Pokémon GO was a huge hit long before Pokémon Let’s Go stormed the Nintendo Switch. Its success is to be expected, though, considering that the game is a part of one of the most popular media franchises in the world, and it employs a very creative use of modern mobile technology.

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Pokémon GO was a huge hit

It comes as no surprise, then, that the recently-released Pokémon Let’s Go also broke sales records on Switch. After all, this new title has a lot of things in common with Pokémon GO, and it is also the first (kind of) mainline entry of the franchise on Nintendo’s portable platform.

Pokémon GO set Let’s Go up for success

Still, one could argue that Let’s Go would have been nowhere near as successful as it is without GO. It is certainly a great game in its own right, but its success is due a large part to the innovations that GO brought to of the franchise.

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A large part of Let's Go's success came from GO

Pokémon GO is impactful in the sense that it introduced the massively popular Pokémon franchise to a brand new audience. Let’s Go, on the other hand, is not even actually a new mainline game. Instead, what it does is closing the gap between GO and the proper main games.

So if Pokémon GO set up a successful launch for Let’s Go on console, why don’t other console games try to attract more players by investing in the mobile market? We have seen many franchises try this: Call of Duty, Uncharted, and The Witcher However, their mobile takes were met with little success.

Mobile games should have a connection to the main console game

So what are these games missing? One could argue that it is the lack of connection between the main games on PC/console and the mobile ports. That is not to say all mobile games have to be a companion app of the main games, but they will certainly be much more appealing if they let players make progress or earn special items on the fly.

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Fortnite is so popular partly thanks to its cross-platform ability

A large part of why Fortnite is so popular is that it allows mobile players to play with the PC/Console counterparts in the same game. Now, not every game can do that because each is made differently. However, if a PC/Console game can enable people to do some little things, such as minigames, on mobile to get extra items or XP in the main game, it could certainly go a long way.