The games were originally teased through a special message by The Pokémon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara during Nintendo's E3 2017 presentation, where Ishihara mentioned that Game Freak was working on a new core series "Pokémon" role-playing game for Nintendo Switch but that it would not be released for more than a year. During a press conference held by The Pokémon Company in Japan on May 30, 2018, Junichi Masuda confirmed that the next "Pokémon" core series games would release on Switch in the second half of 2019. Ishihara also assured that the then-upcoming titles would not have influences from "Pokémon Go" like "Let's Go, Pikachu!" and "Let's Go, Eevee!" had and that it would introduce many new Pokémon and "polished" graphics.