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The real reasons Nintendo won't make a Pokemon MMO

If done right, i think it would be a huge succes.
But to be real, Pokemon is aimed mostly at kids.
Getting kids into MMO's can be hard, because the parents need to pay for subscriptions
 
You enter a room. There's a group of players all standing around one Lopunny, whispering. None of them are wearing hats.

Yeah let's create a game that requires a credit card to a target market that legally cannot posses a credit card. Absolutely genius idea.

They bother mommy or daddy for the card once, and then it saves to the console. The same way kids spend tons on IAP for cell phone games.
 

weevles

Member
It could work on paper, in terms of gameplay, but I don't see parents supporting a game where their kids could spend all day in a game, let alone pay a monthly fee or feel comfortable putting their kids into an "open world" game where anyone could approach them and communicate with them. Too many logistical and financial challenges. MMOs are a highly competitive genre with few financial winners.
 

JoeM86

Member
Wouldn't Nintendo's child safety concerns make the level of communication expected from an MMO impossible anyway? A game like this seems like a dangerous place for kids.

That, plus the game's director, Junichi Masuda, is against making children have to pay more than the initial price for parts of the game. This is why we are extremely unlikely to see any paid DLC with X & Y.

I wouldn't call Black and White an open world RPG, considering its map is literally a linear loop.

Technically, when you look at open world games, they're pretty much the same, but with massive environments around said loop. It guiding you on a path does not necessarily mean it's linear. Technically, all games are.

Anyway, I've been saying for years that a Pokémon MMO would not work. Hypothetically, a spin-off game would be more likely to be able to have a MMO treatment, like a MMO Ranger game or something akin to that, but that's still not likely.

A console based Pocket Monsters RPG seems to make perfect sense.

It really doesn't as that's against the ethos of Pokémon. The games are designed to be portable. Many features are built up around it. To put it on the home console, you'd cut those features out with zero benefits, especially as graphics on handhelds are getting better and better (not to mention the fact they're doing the graphics based on Sugimori's art style, so all they can be now is just sharper)
 

vareon

Member
I think they'd rather improve the online aspects of the mainline games instead of trying to make an MMO out of the blue.
 
I doubt they'll make a Pokemon MMO, the investment for an MMO are too high, you need tons of dedicated servers, and that costs a lot of money. Nintendo doesn't like spending too much money to produce games, that's why they'll never make a Gran Turismo with tons of licenced cars, or realistic sports games, etc... For exemple it took them years to finaly think of using a real orchestra in Mario Galaxy and Zelda.
 

DR2K

Banned
It'll eventually happen, but the MMO will be when they have a handheld that can handle a project like that. Give it a generation or 2.
 
It'll be an amazingly risky project in a space they've no experience with at all. Plus if they did it, how and where will they do it ? PC ? I don't think so because Nintendo exists to sell their hardware. On one of their handhelds ? I don't think so because it's going to be obsolete and they'll have to make a new one or a port for each handheld.

So, yeah it's really not practical for them to make this MMO when they can make normal games that could sell their hardware better.
 
There are people in this thread that want Nintendo, a company with hardly any experience in online gameplay, to craft an entirely new type of MMORPG around one of their most successful and almost exclusively portable franchise that sells millions every time. If any of you worked for Nintendo and pitched this you'd get a series of blank stares, and then fired.
 

Sandfox

Member
There are people in this thread that want Nintendo, a company with hardly any experience in online gameplay, to craft an entirely new type of MMORPG around one of their most successful and almost exclusively portable franchise that sells millions every time. If any of you worked for Nintendo and pitched this you'd get a series of blank stares, and then fired.

Its not that hard to put someone with experience working on MMOs on the project. That being said there isn't going to be a Pokemon MMO anytime soon.
 

backlot

Member
I thought Black & White were the most linear games in the main series, and that's saying something. I haven't played White 2 enough to judge the more recent pair, but I wouldn't call them open-world RPGs, or RPGs that do open-world well.

