Pokemon Sword And Shield Designed Primarily For Handheld Mode According To Nintendo

Earlier today, Nintendo released a transcript for their March 2019 financial results briefing, during which CEO Shuntaro Furukawa spoke about the company’s plans for the rest of the year.

One pair of notable games Furukawa highlighted during the briefing was Pokemon Sword and Shield. According to Furukawa, the new Gen 8 Pokemon games were designed mainly with portable play in mind, in contrast to the previous entries Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee!, which were designed for docked mode.

One pair of major titles being released this new fiscal year is Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield.

These new titles, first announced in a Pokémon Direct in February, have generated a huge response from consumers. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!, which were released in November of last year, are designed to highlight the fun of Nintendo Switch in TV mode, for example by waving the controller at the TV screen to capture Pokémon. Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield are being developed to emphasize the fun of playing Nintendo Switch in handheld mode.

Furukawa also re-iterated Nintendo and Gamefreak’s hopes that the game can be enjoyed by both old and new Pokemon fans when it eventually releases later in the year.

We want these games to be played not only by longtime Pokémon fans, but also by consumers whose first encounter with the series was on a dedicated video game platform with Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!

Pokemon Sword and Shield are scheduled to launch sometime in late 2019 for the Switch.