The reveal earlier this week of the upcoming sequels to Pokemon Black and White as Black 2 and White 2 for the DS raised some eyebrows. The number of quality titles have really dried up on the DS, as the 3DS has been selling very well and most developers have moved on. So what does Nintendo have to say on the matter?
Remember that Nintendo 3DS can also play all Nintendo DS Pokemon games. The Nintendo DS family also has a massive installed base of more than 51 million systems in the United States alone, and we are keen on continuing to deliver new experiences to this audience.
Fair enough, I know you’d rather sell your games to an audience of 130 million DS units rather than 16 million 3DS units. But Nintendo has said many times that they’re fully committed to the 3DS, and they realized the mistakes that they made on launch when the 3DS really didn’t have much in the way of compelling software. They fixed that last holiday season, and I assumed that the momentum that they had built up in the platform would be something that they would be very keen to continue. I guess I was wrong, as Black 2 and White 2 are only coming to the DS. (June in Japan, ‘Fall’ in North America in case you missed it)
This seems to be a complete about face, which is extremely odd given that Pokemon is such a massive franchise, and the developers GameFreak work very closely with Nintendo. Even if this title has been in development since the original Black and White came out, that was around the time of the 3DS launch and far after everyone knew about the system and what it could do.
I’m not a huge Pokemon player myself, but I know many Nintendo fans who absolutely love the series. To them, many who bought the system back when it was still $250, this is very disappointing. If this was being revealed alongside a 3DS Pokemon title, or if we were given news that the series would be shortly coming to the 3DS, I think a lot of these frustrations would be lessened.
In case you missed it, here’s the reveal trailer:
