During the revelation of mobage giant DeNA’s fiscal year 2018 operating results, initial news of an upcoming collaboration with The Pokémon Company has emerged. Described as a “new and exciting” smartphone title, the collaboration with The Pokémon Company is the latest in a growing line of Pokémon games on mobile devices.
For those unfamiliar, DeNA is the godfather of mobile gaming in Japan, and are the team behind pretty much every Nintendo title on smartphones. In the report under their “Game Business” sub-section on page-11, DeNA shares that they “plan to launch a new and exciting smartphone game this fiscal year based on the globally popular Pokémon franchise, in partnership with The Pokémon Company”. In addition to this, “more details, such as information about the game and launch timing, will be announced later”.
According to Siliconera, DeNA is planning to release the Pokémon title on smartphones within the current fiscal year, which would place the title somewhere before March 31, 2020. Again, DeNA has stated that they plan to announce more information at a later date, so it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of the next Nintendo Direct.
While details are currently scarce about the upcoming title, news of new Pokémon is generally welcome. Outside of Pokémon GO, there’s still yet to be a fleshed out smartphone experience for the franchise, so I’m excited to see what could be offered from this. Right now DeNA has Mario Kart Tour on the way, with their last mobile release from Nintendo being Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.
For those interested in checking out further information on the report, be sure to visit DeNA’s official website.