There’s certainly plenty of stuff happening this year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise, including games, merchandise and even music, but it’s fair to say that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company haven’t revealed everything that’s occurring over the next few months – which means people are on the lookout for any hint relating to other Pokémon-related festivities.
Take Nintendo Life reader Ash, for example. He emailed in to point out that, on the Nintendo UK site, a new search category has been added which mentions the Pokémon Mini handheld. In the “Originally For” section, Pokémon Mini now has its own listing, alongside the likes of the Game Boy, GameCube and Super Nintendo.
What’s interesting is that there’s also an “Other Systems” category, which is where you’d expect Nintendo to place the Pokémon Mini – unless, of course, there are plans afoot to resurrect the device in some way.
Look, we realise we’re making a pretty big assumption here, but think about it – the Pokémon Mini is ripe for rediscovery, especially when you consider that many younger fans won’t have been around to experience it the first time.
Given that it’s listed in the “Originally For” category, we’d guess that some kind of digital re-release would be most likely. Perhaps Nintendo has plans to release a Pokémon Mini app for Switch or smartphones which is free to download but allows you to buy individual Pokémon Mini games for a small fee, like Capcom Arcade Stadium?
In case you’re unaware of what Pokémon Mini is, it’s a small Tamagotchi-sized device that was released in 2001 and allowed you to insert tiny cartridges which contain mini-games. Costing around $40 (£30 in the UK) and with software that was around $20 / £15 a pop, it had the potential to be a massive success, but it perhaps didn’t sell as well as Nintendo had hoped and quickly faded from view – something which could potentially be attributed to the fact that it launched in the same year as the Game Boy Advance.
Only ten games were ever produced for the Pokémon Mini, each one having a Pokémon theme, so it would make an ideal digital collection for Switch.
Is this wishful thinking on our part? Let us know what you think by posting a comment below.
