At a recent fan event at a Pokemon Center store in Tokyo, Junichi Masuda asked a crowd of fans if they owned a Nintendo Switch. He then encouraged those who didn't have the new Nintendo console to buy one.
Masuda is a member of Game Freak's board of directors and has been involved with the development of almost every Pokemon game. He started off as a composer for the music heard in the Pokemon games, but he also directed and programmed more recent Pokemon games. He's also part of the group who makes final decisions on new Pokemon designs.
It's not surprising that one of the heads of Game Freak is encouraging fans to buy a Nintendo Switch. After all, Game Freak and Nintendo have a strong working relationship due to their co-ownership of the Pokemon franchise and the Switch is the hottest console right now.
However, Masuda's company is currently working on a new set of Pokemon games for the Nintendo Switch, and fans quickly took Masuda's comment to mean that a Pokemon Switch announcement is coming soon.
Nintendo previously stated that the Pokemon Switch games will come out in "2018 or later," which has fans hoping for the "2018" and not the "later."
At this point, ANY comment about Pokemon will be interpreted as a sign that the Pokemon Switch games will be coming soon. But there is a ton of insider chatter that we could see a Pokemon announcement at E3....even though Nintendo traditionally avoids announcing Pokemon games during the annual gaming conference. E3 is about the latest that Nintendo could announce a Pokemon game and market it in the same way that past Pokemon games have been promoted, so many fans are all but certain that we'll get a big E3 reveal this year.
Of course, the Pokemon fanbase is an impatient lot, and it's just as possible we won't get a new Pokemon game this year. Game Freak is known for their methodical pace and they likely want to make sure the next Pokemon games make an impact, especially as they're the first Pokemon games to be released for a household console.
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Source: http://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/05/13/pokemon-switch-junichi-masuda/
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