Affectionate Diary

Eurogamer: How do you keep the Pokemon games fresh and relevant in the rapidly changing videogame market?

Junichi Masuda: When I create new videogames, I consider not just adapting the last element. First, I look again at all the elements, because the environment has changed. For example, there have been some technology changes and advancements. People may not like what they like in the past, trend wise. I take that into consideration when creating a new Pokemon.

Eurogamer: With this version, what makes it feel fresh? What makes it different to what’s gone before?

Junichi Masuda: We employed the same strategy as we did with Red and Blue.

FUCK YEAH. The Rift dev says his MMO is so powerful, if you put that cock sucker on your console, it’ll blow the fuck up!

Man! This guy is like Cliffy B on steroids and drugs AT THE SAME TIME. He makes Cliffy B’s checkered shirts look like mother fucking ballerina clothes, yo! Which is just as well, those shirts are pretty much over.

Any judgement on a group of people whose main defining characteristic is the country they’re from is a racist judgement. Or possibly a xenophobic judgement, though the difference is academic. I’m fine with that in principle, because I’m basically a racist. Everyone is, that’s human nature. But you can’t fault the wisdom of Inaba of Platinum Games when he says:

“My personal opinion is that it’s not very meaningful to segment the industry into Japanese and American,” Inaba told Play. “Wherever you go there are two kinds of game developers. One is good developers who have brilliant ideas and passion and the means and the resources to make their ideas into games. The other is bad studios who are not as good at what they do and those studios will be naturally selected to fail.”

Amen, brother.

Obviously he’d be much less open-minded if people still rated Japanese developers.