Transcript:
Hi folks, Steven here. So, this is the second part
of our Missed Integration series. And this time, we’re focusing on the Wii U.
Now, before we get started, I wanted to point out, as I kind of knew, and one
of my viewers pointed out in the comments of the Punch-Out!! episode from a
month or so ago, is that Nintendo doesn’t fully own Pokémon. It’s sort of a
shared thing that they have. Nintendo sort of owns some of the trademarks, and
also co-owns The Pokémon Company, which is also managed by Creatures Inc. and
Game Freak. So, it’s not as if Nintendo can do whatever they want with Pokémon,
but they obviously do have some leverage, they just have to work with some
other people to sometimes make things happen. But, I wanted to get that out of
the way before we went forward with this.
But, back to the Wii U. Pokémon on the Wii U so far,
there’s been some stuff. Notably, there’s been some Virtual Console. There’s
Pinball Ruby, and Sapphire on the Game Boy Advance is on there. And, in Europe,
they have the first PokéPark game out there. Now, this is of course a Wii game
download, not strictly Virtual Console, but it’s a similar type of thing. And
we’ve heard some rumors as of a month or so ago about some upcoming Virtual Console
titles. Namely, Blue Rescue Team, one of the first Mystery Dungeon games, and Pokémon
Ranger. Not confirmed yet, of course, but we’ll see what happens.
As far as other actual stuff, of course there’s Pokémon
Rumble U-the Wii U installment of the series. And then, of course, Pokémon is
in Smash Bros. But, let’s take it back a little bit further. You may remember a
little game called Nintendo Land. That came out when the Wii U launched. And it
was designed to show off the GamePad controller. And basically consisted of a
series of minigames based on Nintendo franchises. To me, and to a lot of other
people, it felt like the Wii U equivalent of Wii Sports, but it definitely did
not resonate nearly as much. One of the criticisms, which I kind of have to
agree with, is that it’s a bit light on content. But, given that, you may think
maybe they should have pulled from a few more franchises.
And that brings up the question, where’s Pokémon?
There’s already some touch-based ideas from the DS games. They could reuse
those or expand on them. And they could always try to come up with some new
ideas as well that use the GamePad. Now, one possibility that they might have
been saving those up for a PokéPark game, maybe a third one on the Wii U, but
there’s really not one on the horizon. We haven’t seen anything, or I haven’t
even heard a rumor of there being one. So, there’s probably some reason for it
out there, but I kind of wanted to point that out as a semi-obvious gap.
The second Wii U related topic I’d like to bring up
is Pokémon TV. Now, if you’re not familiar with this, this is service Pokémon
provides, which has a rotating selection of episodes and movies from different
generations. And, it’s available on a variety of devices. There’s an iOS
client, an Android client, a Kindle Fire, Roku, Chromecast- and if you have a
3DS, there isn’t really one. There’s something called Pokémon TV that’s part of
Nintendo Zone if you go to one of those locations. Not quite the same thing
though.
But, most of all, and relevant to this video, is
there’s no native client for Wii U. Now, it is technically possible to watch Pokémon
TV via the Pokémon website using the Wii U’s internal browser, but it’s not an
ideal experience. There’s a couple oddities, you might say, in there that make
it not ideal.
And, of course, I have to mention that the Pokémon
anime is also available, at least parts of it, via some of the native apps that
already exist for the Wii U. Namely, Netflix and Hulu here in North America. Of
course, availability varies by region. All the same, I think having a Pokémon
TV client for Wii U would have been nice, and I’ll explain a little bit about
that.
Now, I’m not sure how Pokémon chooses which devices
it’s going to support. Install base, I’m sure is a consideration. And, being
where the Wii U is now is not particularly helpful. But you think they might
have been able to get something done at launch. And even if the install base
were an issue, Nintendo probably could fund the development of such a thing if
the Pokémon company itself couldn’t spare the money for it. Now, if this were
coming out at launch, I suppose it would have to be outsourced, because
Nintendo’s teams-you know that very slow pace they had at the beginning. They
were having trouble developing Wii U games, and they probably would have had to
give this to some other developer.
But still, if they had at launch, they could put it
on the box, “Hey, buy this and you can watch free Pokémon episodes on it.” They
could have used that to attract buyers. I’m not going to say that would have
saved the Wii U, nor would having Pokémon in Nintendo Land, but I do think if
had they been able, the earlier increased sales and game sales would probably
have offset the development cost. It would have been a money making decision
there.
But overall, what are your thoughts? Do you think
these would have been good ideas, things they should have done? Are there other
things, besides of course, the upcoming Pokken Tournament you’d like to see on Wii
U? Give us some comments, always good to hear some feedback. Alright, folks.
Thanks.
Transcript by GetTranscribed.com
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