Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire [3DS Hoenn Remake, November 2014]

[TCB]

If anything, next month's CoroCoro may very well leak before E3; but then again it probably won't matter ultimately if both forms of info amount to having similar content anyway. 

[ElectricAngel]

Well that was... uninteresting. I was expecting to at least see the character running in a town or something. Wasn't it said they would show gameplay? Because that looked more like a title screen animation. It was pretty cool, but I was expecting a little bit more.

[kimplix]

Edit: Oh it's already up I presume. Forgive me on this

[Salamander]

The promotion so far seems pretty reasonable.  The online announcement was pitched at people like us.  The Pokemon GetStarTV announcement was pitched at little kids who only watch TV.  The Coro Coro announcement was just rounding out the triumvirate for those who don't follow Pokemon news on either of the alternatives.  The big punches will almost certainly be saved for E3; if we're not getting much right now, it's probably because the announcement was brought forwards to coincide with Nintendo's financial results, and they didn't want to let out all the interesting stuff early.

 

As for the footage on Get[star]TV, it's okay to be disappointed, but there has been no betrayal.  We were told there would be footage, and there was footage.  Nobody ever said anything about how much there would be or what it would constitute.  From watching the show you should understand that people like us are not its primary audience.

 

I'd say we've learnt a couple of small things, anyway.  We know that Groudon will threaten the region from the middle of the ocean, like it always did in both Ruby and Emerald, lest we forget.  We also learnt that the cover legendaries are almost certainly Mega Evolutions (Get*TV and Coro Coro both compared the official art designs to the cover art, and the former actually stated "Mega Shinka?" whilst doing so).  So that gives us some idea of what to expect.

[Blue Blood]

Well that was... uninteresting. I was expecting to at least see the character running in a town or something. Wasn't it said they would show gameplay? Because that looked more like a title screen animation. It was pretty cool, but I was expecting a little bit more.

It was said they would show footage. That's all.

[Doctor MK]

Somehow I knew the "showing off footage before E3" thing would be too good to be true. The (presumably) intro clips are nice, and it's a cool throwback to the original titles, but it's definitely going to leave some people disappointed who were expecting to at least see some actual gameplay rather than Groudon and Kyogre unleashing hell upon the land. Still, it more or less confirms the game will be in the style of X and Y, and it suggests the Omega Groudon and Alpha Kyogre designs might be Mega Evolutions after all. Time will tell!

 

I expect to see a more formal reveal of all the key info at E3, so magazine leaks aside this is probably all we're going to get to tide us over for the next month or so.

[Kuzu]

Oh well, time to not give a fuck for a month.

[Solkia]

The CoroCoro reveals have allways started on May 11th or 12th so I'll hold them too consistency to deliver something by monday.

 

 

Or not.

 

I wonder how far in development these actually are.

[Blue Blood]

I wonder how far in development these actually are.

I'd wager that they're pretty far through. They're being released globally in around half a years time. Translations will need to be done, QA, and all the rest before they out the door. Just cause they've barely shown a thing doesn't mean that there's not a lot there. What we've got so far it just teaser material and a wee bit of pre-planned damage control.

[Tails spin]

But one has to think how much damage control this is cuz the CoroCoro page would have been pre planned instead of last minute

[Blue Blood]

But one has to think how much damage control this is cuz the CoroCoro page would have been pre planned instead of last minute

I said a wee bit for a reason. As in, they'd probably long since decided to tease ORAS before E3, cause that's only normal. But to make the announcement on the very same day as the disappointing financial report screams 'diversion tactic'. Nintendo's financial report was going to be bad and they knew that many, many months in advance, so it wasn't an impromptu decision to announce ORAS on the same day. It was just to take away the sting somewhat and hopefully put a more positive article amongst the headlines.

[Mania Pipe]

 

I wonder how far in development these actually are.

I believe they were making these games at the same when X & Y were released or during the development, so my guess is pretty far.

[Solkia]

I'm going to keep my salt out, but I hope you guys turn out to be right.

 

Looks like this is going to be the first E3 I'll actually give a rat's ass about.

[TCB]

When it comes to the core Pokemon titles; I'm not too surprised when one game is being made the next is very well in development to a near-final/finalized state, just needing to be translated and work out any little bugs and what not. That's, again to me, been their mantra since at least Diamond and Pearl. 

 

So again I'm not all that surprised ORAS at this point are pretty far in development anyway; the games are based off a modified X&Y engine for starters, just like the case for previous games and their successors in the past. 

