Ishihara on marketing Pokemon products, making games, more
Pokemon president Tsunekazu Ishihara revealed the new Pokemon/Pikachu game on NHK’s “Professional—Style of Work” program. However, the show also featured The Pokemon Company as a whole. Ishihara gave some insight as to how he approaches marketing, making games, and more. You can find a roundup of information, courtesy of Siliconera’s translation, below.
Marketing
– With regards to marketing, Ishihara doesn’t focus much on making something for the purpose of selling
– Instead it’s more of looking into his own “playful heart”
– Ishihara won’t give something the green light unless he’s satisfied with it and thinks it’s entertaining
– Ishihara plays each product thoroughly and makes sure it meets his standards when it comes to entertainment
– This holds true regardless of a product’s marketing size, no matter if it’s a video game or board game
– Sometimes, The Pokemon Company has invested several years and funds into the development of a product, but is turned down at the end
– Ishihara focuses on wanting to bring out something amusing instead of the product’s look and ability to sell
“I believe that when the makers get tired or bored of making, that’s when it should immediately be stopped. I believe that losing your feeling of wanting to present something to the world, or the passion you have for it, is the worst possible scenario.”
– Having faith in your “playful heart” is what Ishihara considers to be his greatest conviction
New Pikachu game
– Will involve a bold change to Pikachu
– Making such a significant change will be a huge gamble for Ishihara and the others, which could possibly result in a loss of popularity for the beloved character
“When it comes to continuously providing something new, to a degree, it also means losing some of the older good qualities it originally had. Then you take that, and make it into something that can be accepted by everyone, by cautiously implementing new ideas. That is where we have to put in untiring effort—or rather, you could call it a challenge.”
On what it means to be a professional
“Someone who can always challenge themselves to continuously put something new together. While I do believe that it is difficult to come up with something new, I also believe one [a professional] would find joy in that, without thinking of it as being difficult.”
Making games
– When Ishihara is working on a Pokémon game, he doesn’t make it while thinking exclusively of the younger audience
– Ishihara also thinks about the audience’s generation, race, gender, and what he feels they would find amusing, as he works on a game
“If there’s even one person who says that this is just for play, so it’s a little boring, then it’s an issue that must be fixed. If we settle ‘amusement’ in a halfhearted manner, then people won’t look twice, so we must thoroughly make it into something that can be considering amusing, and not stopping until we achieve this, is what’s important.”