I wouldn't call Black and White an open world RPG, considering its map is literally a linear loop.

Korezo asked for them to be open world like the Game Boy games. Red and Blue weren't too much less linear.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Its not that hard to put someone with experience working on MMOs on the project. That being said there isn't going to be a Pokemon MMO anytime soon.

Experience on MMO's would be worthless. Unless it's on the technical "this is how we get the servers to work" side. They'd have to invent an entirely new kind of MMO, none of the existing models could be adapted.

Shit, I don't think anyone asking for a pokemonMMO even knows what one would look like or how it would work. It's one of those things that sounds like it'd be awesome, but there's no way to know if it would be.

Exactly. People seem to think that because the map has many intertwining bits, that it isn't linear, but it really is

How would an open world pokemon even work? Scale the levels to your gym badges?

People are just asking for stuff that works in other games that probably isn't adaptable with pokemon.
 

JoeM86

Member
Can I just say that the Player Search System in XY is as close as we'll likely get to a MMO

pss.jpg


The PSS is live on the bottom screen at all times outside of battle. This lists all the people you have listed as friends, or who are nearby (locally) and allows you to interact with them then and there. You can instantly set up a battle or a trade, or add them as a friend. This is an evolution of many of the C-Gear concepts (the Infra-red ones) from Generation V. We'll never have a world where people will invade our games and we all play together, though that was tested somewhat with the EntraLink in Black & White.
 

Sandfox

Member
Experience on MMO's would be worthless. Unless it's on the technical "this is how we get the servers to work" side. They'd have to invent an entirely new kind of MMO, none of the existing models could be adapted.

I was talking about the technical side of things since everything else is basically just normal game design.
 

backlot

Member
Can I just say that the Player Search System in XY is as close as we'll likely get to a MMO

pss.jpg


The PSS is live on the bottom screen at all times outside of battle. This lists all the people you have listed as friends, or who are nearby (locally) and allows you to interact with them then and there. You can instantly set up a battle or a trade, or add them as a friend. This is an evolution of many of the C-Gear concepts (the Infra-red ones) from Generation V. We'll never have a world where people will invade our games and we all play together, though that was tested somewhat with the EntraLink in Black & White.

Does the Internet button indicate that we'll be able to have it show people from our Friends List instead of local friends only? I sure hope so.
 

Frumix

Suffering From Success
There are people in this thread that want Nintendo, a company with hardly any experience in online gameplay, to craft an entirely new type of MMORPG around one of their most successful and almost exclusively portable franchise that sells millions every time. If any of you worked for Nintendo and pitched this you'd get a series of blank stares, and then fired.

Why should a business be allowed any favors or excuses? They're making money seling us their products. If it's something that could make them money they damn better put their effort into it.
 

Perkel

Banned
Because Money.
They create games for a couple millions and they sell it for few billions.



Why would they change their buisness and spend ton of money where that money will be lower in comparison to their earlier earning ?

Right now they just need few developers to create it. With new 3D version also they do not need to have even 100 of developers.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Is the Division an MMO? Because I could see that working for pokemon - smaller squads of friends wandering around a persistent world cooperatively, not massive raids
 

JoeM86

Member
Does the Internet button indicate that we'll be able to have it show people from our Friends List instead of local friends only? I sure hope so.

The PSS extracts people from your 3DS friend list and adds them to the friends there. I believe the Internet symbol is just stating that you're connected. It's a constant connection, as we've seen with Animal Crossing recently. It gives you live notifications on what your friends are doing, as seen with one of the friends shown being in a battle.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Why should a business be allowed any favors or excuses? They're making money seling us their products. If it's something that could make them money they damn better put their effort into it.

Just because it could make them money doesn't mean they should do it. That's the same argument for developing games for the iOS app store. Yea it'll get them money, but it'll devalue the brand not net them less money in the long run.
 
