Why no Pokemon game's releasing this year?

I'd been waiting a lot, but got nothing. Why?

I guess GF wants to take a break. Who knows?

Interestingly, this will be the first year since 1997 to not see a main series release in any country:

1996: Red/Green (JP), Blue (JP)
1997: None
1998: Red/Blue, Yellow (JP)
1999: Yellow, Gold/Silver (JP)
2000: Gold/Silver, Crystal (JP)
2001: Crystal
2002: Ruby/Sapphire (JP)
2003: Ruby/Sapphire
2004: FireRed/LeafGreen, Emerald (JP)
2005: Emerald
2006: Diamond/Pearl (JP)
2007: Diamond/Pearl
2008: Platinum (JP)
2009: Platinum, HeartGold/SoulSilver (JP)
2010: HeartGold/SoulSilver, Black/White (JP)
2011: Black/White
2012: Black 2/White 2
2013: X/Y
2014: OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire
2015: None

I'm with what was mentioned above, they are most likely working hard on the next main series game so that it doesn't look like a rushed job. The problem with annualization of releases is you can mainly end up putting out end results that look rushed.

Achromatic put it perfectly. The gap between ORAS and the next main game(s) likely means that more effort will be put into said game(s), which is only a good thing.

I'm not bummed over this. More time between games means more time to develop it and if the next game happens to be the third version or sequel(s) to X and Y, I think the extra time is needed. I'm still having fun with ORAS anyway (hell, I still have fun with Red and Blue lol) so I can wait a while longer. :> If you really need your Pokemon fix to fill the void, why not try replaying some older games? And if replaying it just won't work, try checking out the Challenges area and finding a unique twist that will make it a littler more interesting for you. :)

GF can't just rushed and released their games in fastest time, what's gotten into the development is; brainstorming, game art, concepts, any remakes if possible and many things in their agenda.

Who knows what's the next game will come? Pokemon Z maybe or any speculations on Gen4 remakes? Who knows what will come up this year or another year. Perhaps they need a break after all the crazy release

So GF can't release the titles back to back. But they could release in summer 2016. Eg- 6th may 2016 ??

They been releasing so many main series and side-series a lot. They possible working/take five for this year

Just to point out, Pokemon Platinum, the most recent 3rd version, was only announced 4 months prior to its release date. It makes sense, since third versions aren't really new games per se, just an updated version of existing games. So it's very possible that we're indeed going to get Pokemon Z this year, and they just haven't announced it yet. That's just a possibility though, and if the 4 months thing is anything to go by, the announcement would have to come either this month or next month.

Achromatic said:

I'm personally hoping for X2Y2 rather than Z version. Just one version is kinda boring to me. :(

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I am too! I think that if we do get X2/Y2 though, it will probably come next year. Which I'd be totally cool with, because like you said, that much more work will have gone into it ^^

There are a lot of possible reason why we haven't heard of a new main series game:
- they don't want it to become the CoD of Nintendo
- while XY and ORAS were developed at about the same time, the next games aren't
- the engine has to be optimized for the New 3DS (the next games could even be N3DS exclusives)
- there are other Pokemon games that are prioritized at the moment
- ORAS is given more than a year to shine (unlike X and Y who got abandoned after only one year)

R.F. said:

There are a lot of possible reason why we haven't heard of a new main series game:
- they don't want it to become the CoD of Nintendo
- while XY and ORAS were developed at about the same time, the next games aren't
- the engine has to be optimized for the New 3DS (the next games could even be N3DS exclusives)
- there are other Pokemon games that are prioritized at the moment
- ORAS is given more than a year to shine (unlike X and Y who got abandoned after only one year)

Click to expand...

I doubt the final Gen VI core game's going to be exclusive for N3DS, that's going to receive backlash from the fandom, as if Gen VI's not full of critics for slow frame rate, bad post-game contents and worse/incomplete story from the Kalos region based games.

