5 of the Dumbest Mistakes Nintendo Ever Made in Regards to Pokémon

1. The Miramax Mistake (2002)
For whatever reason, Nintendo and 4Kids switched distributors of the wildly Pokémon films, and the fourth film, Pokémon 4Ever, was sent to Miramax, where, unlike the first three films, which were big hits when released nationwide, went for a limited release in the US (and no theater release for the UK). This was seen as a decline to the Pokémon brand which was in big decline at the time. By the sixth movie, Jirachi: Wish Maker, it was DVD only.


2. Backwards Compatibility Loss (2003)
There was and is backwards compatibility between all "generations" of Pokémon, but not II (Gold/Silver/Crystal) and III (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald). Why? Who knows! I think they wanted to make money off of remakes (which they did). Now some people say that this backwards compatibility issue is "forgiven" because of the remakes, but why purchase another set of games to collect more monsters you did years before, not to mention losing all the event Pokémon like Celebi and Mew. And wouldn't it be cool to keep transferring that Pikachu you got in Yellow and illegitimately taught it to learn Surf? Hm?

To make matters more irritating, they discovered several G/S/C music pieces inside R/S/E. Perhaps they could've made an e-Reader card, something like the Eon Ticket. The "GS Card" would allow players to go to "Transfer Island", where they could listen to the old music and get their old Pokémon. Irritating (using the e-Reader) but probably worth it. Unfortunately, no such card was ever planned.


3. Revoking Wizards of the Coast's License (2003)
Wizards of the Coast was the original manufacturer of the famous Pokémon TCG, and things seemed to work out between Nintendo and WOTC okay. But for some reason, Nintendo wanted to revoke the license of WOTC and take back the cards. While this worked out okay in many terms, it was still very bad for a few reasons. WoTC had built up a forum that communicated with fans, with weekly chats every Friday. They had planned a new set that would be released: Jamboree, a set that would be a mix of the unreleased-in-America "Vending" cards, and possibly others, including other Japanese cards that had not seen a release to that point (including "VS" and "Web"). They were also going to create their own cards. But Nintendo was greedy and revoked the license. As a result, Skyridge, the last set, was never reprinted and became quite rare, while Jamboree was cancelled altogether. Thanks a lot.

4. Pokémon Center New York Closes (2005)
When I was a kid, Pokémon Center New York was the end-all of coolness when it opened in November 2001. Probably in response to September 11th, with Toys R Us Times Square opening at about the same time, it was a whole building dedicated to Pokémon. It even had an online store with much more. But unfortunately, it closed about three or four years later to be converted to "Nintendo World Store". Disappointingly, when I finally visited Nintendo World in 2007, the store was rather small and crowded. It was much smaller than a department store, and a crippling attack to the wonders that I saw on the Internet of the original Pokémon Center.

5. Nintendo Takes Over the Animé (2006)
4Kids had been ruling over the Pokémon animé since it debuted in 1998. While 4Kids was a controversial company (it mangled some other animé dubs it had been in control of, most notoriously, One Piece), a lot of fans had respect for it. They grew accustomed to the voices, including Veronica Taylor (voice of Ash), Eric Stuart, and others. And for some reason, Nintendo decided to replace every single voice actor. This created a huge uproar in the eyes of fans, and to this day, whenever I see a clip of post-2006 Pokémon animé, it sounds like some bad fandub. I have other problems with the rest of the animé, but that's another story.

Pokémon TCG Online

The Pokémon TCG Online play (http://pokemontcg.com) is actually pretty fun.

Notes:
- The Flash based interface is slow and annoying. Especially coin flips.
- The first opponent kept using an insanely powerful Chansey card that handily won on the first battle I did all the way through, but the second time I got the jump on him and used a Seaking to kill it.
- In the future, you can build decks and play against real opponents!
- However, "real opponents" doesn't mean good chat support. Likely they'll be poor preconceived phrases, to cut down on trouble from random creeps: pedophiles, foul-mouthed 12-year-olds, you know the type.
- Furthermore, it would be nice if they had Unlimited format, but that means re-introducing the hundreds of cards before it, like the Wizards of the Coast cards (and the Japanese cards, too...hello Vending series!)
- Hopefully, all this would convince Nintendo to make a great game for the 3DS (and I might just buy it, given my 3DS thoughts)