Every time there's a new Pokémon game, there are the two initial versions, and then later, there's a third version. Where did that idea come from, and how does that play into the design? You know it's going to happen every time, so how does that play into your game plan for creating a new Pokémon?
JM: We put so much energy into creating Pokémon video games. For example, let's take Diamond and Pearl. When we started thinking of Diamond and Pearl, especially because we were moving to the DS... the DS has lots of capabilities and lots of functions; new functions that you can utilize to adapt into the game. So many ideas.
So by the time we developed D/P, we had to give up some of the features we wanted to put into D/P because of the deadline.
Let's say, for example, in D/P's case, that the second half of the D/P development, you decide that, "There are some features that we really want to do. Let's do it in the third one."
That's how we make a decision. Ideally we wanted to put everything into D/P, but there is a deadline, so you have to make up your mind.
Now, development time between Pokémon sequels like Diamond and Pearl is quite a long period of time for games that look relatively simple. I know they're actually really complicated, but I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that most games would have a very short cycle. I want to know what goes in to that whole process. I can understand why it takes that long, but maybe not in detail. Could you talk about that process, of where you start and where you end up?
Takeshi Kawachimaru: Let me take the example of D/P and Platinum. As Masuda-san said, by the time we almost finished D/P, Masuda-san came to me and said, "Let's make Platinum. Would you like to do it?"
My answer, without thinking, was, "Yes." I put so much energy into D/P. I felt like I completed a marathon. You're out of breath, but I said, "Yes," and I started running again right away after.
As Masuda-san said, there were so many ideas that we wanted to work on. We wanted to revisit those ideas and see what we could do to put them into Platinum, so I had to go back and look at what we did with D/P, and what we couldn't do with D/P.
Also, we had to consider good reasons we should make Platinum, and why not something else. So we had to think of that reason, otherwise the product would not sell. We had to revisit the ideas which came up and see how we could apply them into Platinum.