I believe the final Gen VI core games aren't developed at the same time too, as Game Freak has only less than a hundred staff. There's also a possibility they are trying to improve the core games, so that Gen VI will wrap up neatly. :)

I dont know if it is true but I had read an article some months before which revealed the information that the pokemon company was seriously debating on whether to end ash's adventure after xy and have a new protagonist!
That article also stated that some games are gonna be released later this year that is probably november-december.It also had speculations on what would the games feature,which region,etc
Again,this might be a rumour which creeps up on the web due to the frustrations of people due to new games!But it definitely isn't an april 1st article!

I'm guessing the Original Poster means future core series Pokemon games? Super Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (or wherever that dang "Super" adjective is supposed to go) and Pokemon Shuffle Mobile (albeit a port of a Nintendo 3DS game) are still coming out later on in the year 2015.

But yeah, as others have said, the potential 2015 "gap" in core series Pokemon games is probably to polish out "Pokemon Z Version" prior to pushing it out for release (and probably to give Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire (ORAS) some more room to "thrive", since they were released near the end of the year 2014). I am personally a bit miffed, if anything, I would rather have ORAS delayed by a year, since they downgraded in some ways from Pokemon X and Y (particularly concerning character customization) and introduced some flaws of their own (glaringly, no Battle Frontier, apart from some minor negative change-ups from the original Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire)... "Pokemon Z" will have to be quite astounding at this point and fix both the issues ofXY and ORAS, if it will even exist.. If it does come about next year, the delay will be quite astounding considering the relatively-quick releases for Pokemon Emerald and Pokemon Black 2/White 2..

BettyNewbie said:

I guess GF wants to take a break. Who knows?

Interestingly, this will be the first year since 1997 to not see a main series release in any country:

1996: Red/Green (JP), Blue (JP)
1997: None
1998: Red/Blue, Yellow (JP)
1999: Yellow, Gold/Silver (JP)
2000: Gold/Silver, Crystal (JP)
2001: Crystal
2002: Ruby/Sapphire (JP)
2003: Ruby/Sapphire
2004: FireRed/LeafGreen, Emerald (JP)
2005: Emerald
2006: Diamond/Pearl (JP)
2007: Diamond/Pearl
2008: Platinum (JP)
2009: Platinum, HeartGold/SoulSilver (JP)
2010: HeartGold/SoulSilver, Black/White (JP)
2011: Black/White
2012: Black 2/White 2
2013: X/Y
2014: OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire
2015: None

Click to expand...

Interesting (I think it would help to mark the US releases though, as well as distinguish regional releases that share a year, like how Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen were both released in Japan and the United States during the year of 2004, except both territories had a different month of release).

Regarding the "quickness of releases", I feel compelled to go by the US dates for everything past Pokemon Platinum to show the "annualization", although the Japanese/worldwide releases would probably be better fits (since Japan is usually the first-release region, anyway, and the international release dates just come about as a byproduct/artifact of the localization process).

Achromatic said:

Actually, another thought occurred to me...what if they're postponing a main series release this year to bring more attention to the new PMD game that is coming out? I think it's worth considering that if a new main series game were to be announced it would completely overshadow the new PMD. They've gotta sell it.

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I guess that would make sense, since Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity did not necessarily do wonders for the series from what I've read/heard.. I'm not sure if any other Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game has been overshadowed by a core series Pokemon game release/announcement in the past, though.

R.F. said:

There are a lot of possible reason why we haven't heard of a new main series game:
- they don't want it to become the CoD of Nintendo
- while XY and ORAS were developed at about the same time, the next games aren't
- the engine has to be optimized for the New 3DS (the next games could even be N3DS exclusives)
- there are other Pokemon games that are prioritized at the moment
- ORAS is given more than a year to shine (unlike X and Y who got abandoned after only one year)

Click to expand...