[Blue Blood]

I'm going to keep my salt out, but I hope you guys turn out to be right.

 

Looks like this is going to be the first E3 I'll actually give a rat's ass about.

I'm kinda curious as to why you think these games are still early in development? It doesn't make any sense.

[buba]

I'm kinda curious as to why you think these games are still early in development? It doesn't make any sense.

 

Well, Pokémon games are always announced in some sort of event, usually on that jp tv show.

Also, after it CoroCoro and the said programme usually have something "decent" to show or talk about a week after.

This announcement felt rushed like they weren't ready to show anything. The sneak peek on the Get TV was even added at the last minute and it featured 5 seconds of basic animations.

[Solkia]

I'm kinda curious as to why you think these games are still early in development? It doesn't make any sense.

 

It really doesn't, but I've never seen such piss poor promotion from any Nintendo game unless it was  really early in development. SMT x FE, Sticker Star, and Luigi's Mansion 2 come to mind.

[Teoskaven]

It really doesn't, but I've never seen such piss poor promotion from any Nintendo game unless it was  really early in development. SMT x FE, Sticker Star, and Luigi's Mansion 2 come to mind.

 

Also Smash Bros. for WiiU/3DS, since when they first announced it at E3 2012, it wasn't even started and Sakurai himself didn't knew anything.

[Eitarou]

Well, Pokémon games are always announced in some sort of event, usually on that jp tv show.

Also, after it CoroCoro and the said programme usually have something "decent" to show or talk about a week after.

This announcement felt rushed like they weren't ready to show anything. The sneak peek on the Get TV was even added at the last minute and it featured 5 seconds of basic animations.

 

That's par the course, really.

 

All HGSS had was Ethan walking around New Bark Town for a few seconds.

 

At least this is a cutscene.

[buba]

That's par the course, really.

 

All HGSS had was Ethan walking around New Bark Town for a few seconds.

 

At least this is a cutscene.

 

That's true, HG/SS where officialy announced on 10/05/2009 (leaked on the official site two days before) and all we had where like 15 seconds of footage of the player walking around New Bark Town.

The difference is that two days later when CoroCoro was leaked we got to see the protags new designs, various screenshots and also information about the Pichu event.

With OR/AS we got 5 seconds of what happens to be the awakening of Groudon and Kyogre and then on CoroCoro nothing but the a comparison between the cover designs and the old artwork like a last minute move instead of a pre-planned article.

[Doctor MK]

Well, Pokémon games are always announced in some sort of event, usually on that jp tv show.

Also, after it CoroCoro and the said programme usually have something "decent" to show or talk about a week after.

This announcement felt rushed like they weren't ready to show anything. The sneak peek on the Get TV was even added at the last minute and it featured 5 seconds of basic animations.

 

The announcement might have been rushed - possibly due to Nintendo wanting it to coincide with their financial report to help divert away from any negativity - but that has absolutely nothing to do with the game being early in development. If, as we expect, they're planning on lifting the lid at E3 and absolutely blowing everyone out of the water with loads of details about the games, then revealing much more than a few tidbits beforehand would be taking away from the presentation they have planned.

 

Let's, for the sake of this argument, assume that the Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire reveal was damage control on Nintendo's part - they revealed that the games existed and were coming out in November, and that alone was enough to get the internet in a frenzy and whet their appetite for the E3 reveals (which, presumably would have been a complete surprise announcement otherwise). They could have quite easily left it there for a month, and frankly I'm surprised they didn't, but they chose to back up the announcement with this "sneak peek" footage... which, yes, turned out to be horribly underwhelming and short, but again, they probably don't want to show off anything special that might ruin the surprise factor at E3. The clip may be a few seconds long with not much going on, but it lets us take away a few morsels of information - the similarities to the X and Y engine, Groudon and Kyogre's designs being different to that on the box art, etc.

 

Nintendo will open the proverbial Master Ball of goodies on the game at E3, I'm positive of it. They know Pokemon - and especially a much craved for Hoenn remake - will be a big crowdpleaser, so they've done the bare minimum to cover their backsides and whet people's appetite for the grand unveiling. The shock factor may be diminished as a result, but they sure as hell know we'll be tuning in to see what they show off... and if they're smart, they'll stick Pokemon right at the end of their presentation too, so that people will have to sit through all their other big announcements along the way, and possibly get interested in them as well.

