Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima, who is expected to step down in June, has said the Switch's long-term success will hinge on its ability to satisfy both dedicated and casual gamers. Analysts said that is likely because it is a fighting game, which strays from the role-playing format for which the series is best known. A Pokémon game released on the Switch in September has sold only about one million copies, according to Nintendo. Pokémon's charm hasn't always translated into strong sales. Pokémon games have largely been for handhelds such as the Nintendo DS. Nintendo said Pokémon games are second in franchise-unit sales only to the Super Mario lineup, whose games have sold more than 344 million copies. "Pokémon Go" currently has 65 million monthly active users, according to Pokémon Co. But it also hoping to win over the massive audience that fell for the 2016 smartphone game "Pokémon Go." Developer Game Freak said it drew inspiration from the late-1990s hit "Pokémon Yellow" to appeal to longtime fans. Pokémon's new offerings mark the first time the franchise is offering role-playing games for a console that hooks up to a TV set. Without Pokémon, the Switch "just doesn't have enough to really draw me in." The franchise is "really important to me," Ms. "We developed the new Pokémon games with hopes of driving up the momentum of the Switch," said Tsunekazu Ishihara, chief executive of Pokémon Co., at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.Īllie Cooper, a 24-year-old freelance artist in Tampa, Fla., said she would buy a Switch if it meant she could play Pokémon games akin to the classics she grew up on. More than 300 million Pokémon games have been sold world-wide since 1996, according to Pokémon Co., which manages the franchise and is co-owned by Nintendo, Game Freak Inc. Pokémon, with its child friendly monsters and cultlike following, could provide a significant boost. "The Wii U was such a massive failure in part because the games were not attractive enough," said Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based industry consultant. But industry watchers say Nintendo will have to keep up the pace of strong software releases to meet its goal of selling another 20 million Switch units in its current fiscal year. Switch owners already have access to games from popular franchises such as Mario and Zelda, first-year releases that helped draw longtime fans to the new hardware. The Wii U, sold only 13.56 million units in its five-year lifetime, plagued by a too-thin lineup of games in its first years, analysts said.
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