It sold around a tenth of what a new Pokémon RPG does. I don't understand your point.

Their home console business is failing.
They NEED to capture the hardcore/handheld owners hearts simultaenously.
They can ONLY do this by making a game that caters to both.
A Pokemon RPG built around Ni No Kuni (PS3) concepts will cater to both crowds.
Would make those that own a Nintendo handheld buy a Wii U.
Would make those that buy a PS4/Xbone buy a Wii U.
Thats what Im trying to say.
 

JoeM86

Member
Their home console business is failing.
They NEED to capture the hardcore/handheld owners hearts simultaenously.
They can ONLY do this by making a game that caters to both.
A Pokemon RPG built around Ni No Kuni (PS3) concepts will cater to both crowds.
Would make those that own a Nintendo handheld buy a Wii U.
Would make those that buy a PS4/Xbone buy a Wii U.
Thats what Im trying to say.

It would take away from the essence of Pokémon. GameFreak & Nintendo would never destroy their franchises to be like that. Hell, they said they could have easily made DLC for Animal Crossing be paid in order to make money, but they chose not to as it felt wrong.

Also, Nintendo showed enough to potentially turn the Wii U around this winter
 

zoukka

Member
What does any MMO trope give to the pokemon franchise that is beneficial to it? The combat would have to be made more grindy, less focused.
 
Instead of an MMO, I'd rather the individual Pokemon games just have some more online connectivity. Like, inviting people to your game (Say, 20 people at a time), or on a seperate, smaller region, or something like that. I'd like it to feel more like I'm still the main character, but I can branch out to see these other trainers, than it be a giant swarm of 100000 Red clones everywhere.
 
I think the reason why Nintendo doesn't make a Pokemon MMO is because:

1 - They're not in the MMO Business

2 - They make more money making handheld games?

They can just release games every 1-2 years with the brand and sell millions and millions of copy.

I don't think constant revenues make up for 15m+ copies sold every other couple years :p
 

LuchaShaq

Banned
I don't want a pokemon MMO.

I want an open world game with pokemon, and ideally not balanced for idiot levels of skills.


It's the one game that could make me realistically want a wiiU.


I don't get why they are ok whoring out Mario all over the place but won't do shit with pokemon off handhelds.
 

Darryl

Banned
Their home console business is failing.
They NEED to capture the hardcore/handheld owners hearts simultaenously.
They can ONLY do this by making a game that caters to both.
A Pokemon RPG built around Ni No Kuni (PS3) concepts will cater to both crowds.
Would make those that own a Nintendo handheld buy a Wii U.
Would make those that buy a PS4/Xbone buy a Wii U.
Thats what Im trying to say.

I think they're just wasting franchise potential by not expanding some and only putting out low quality spin-offs. The Pokemon handheld games are quality and profitable. They can't make anything that risks cannibalizing that. However, sometimes you just need a way to bridge your lost audiences back into your bread & butter or raise the perception of quality around your games. A simplistic Pokemon console RPG in the style of Ni No Kuni could do that, so I agree. It doesn't need to print money, just compliment their handheld games.
 

Kinvara

Member
It sounds like a Pokemon spin-off game similar to Colosseum/XD for the Wii U except with a much larger world to explore would be a much better option than an MMO.
 

Bulzeeb

Member
instead of a pokemon mmo they need to implement a multiplayer system like the dark souls series or Zombie U or even like the zombie controlled human of RE6 where you can casually watch another people in your game, that could be nice.
 
That, plus the game's director, Junichi Masuda, is against making children have to pay more than the initial price for parts of the game. This is why we are extremely unlikely to see any paid DLC with X & Y.

Maybe not traditional DLC, but they already sold an accompanying game in the eShop as a form of DLC with pokemon radar for White 2/Black 2, with unique pokemon formes only accessible through that game. And given how well that did, I'd be extremely surprised if they don't repeat it in some form.
 
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