Remember the unique Pokémon Pokédex toy launched by Tiger Electronics and Hasbro Toys again within the day? Well, apparently Nintendo’s Japanese crew made it an absolute nightmare to deliver to market.
Speaking to Johto Times not too long ago, former Tiger & Hasbro senior sport producer Chris Nicolella (between 1997 – 2001) revealed the whole story behind the event cycle – explaining how Nintendo’s Japanese headquarters wasn’t a giant fan of the US toy firm and made the whole course of “very difficult” because of issues concerning the gadget taking gross sales from the Game Boy releases.
Chris Nicolella: “The process was very difficult from several aspects. While we were awarded the Pokémon license, we didn’t get much help at all from Nintendo of Japan (NOJ). In fact, they didn’t like us very much and didn’t see our value in expanding the Pokémon brand into the toy market. They felt [that] our toy product line would take away sales from the Game Boy game which wasn’t the case at all. The next problem I had was the lack of assets and licensing material they were willing to give us to study.”
After Nicolella and his crew had been supplied with the essential supplies to get underway with the venture, Nintendo’s Japanese department supposedly “freaked out” concerning the Pokémon graphics and animations featured on the gadget, which apparently “almost killed the entire toy”:
“We were strictly forbidden to have any type of graphic game function because of the Game Boy game. I wanted to at least have an image of each Pokémon just to give it some fun visuals as opposed to just a complete text-based toy. So, I had my art team come up with a simple 2 frame animation of each of the 151 Pokemon characters… When NOJ saw the screen animations they freaked out and said we couldn’t do that and it was too close to the Game Boy game. We disagreed and said the toy needed it [but] NOJ would not let us move forward.”
Although Nintendo of America and 4Kids Production had been supportive of this new digital toy, Nintendo’s HQ made the “final call on everything and final approval”. The gadget apparently obtained placed on maintain for six months till a giant assembly that obtained “a little heated” however resulted in an answer:
“I was so frustrated I didn’t even want to work on it anymore and wanted to get back to working on Star Wars toys. Finally, we had a big meeting…We had to again promise there was not [a] game element in the Pokedex and the 2 frame animations of each Pokémon needed to be removed and a senior art manager from [the] Japan Pokémon art team had to design each [Pokémon] graphic image for us.”
In the top, the Pokedex digital toy did make it to market, but it surely got here “so close” to being cancelled. You can learn the remainder of the interview on the Johto Times web site.
Do you bear in mind this gadget? Do you personal one by any likelihood? Comment under.
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