The Pokemon Company has announced their own Nintendo Direct of sorts, coming next week.
They shared this announcement on their official Twitter account:
“Did somebody say #PokemonPresents?
Tune in to our official YouTube channel at 6:00 a.m. PST on February 27th to view exciting Pokémon news in celebration of #PokemonDay 2024!
See you there, Trainers!”
For those who are unaware, February 27 is Pokemon Day, to commemorate the release date of the very first Pokemon games in Japan, for the Game Boy, all the way back in 1996.
Pokemon Day is The Pokemon Company’s equivalent of BlizzCon; it’s the one big day every year where they reveal all the upcoming Pokemon media and merchandise to look forward to for the year. Of course, even The Pokemon Company can’t announce new Pokemon video games every year, but they will at least share information about DLC if no games are arriving.
For last year’s Pokemon Day, we learned about the DLC for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, the stop-motion animated Netflix show Pokemon Concierge, the premium set Pokemon Trading Card Game Classic, and Pokemon Sleep.
But, this year’s event is somewhat defined by something that isn’t technically Pokemon. Palworld, a surprise hit when it released on Early Access on Steam and Xbox, simultaneously received criticism and a skeptical lens with allegations spreading online that it could be using AI generated Pokemon, or that it plagiarized Pokemon in other ways. Palworld developer Pocketpair is standing by their designs. For their part, The Pokemon Company, and Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa, have reiterated that the company will investigate any potential IP infringement of their property, without naming Palworld.
Since no one connected to Pokemon has ever named Palworld, we shouldn’t expect it to come up during Pokemon Day. However, an unexpected consequence of its success is the return of a discourse about how Pokemon has been stagnating as a franchise lately. This criticism is reflected on reviews of the recent games, so it can’t be dismissed as coming from just some fans.
And, in fact, The Pokemon Company has made changes themselves, far before Palworld was even released. In 2022, Junichi Masuda, who had been director for Pokemon video games for years, left this position at Game Freak, citing that other developers at the company should get their turn at making the games. He is now Chief Creative Fellow at The Pokemon Company, which is simultaneously a higher ranked position, and has also taken him away from direct involvement in the video games. Junichi instead manages creative endeavors of the Pokemon IP as a whole.
So perhaps this year’s Pokemon Presents is where we see the next Pokemon games to be made after Junichi. But then again, it may be too early as Game Freak and Creatures may have just started making those newer games. In any case, The Pokemon Company has something to announce this year for sure, so your Pokemon friends and mates have something to look forward to next week.
