
- these kinds of games are being considered for release in turn based on how well they match up with the system
- he can’t say “This title will be released next” at this time