Serebii.net is reporting that the upcoming issue of CoroCoro magazine, which releases this April 15th, will contain new information on the upcoming Gen-5 Pokémon games. Before the magazine reaches newstands, however, Pokémon Sunday will be revealing the games in a “shock announcement” on-air.
This highlights an interesting question: are the new games going to be for the 3DS exclusively or will they be compatible with current DS models and the 3DS?
According to a CNBC report, the 3DS announcement was made prematurely by NCL at the expensive of Nintendo of America in order to avoid a potential leak resulting from Japanese press and supplier knowledge of the device. Also, consider the fact that Gen-5 was announced well ahead of the 3DS itself, complete with a new movie tie-in, and is scheduled for release in 2010. This would mean the games have been in development for quite some time.
Taking this information into account, one has to wonder if the newer games were always intended to be presented as DS titles, with 3DS functionality announced at a later date.
Going by common sense, one would assume that an entirely new Pokémon game would launch alongside new hardware, especially in light of rumours of Game Freak being given priority with regard to 3DS developer tools. On the other hand, the company has also been recruiting of late, and the official site recently received an overhaul, which could indicate that they’re only just starting to ramp up for a bigger project, which could be their 3DS game if Gen-5 isn’t it.
The next two weeks are going to be very interesting indeed. CoroCoro information tends to leak before the actual magazine reaches newsstands, so keep an eye out for more info any time between now and the 15th.