In my opinion, it's a little late for the Pokemon core series becoming the "Call of Duty of Nintendo" (although my experience has shown that the core Pokemon games all at least have decent quality). XD Restricting the next release to "New" Nintendo 3DS would not be a good decision in my opinion (and I feel that most of the omissions/flaws for the current Generation 6 games are due to design decisions rather than hardware hindrances), although I see no harm in optimizing for it/taking advantage of "New" Nintendo 3DS features in a non-gameplay-vital way. I don't see what other games (whether they are Pokemon-related or not) that Game Freak has that could possibly out-prioritize the next core series Pokemon game, and to my knowledge they don't do much, if any, work on spin-offs (unless it's something like advising the development team, etc.).. I guess we'll see if "game co-development" plays any role, and it doesn't hurt to let ORAS shine for a little while longer..

In any case, I just hope there's an announcement soon (even if the actual game release is 1-3 years away) so I know what the rest of Generation 6 will entail already..

With how much the new PMD is being hyped, I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to focus on getting some excitement for that right now. It looks like Super PMD will be a huge improvement over Gates to Infinity, and I get the impression they want to revitalize the Mystery Dungeon series, in which case they'll probably announce the next main series game after Super PMD releases.

I'll admit, the lack of any news regarding the next main series game has made me a bit more excited for Super PMD than I would normally be about a Mystery Dungeon game haha.

fenyx4 said:

Interesting (I think it would help to mark the US releases though, as well as distinguish regional releases that share a year, like how Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen were both released in Japan and the United States during the year of 2004, except both territories had a different month of release).

Regarding the "quickness of releases", I feel compelled to go by the US dates for everything past Pokemon Platinum to show the "annualization", although the Japanese/worldwide releases would probably be better fits (since Japan is usually the first-release region, anyway, and the international release dates just come about as a byproduct/artifact of the localization process).

Click to expand...

Only the Japanese releases needed to marked because they're the only country that ever got the games at a drastically different time than the rest of the world. And, the point was to just show games that were released within a given year, not write a detailed description for every one of them. The difference in JP and international releases of FRLG and B2W2 didn't matter as everybody still got the games within the same calendar year.

Geez, some people will nitpick over everything! :rolleyes2:

As the others pointed out, the lack of a core series game coming out this year will help Super Mystery Dungeon sell more copies since that appears to be the game of focus, and it'll also help OR/AS be relevant for a bit longer considering how late it was in 2014 when those games came out.

I think they're probably taking their time with this one. Whilst XY was really good in terms of how long the main game was it lacked everywhere else. It was too long from badge 1-2 but then it seemed that once you got the first 3 badges the others just came straight away. They need to take more time and space things out and then there was the low amount of new Pokemon. I want to believe this was just down to them wanting the game out quickly since Black/White 2 was released just a year before.

Also Super Mystery Dungeon, they seem to really wanna do well with this game considering how much of a let down the other Mystery Dungeon game was. I think that's why they released the other two games on the eShop, too. No main game means more smaller games to tide us over. The new PMD will take up time for us for the Q4 of 2015 and the beginning months of 2016 before the next main game is released around May.

Hikamaru said:

As the others pointed out, the lack of a core series game coming out this year will help Super Mystery Dungeon sell more copies since that appears to be the game of focus, and it'll also help OR/AS be relevant for a bit longer considering how late it was in 2014 when those games came out.

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That speculation is most likely right, while there are some Pokémon Mystery Dungeon titles and core series that shared the same release year, there are at least months gap in between them. So it makes perfect sense why there's no official announcement for the core series.

Some might argue that PMD is developed by Chunsoft while the core series are from Game Freak. But let's not forget the fact that they are still games being marketed under The Pokémon Company; it's just impossible for them to focus on two projects or promoting an another Pokémon game to knock down an another fellow Pokémon series, particularly games that shares almost the same audience.

Let's expect good news after the PMD hype/current Hoopa movie is off the board!

I think one of the most important questions is:

On what platform will the next game be released?

The Pokemon franchise has always taken full advantage of Nintendo's next console, all the way back to GSC being released on the Game Boy Color. And it just continues from there.

Any ideas?