Did you hear that? Listen… that’s the sound of Pokémon fans’ life savings draining from their bank accounts, one dollar at a time.
It was, after all, fairly inevitable. Because what could be more lucrative than selling a Pokémon game… with figures? The only surprise here is that it didn’t happen sooner.
CoroCoro magazine broke the news, revealing that the upcoming Pokémon Scramble U for the Wii U—which is being released in Japan on April 24th—will be the first Wii U title to use what’s being commonly referred to as “Skylanders technology”, or more officially, NFC (near field communication).
On the Wii U, NFC allows players to place objects directly on the GamePad, and then watch the object appear in-game. The figures for this new game in particular will be available on the same day as the game at Pokémon Center stores in Japan for ¥200 (about $2) a pop.
Apparently, all 649 Pokémon from each of the generations will appear in the game—does that mean there will be 649 figures to buy? We’re not sure, but for the fans’ sake…? We kinda hope not.