 

Anyway, the point is, the games could be all done and ready to go right this minute for all it matters - they're intentionally withholding information and drip feeding us the tiniest details to tide us over until they're ready to unleash the motherload, which in all likelihood will be June 10th.

[Blue Blood]

Thank-you, MK. That's the most sensible post I've seen here in a while.

The key point really is how game long development takes, and when these games are actually being released. Believing them to be in early development right now is totally unfounded and, frankly, ridiculous. They'll be considerably unfinished and different to the final product, but rest assured the development will be well under way with plenty ready to be seen.

[buba]

The announcement might have been rushed - possibly due to Nintendo wanting it to coincide with their financial report to help divert away from any negativity - but that has absolutely nothing to do with the game being early in development. If, as we expect, they're planning on lifting the lid at E3 and absolutely blowing everyone out of the water with loads of details about the games, then revealing much more than a few tidbits beforehand would be taking away from the presentation they have planned.

 

Let's, for the sake of this argument, assume that the Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire reveal was damage control on Nintendo's part - they revealed that the games existed and were coming out in November, and that alone was enough to get the internet in a frenzy and whet their appetite for the E3 reveals (which, presumably would have been a complete surprise announcement otherwise). They could have quite easily left it there for a month, and frankly I'm surprised they didn't, but they chose to back up the announcement with this "sneak peek" footage... which, yes, turned out to be horribly underwhelming and short, but again, they probably don't want to show off anything special that might ruin the surprise factor at E3. The clip may be a few seconds long with not much going on, but it lets us take away a few morsels of information - the similarities to the X and Y engine, Groudon and Kyogre's designs being different to that on the box art, etc.

 

Nintendo will open the proverbial Master Ball of goodies on the game at E3, I'm positive of it. They know Pokemon - and especially a much craved for Hoenn remake - will be a big crowdpleaser, so they've done the bare minimum to cover their backsides and whet people's appetite for the grand unveiling. The shock factor may be diminished as a result, but they sure as hell know we'll be tuning in to see what they show off... and if they're smart, they'll stick Pokemon right at the end of their presentation too, so that people will have to sit through all their other big announcements along the way, and possibly get interested in them as well.

 

Anyway, the point is, the games could be all done and ready to go right this minute for all it matters - they're intentionally withholding information and drip feeding us the tiniest details to tide us over until they're ready to unleash the motherload, which in all likelihood will be June 10th.

 

I'm not saying that the games are early on development, it's more the fact that the announcements where clearly rushed.

Going by the footage that we saw yesterday, the games seem to be actually far in development since those scenes showed happen later in the game.

Like you said, I'm pretty sure that the big bomb will be at E3 and that's what this whole thing feels like, an E3 announcement. An E3 announcement that was showed of early for the sake of creating hype so people would care less about whatever happened to Nintendo now.

 

But yeah, I'm pretty happy that the thing got announced since I wanted this remakes for a long time now, it's just that the reveal trailer coming out of nowhere feels "strange" and just makes people beg for more.

[Doctor MK]

But yeah, I'm pretty happy that the thing got announced since I wanted this remakes for a long time now, it's just that the reveal trailer coming out of nowhere feels "strange" and just makes people beg for more.

 

You pretty much hit the nail on the head there - they're not wanting to reveal the information yet, they just want to get people interested for the time being. Nintendo aren't really in a good business position right now so the more attention they can bring themselves, the better, and they're being very crafty about how they're doing it.

 

1) Nintendo announces highly wanted games with next to no information

2) People are overjoyed that the games exist, but...

3) ...the lack of details means they have to speculate, creating discussion

4) Nintendo teases a "sneak peek" of the game

5) Fans go into hype mode, more discussion, attention all on Nintendo

6) Nintendo reveal the absolute bare minimum amount of footage

7) Fans discuss what little they've seen, share disappointment, but ultimately still speculate and crave for more

8) E3 2014 is a month away, big reveals expected

9) Come 10th June, everyone will be watching Nintendo, if only for a more substantial look at Pokemon

 

If that isn't a 9 point marketing plan for success, then I don't know what is

 

I imagine, what, there must have been hundreds, if not thousands of devoted Pokemon fans who tuned in to the broadcast to see those few seconds of footage? If they can manage to inspire those levels of interest for something so tiny, just imagine how huge the audience is going to be when the megatons are pretty much a guarantee.

[Sean]

Honestly it's not like we don't know what to expect. It's gen3 running on gen6's engine. A few seconds of a character walking around in the overworld isn't going to tell us anything more than that.