From Pokemon CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara during the Q&A Session.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ollieb...ext-year-will-be-worth-the-wait/#7407835d4bee
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-borrowing-from-pokemon-go-and-lets-gos-story
Interviewer
Another statement via Forbes.The Let's Go games are the next step for players brought in by Pokemon Go to continue with the series, which s why the catching / interface models are the same. The 2019 game will move the handheld experience forward. We have been working on this game since before the Switch released and it will not be influenced by Pokemon Go.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ollieb...ext-year-will-be-worth-the-wait/#7407835d4bee
Q&A with Junichi Masuda via European press.The new title coming out in the second half of 2019 will be a completely different game from Pokémon Let's Go. It is not an entry game, but a game that we want longtime fans of the Pokémon series to look forward to.
The game will give a good understanding of what an evolved Pokémon game looks like after it has continued to succeed the traditions of Game Freak.
We want to make Pokémon fans say "this is what I've been waiting for" by delivering a brand-new product packed with gameplay elements and plenty of new Pokémon to encounter.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-borrowing-from-pokemon-go-and-lets-gos-story
Interviewer
MasudaHow do you think the core RPG players will react to the Let's Go games? I know Pokémon Go was immensely popular but it had quite a mixed reaction amongst more 'hardcore' players - how do you appease those players and is it more a case that they should wait to 2019 for the game they're after?
All that is required is to read the bolded, so I hope this clears up any confusion on it potentially impacting Gen 8. It won't.So the first thing I can say is that... I've been the director on the main series Pokémon RPGs - most of them, up until now - and there are a lot of kind of core tenets or rules of the series that I've never broke up until now, for example the whole idea of the flow of going into a battle against wild Pokémon, reducing their health and then catching them. That was one of the things that we just never wanted to change but, with these games specifically, I wanted to create a new experience for kids and with this time I decided to shift that towards more of a kind of casual, lighter experience. So that's one of the things I wanted to do.