Interviews// Pokemon in Black and White: Junichi Masuda

“The reason the series stays on portable consoles is because you can instantly exchange Pokemon with others, and that’s one of the core elements of the franchise,” Masuda revealed. “And a lot of those fellow players tend to be near you. For home consoles, most of the time players tend to use WiFi Connection to interact with those much farther away.

“If we do put the franchise on home consoles it would need to be in such a way that you could maybe play with others in the same area. That’s the kind of element we could introduce for the home experience, just like the Pokemon Wii games we have developed in the past.”

Naturally, if you think of one of the defining aspects of Pokemon, it’s in its connectivity with people whether they’re near or far. With the Nintendo 3DS just around the corner, the means of interacting with other players becomes more sophisticated.

“The many different ways of engaging in wireless connectivity is something we would like to take advantage of in the 3DS,” Masuda hinted. Perhaps StreetPass will be a factor - and although nothing was said of the AR capabilities of the upcoming handheld, if a future Pokemon game failed to involve an interactive tie-in with the Trading Card Game I’ll eat my trainer’s cap.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to pick the director’s brains about the state of the games industry - with Game Freak rejecting the idea of a Pokemon MMO and the world seeming to gravitate towards social networking, I was curious how he sees games (including Pokemon) evolving over time.

Apparently, “that’s not really a question for Game Freak,” according to the Pokemon Company representative. I was instead encouraged to ask questions that would probably have been better answered in a press release.

As a result, I didn’t end up getting much, if any, of Masuda’s enthusiasm throughout the interview. Which is a shame when you have a rare opportunity to speak to a key developer behind one of the world’s best-loved gaming franchises. Sticking to safe answers and towing very heavily to the company line may seem like a good idea for PR and business, but it doesn’t do much to communicate a respected developer’s personality.

Regardless, I can tell that Masuda’s happiness at the franchise’s colossal success is genuine, even underneath the uncompromising business poker face and the sharp executive suit. “I’m really surprised at just how far the brand has come,” he tells me, indicating his pleasure at seeing a large number of fans enjoying the new game and his excitement for having a battle against one lucky competition winner.

His favourite Pokemon? “I won’t get to use him in this battle, but I really like Victini.”

Pokemon Black and White is out today. SPOnG’s review will be coming soon, but here’s a hint - it’s good.