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Tsunekazu Ishihara

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Tsunekazu Ishihara
Born (1957-11-27) November 27, 1957 (age 67)
Toba, Mie, Japan
Alma materUniversity of Tsukuba
OccupationGame producer
Years active1991–present
EmployerThe Pokémon Company (1998–present)
Notable work

Tsunekazu Ishihara (Japanese: 石原 恒和, Hepburn: Ishihara Tsunekazu, born November 27, 1957) is a Japanese video game designer, director, producer and businessman who is the president of The Pokémon Company. Prior to working with the Pokémon series, Ishihara was part of Ape Inc. and worked on titles such as EarthBound, and then years later he founded Creatures Inc.

Ishihara's work with Pokémon, in which he was involved since early development stages during the 1990s had him as a producer from Creatures while he also heavily focused on licensed and spin-off products such as the Pokémon Trading Card Game, with him founding The Pokémon Company to handle such business activities. He was also crucial in the development of Pokémon Go, having supported the concept of a location-based Pokémon game.

Career

Ishihara was born on November 27, 1957, in the city of Toba, Mie Prefecture. In 1983, he completed a Masters in Art and Design at the University of Tsukuba.[1][2] After his graduation, he joined Ape Inc. in 1991, where he worked in the development of various video games,[3] among others Mario & Wario (1993), and EarthBound (1994).[4][5] In 1995, after leaving Ape Inc., Ishihara founded the development company Creatures Inc.,[6] with assistance from Satoru Iwata.[7]

Pokémon

When the planning and development for the Pokémon series began in 1990, Ishihara worked with Game Freak as a producer at Creatures to develop the Red and Green titles, at one point with Creatures providing a cash infusion during the company's financial difficulty to help them in the development of the game.[4][7] Following the title's release, Ishihara founded the Pokémon Center Company—today The Pokémon Company—and became its Representative Director.[3]

Prior to Red and Green's release, Ishihara initiated the development of the Pokémon Trading Card Game.[8] In an interview, Satoru Iwata noted that people involved with Creatures Inc. would refer to Ishihara as "The King Of Portable Toys" due to Ishihara's extensive involvement on licensed Pokémon products—including the trading cards, anime, and movie; according to Ishihara, his involvement and focus on the licensed products was to ensure that the next titles in the series—which he was again involved in—were successful.[9]

Ishihara stated that he had initially expected Gold and Silver to be his final Pokémon games intending to leave the series after the two games were finalised; however, following their success, increased requests for licensed Pokémon products prompted a joint venture between Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures Inc. to establish The Pokémon Company in 2000, which was meant to take licensing and brand management tasks away from Game Freak, which was to focus on working on the next titles. Ishihara was then placed as president and CEO of the new company.[10][11] During the development of FireRed and LeafGreen, Ishihara and Iwata convinced Game Freak to use the Wireless Adapter for trading in the games, instead of trading Pokémon through cables like in previous titles.[12][13] Ishihara was also involved with the tie-in "Pokéwalker" in HeartGold and SoulSilver.[14]

In 2014, following an April Fools prank on Google Maps involving users "catching" Pokémon on the app, Ishihara began to negotiate licensing of Pokémon characters for an augmented reality game with Niantic Labs. Ishihara had been an avid player of Niantic's Ingress title, and he endorsed the planned game—which secured support from Iwata.[15][16] Upon its release in 2016, the title Pokémon Go was considered a massive success, with Ishihara referring to its cultural impact as a "Pokédemic", comparing it to the peak popularity of Pokémon in the late 1990s.[17]

During an interview with Bloomberg, Ishihara noted that he was initially skeptical on the Nintendo Switch's success, doubting the prospects of a video game console with the abundance of smartphones.[18] Despite this, they naturally started development on several Nintendo Switch games as a Nintendo affiliate. Later, in 2019, Ishihara announced the title Pokémon Sleep slated for a 2020 release,, which he stated was to make "players to look forward to waking up every morning".[19]

In April 2023, Ishihara stepped down as CEO of Creatures Inc., a position he held for decades while still working at The Pokémon Company as its president. Ishihara still will continue working as President of Pokémon Company instead of working as the two functions on different companies as he had before.[20]

Games

Only works before the first game credited to Ishihara as executive producer when he became President of The Pokémon Company, as in future titles he's always listed as Executive Producer due to that position and stopping being directly involved with the games.

