New Iwata Asks Explains How Pokémon X and Y Got Their Names

<p>So&comma; <em>Pokémon X and Y<&sol;em> are the first games in the long running series to &ast;not&ast; follow the traditional color naming&period; People have speculated and&comma; probably&comma; poked fun at the names&comma; but the real reason behind them is something no one would have guessed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;iwataasks&period;nintendo&period;com&sol;interviews&sol;&num;&sol;3ds&sol;pokemonxy&sol;0&sol;1">In the most recent Iwata asks<&sol;a>&comma; Satoru Iwata sits down with Game Freak Director Junichi Masude and Pokémon Company President Tsunekazu Ishihara and eventually the trio discuss the idea behind the names&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;I can remember it like it was yesterday&comma; how strong the response was when we announced the actual titles&comma; with people surprised and saying it was unexpected&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Iwata&period; &&num;8220&semi;Why did you decide to name them Pokémon X and Pokémon Y&quest;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;The X and Y represent the x axis and the y axis&comma;&&num;8221&semi; responded Masuda&period; &&num;8220&semi;The world holds people with all sorts of ways of thinking&comma; and you can get a sense that they exist in different dimensions&period; But if you think of them as people who think on the x axis and people who think on the y axis-horizontal and vertical axes-then they intersect somewhere&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We may think differently&comma; but we all live on the same planet&comma; so everyone eats&comma; sleeps and goes about their business day after day just like everyone else&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Iwata followed up with&comma; &&num;8220&semi;So the theme this time is that even if languages&comma; cultures and mindsets are different&comma; even if the surrounding environment is different&comma; they overlap somewhere&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Now that we know that the names are for the x-axis and y-axis&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s only a matter of time before we get a Pokémon Z &lpar;z-axis&rpar;&period; Will Z tell a different story from X a Y&comma; or a parallel one that eventually crosses over&quest; I&&num;8217&semi;d like to see the latter happen&comma; since the series seems to be experimenting and making changes to the format&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Pokémon X and Y<&sol;em> release worldwide this weekend&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&lbrace;Source&colon; <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;iwataasks&period;nintendo&period;com&sol;interviews&sol;&num;&sol;3ds&sol;pokemonxy&sol;0&sol;1">Iwata Asks<&sol;a>&rcub;<&sol;p>&NewLine;