Nintendo To Launch Next Major DS Pokemon Game In 2011

The next major Nintendo DS edition of Game Freak's Pokemon series will ship in the first half of next year, and as usual it will come in two parallel editions, this time titled Pokemon White Version and Black Version. Scheduled to release this September in Japan and spring 2011 in North America, the games will come only about a year after the most recent major Pokemon games on DS, HeartGold Version and SoulSilver Version, which themselves appeared after a much longer gap from their predecessors. Because Nintendo's next handheld console, the Nintendo 3DS, is expected to release by the end of March 2011, when Nintendo's next fiscal year ends, it is possible Black Version and White Version will be the last main Pokemon games to be released on the Nintendo DS platform. Previously, the game's director Junichi Masuda served as director and composer on Pokemon Diamond Version and Pearl Version, which shipped for Nintendo DS in North America in 2007. Nintendo says that in its 14 years, the Game Freak-developed Pokemon series has sold more than 200 million units worldwide to date, 8.4 million of which came from the most recent editions, HeartGold Version and SoulSilver Versions.