The developers of Pokémon X and Y recently were in a discussion with Saturo Iwata about their upcoming title that releases on October 12th. Pokémon X and Y will be the first game in the series that does not have a color in the title as a distinguishing feature, and the developers have some interesting reasons behind the switch.
Iwata spoke with Junichi Masuda, director at Game Freak and Tsunekazu Ishihara, Pokémon Company CEO during a segment known as Iwata Asks.
Interestingly enough, the name for Pokémon X and Y is influenced by graphs with the x-axis and y-axis. Which may sound a little abstract at first but Masuda offers an intuitive explanation to the name.
“The world holds people with all sorts of ways of thinking, and you can get a sense that they exist in different dimensions,” Masuda said. “But if you think of them as people who think on the x-axis and people who think on the y-axis – horizontal and vertical axes – then they intersect somewhere,” said Masuda.
“We may think differently, but we all live on the same planet, so everyone eats, sleeps and goes about their day-to-day business like everyone else,” Masuda said.
Iwata then stated that the game aims to celebrate the differences between people. “The theme this time is that even in languages, cultures and mindsets are different, even if the surrounding environment is different, they overlap somewhere.”
The two guests also acknowledged that it may seem that they are departing from the color-based titles, but they concluded that it felt like the right time to do so. Pokémon X and Y will be the first Pokémon games to ever see a simultaneous global release and it will also be the first Pokémon game to release for the Nintendo 3DS.
“We may think differently, but we all live on the same planet, so everyone eats, sleeps and goes about their day-to-day business like everyone else.”
Later in the interview, Masuda speaks about the new Fairy-type Pokémon that will make its début in Pokémon X and Y. Masuda said that the new type allowed his team to re-examine the strengths and weaknesses of the Pokémon types. The team was also able to spread out the power of the Dragon-type Pokémon as well, so it will be interesting to see what the Fairy-type Pokémon effect when they make their début.
For those that excited for Pokémon X and Y, you only have a few more days to wait as the game makes it global launch on October 12th!
