There were a lot of good Pokémon games as well as a few that were not so good. Nevertheless, Pokémon was never really given up, it came more and more new games with of course: new Pokémon. But at some point, the ideas go out too - sooner or later also in Pokémon. There are already some ... interesting Pokémon. And so my question (finally): How many more Pokémon will there be and how long could Pokémon survive from your point of view? How much new generations will Pokémon get?
I thought it was going to end at gen 4 because in the anime it seemed like they were getting into the rules of the Pokémon League and Elite Four a little more than they had in the past. I thought that was foreshadowing to Ash actually winning, but then returning to Kanto for one last run through, because I think at one point there was a rule mentioned that a trainer had to beat the league in their home region before being able to challenge the elite four. I might have misunderstood it at the time though. I think as long as they can keep thinking of more regions to add, it could keep going. They've been pretty transparent with the last few what real world areas the games were based on. I'd be interested to see a region based on some area of South America because of all of the interesting mythology they could use. Maybe one in Africa too because of the wide variety of animals that can be found there. I would guess that they'd probably at least try to go for an even 10 generations, so I could see there being at least 3 more.
I could see it going on potentially forever, and if/when it does end, it would be carried on by a spiritual successor by the same staff. I give it at least until 10 generations total, so maybe 1200 completely unique species not including regional variants and mega forms. Speaking of which, I think even those things aren't done yet: Mega Forms and Z moves and other gimmicky things that mostly appear for one generation. There will be more of those, and maybe even more types. I can totally see a future generation adding some unique-ish type that only one or few Pokémon even have. What I'm saying is they'll always find a way to mix it up some and make the next generation unique. How long it continues to be profitable, I don't know, but I do think it's going to be a long time. Year 2025 Gen ten comes out, there's well over 1000 species, and we're all eagerly awaiting the release of True White and Ideal Black in the next generation.
