Not at all! But seeing numbers like Palworld sales drove gives me hope GameFreak could panic a little and start trying (although as I mentioned Nintendo and their subsidiaries are greedy and merch sales are still strong for them, along with subpar game sales for the fanbase currently). Perhaps other subsidiaries of Nintendo. Certainly making more of an impact in attracting players than Digimon did when I was a kid, and that’s more of a change than I’ve seen in the last 20 or so years for Nintendo’s monster trainer.

In recent years Nintendo has had a little blue ocean to swim in, and they’ve shown that rather than compete or innovate as times change, they instead like to wall their garden off more. But hey, maybe Zelda and Pokemon can have an awesome next gen if they invest in a more powerful console (handheld or not) and spend a few years reworking their formula and passionately building an innovative game, like they used to do when I was a kid.

Once upon a time the Gameboy was a fairly powerful handheld system, and Pokémon Red was a groundbreaking game. But those days are gone, and the entire umbrella company as a whole needs to begin to try or they will continue to fall behind. Nostalgia only lasts as long as the affected generation(s). I’m hopeful something like the shocks of this year could change their mindset a little and get them to modernize a bit.