Pokémon has become an all-too-familiar name at this point, so it’s nothing surprising that the developers would want to expand its popularity by making it more accessible on the mobile platform. That’s why DeNA has now teamed up with The Pokemon Company to make an allegedly "new and exciting" Pokémon game for mobile devices. This information was disclosed in the latest fiscal year operating results from DeNA.
DeNA’s report suggested that this new game will be released in March next year. Aside from that, though, there’s precious little information to go on. More details about how it will look and play, as well as the exact launch date, will be announced “later”. Still, with Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield coming soon to Nintendo Switch, we can expect some cross-promotion in the near future.
DeNA is a game developer from Japan that has had a history of teaming up with Nintendo for several mobile game projects such as Super Mario Run, Mario Kart Tour, and Animal Crossing: Pocket. And since the Pokémon license has the potential to be expanded into many different genres, it’d be nice if Dena could make some invention. That said, with how the mobile market is at the moment, many fear that the new game will end up being a gacha title.
This concern is made worse by the fact that this is a collaboration between DeNA and The Pokémon Company, not DeNA and Nintendo. We know that Nintendo has always kept a close check on its mobile partners to make sure that its mobile games have a fair monetization model. It is unclear, however, whether The Pokémon Company will do the same.
Right now, we only have a few Pokémon titles on mobile, the most notable one being Pokémon GO. This is an AR game that lets players use the camera on their smartphones to find and capture Pokémon in the real world. Hopefully, the upcoming game will gather the same success.