Year Title Role
1990 Knight Move Producer
1991 Yoshi
Tetris 2 + Bombliss Producer, puzzle problem creator
1992 Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss Bombliss supervisor, puzzle problems creator
1993 Monopoly (Super Famicom) Director
Sanrio World Smash Ball!
Mario & Wario Producer
1994 EarthBound Line producer, special effects artist
1995 Mario's Picross Director
The Monopoly Game 2 Project manager
Tetris Blast Supervisor
Mario's Super Picross Director, screen graphic designer
1996 Pokémon Red and Blue Producer
Picross 2 Director
1998 Pocket Monsters Stadium Producer
Pokémon Yellow
Hey You, Pikachu!
Pokémon Trading Card Game
1999 Pokémon Snap
Pokémon Pinball
Pokémon Stadium
Pokémon Gold and Silver
Custom Robo
Doshin the Giant Executive producer
2000 Pokémon Puzzle Challenge Producer
Pokémon Puzzle League Licensing supervisor
Custom Robo V2 Supervisor
Pokémon Crystal Producer
Pokémon Stadium 2
2001 Pokémon Card GB2: Great Rocket-Dan Sanjō!

Awards

References

  1. ^ "Mr. Tsunekazu Ishihara". Nikkei. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  2. ^ a b "President's Message". pokemon.co.jp. The Pokémon Company. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  3. ^ a b c "Mr. Tsunekazu Ishihara" (PDF). Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  4. ^ a b Musgrave, Shaun (28 July 2016). "Who Owns Pokemon, Anyway? It's Complicated". TouchArcade. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  5. ^ "Happy birthday, EarthBound: Looking back at all the 'Smiles and Tears'". Nintendo Wire. 5 June 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  6. ^ "「テクノロジーの先端部分に引っ張られすぎると、当たり前を見失う」株式会社ポケモン石原恒和社長". dime.jp (in Japanese). 30 December 2018. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  7. ^ a b "Iwata Asks - Just Making The Last Train". Nintendo. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  8. ^ Wong, Alistair (17 March 2019). "Pokemon Card Managers On Origins Of The Card Game And The Varied Illustrations". Siliconera. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  9. ^ "Iwata Asks - The King Of Portable Toys". Nintendo. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  10. ^ "Iwata Asks - Just Being President Was A Waste!". Nintendo. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  11. ^ Farokhmanesh, Megan (19 June 2014). "What is The Pokémon Company?". Polygon. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  12. ^ "E3 2004: THE POKEMON CREATORS SPEAK". IGN. 13 May 2004. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  13. ^ "Iwata Asks - The Power of Science is Staggering!". Nintendo. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  14. ^ "Iwata Asks - We Were Greedy With The Features". Nintendo. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  15. ^ "Pokemon Go: How a Google prank spawned a mobile gaming phenomenon". CBC. 22 July 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  16. ^ Takahashi, Dean (16 December 2015). "How Pokémon Go will benefit from Niantic's lessons from Ingress on location-based game design". VentureBeat. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  17. ^ Jacques, John. "Pokemon Company CEO Explains Why Pokemon GO is So Successful". GameRant. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  18. ^ "Pokemon CEO told Nintendo that Switch wouldn't be successful before it launched". Nintendo Everything. 5 September 2017. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  19. ^ May, Tiffany (29 May 2019). "Pokémon Sleep Wants to Make Snoozing a Game Too". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  20. ^ Writer, Jeffrey Rousseau Staff (2023-04-05). "Creatures Inc. sees leadership change as CEO and president step down". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  21. ^ "Fifteenth Japan Innovators Award: Grand Prize Goes to Project Manager of Seiko Epson". Nikkei BP. 25 October 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
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