Adam Hartley recently spoke with 'father of Pokemon' Tsunekazu Ishihara (pictured below) who, along with his friend Satoshi Tajiri, conceived the original idea for Pokemon around seventeen years ago.
Ishihara is 49 years old and is currently involved in the development of new Pokemon products, as well as being responsible for the overall brand management of Pokemon. He also still displays a deep love for, and understanding of, toys, which is both rare and touching for an extremely important 49-year-old businessman!
Q: What was the original inspiration behind the Pokemon concept?
So, the original Pokemon Red and Green were released in Japan in February 1996, based on an original idea from Satoshi Tajiri from a company called Game Freak. His idea was coming up with a design for a game for this new handheld console, the
Nintendo Game Boy, by utilising the network cable that was available at the time so that you could battle against other players and trade and so on. So this is how it all originally started.
The fact that you catch Pokemon comes from Mr. Tajiri's childhood experiences – as he used to enjoy catching insects as a child. That's the secret of its success!
Q: Following on from the videogame, obviously there is the TV series, the trading cards, the movies and the various events and theme parks we've already seen in Japan – at what point did you realise that you had a runaway success story, internationally?
When I look back to when we were first developing the original Pokemon Red and Green, looking at the details, the design, there were many things that suggested to me then that this game would be successful. However, I never imagined at that point that
this game would be successful outside of Japan, because I only knew my own country, and what the children were like in Japan. Also, Nintendo had no plans at that time to release it outside of Japan, so it was very difficult then to imagine how it would be received outside of Japan.
Q: With every new generation of Pokemon, what inspires the new names, appearances and powers of all the new Pokemon?
Coming up with new Pokemon is a very, very difficult task. One of the things, this is first and foremost, is to make the Pokemon attractive. In the sense that it is appealing to the user. But at the same time we have to make sure it is in no way similar to any existing Pokemon, to make sure it is new and exciting.
So, in order to achieve this difficult task we go to a number of sources for inspiration, its very energy consuming. The inspiration tends to come from the natural world around us.
Q: We mentioned the TV series, the movies, the theme parks and so on – what's the latest news there?
As far as the movies are concerned, every year there has been a new film.
This year we've reached the tenth film.
This features some of the new Pokemon, coming out in Japan on July 14th.
A release is still to be confirmed for the West.
As far as the TV animation is concerned, in Japan they've already switched to the new Diamond and Pearl version of the TV series, where the protagonists are exploring this new world, called the Sinnoh region.
Q: And what about the Pokemon theme parks? Any plans to take these outside of Japan?
Last year, for a three month limited period only, we set up a theme park in Taipei in Taiwan.
At present we have no plans for a permanent theme park outside of Japan.
I am currently researching what possibilities there are in this field.
Q: You've said in the past that you think of the new handheld DS games Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pear as being 'the ultimate' Pokemon. Why are they?
One of the elements that will make it the ultimate Pokemon is the fact that you can bring all of your Pokemon from the previous iterations to this game and they will be available to play on the DS version.
Previously you could only trade and battle your Pokemon on a local basis.
Now, with the WiFi mode, you can do that on a global basis.
So the fact that players from around the world can travel together and exchange Pokemon and battle – this indeed suggests it is the ultimate Pokemon.
Q: Is there no language barrier?
Well let's say, for arguments sake, that a Japanese player decides to exchange with a player in Germany.
That name will appear in each others' respective language.
So, although there are possibly a few limitations as far as language is concerned, generally I don't see a language barrier in this Pokemon.
Q: What is the Global Trade Station in the game? And how does it work?
Within the game itself a facility called the Global Trade Station will appear.
It's a fictitious institution in the game where you can trade and exchange your Pokemon with other players.
However, this is connected via WiFi to a real server somewhere.
So you put up your Pokemon for trading and likewise someone, somewhere else is doing the same.
So this is how you make the trading and exchanging of Pokemon happen.
Q: How many new Pokemon do we get with Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl?
In total, to date, there has been in excess of four hundred Pokemon and more than a hundred are new.
Q: And what are your own personal favourites from the new Pokemon?
[Grins] These three – Piplup, Turtwig and Chimcha (pictured above)
Q: Lets talk a little now about about Nintendo Wii and DS connectivity – a big feature of Pokemon Battle Revolution on Nintendo Wii (due for release later this year) is being able to play with and via your handheld DS.
To put it simply, if you have a DS with either Pokemon Diamond or Pokemon Pearl inserted in it, and you are playing with your Pokemon and you have a copy of the Wii's Battle Revolution, you will be able to use your Pokemon in the Wii version to fight against other Pokemon.
In effect your DS becomes like the controller for the Wii.
Q: So what are the plans for future versions on DS and Wii? Anything you can tell us about that?
At present Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl are the DS games and Pokemon Battle Revolution will be the Wii game.
So the emphasis here is to focus on the success of these titles, commercially, and then we will move onto the next project.
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