Pokémon Home Details Revealed: Free And Premium Plans, National Pokédex And More

Oh here we go !!!!!!!!! meltdown incoming...

Yes!!! Finally GTS for Pokemon Sword and Shield

I guess its no surprise there's paid tiers. I think we all suspected that. I honestly would probably be fine with a free or three month subscription to get the Pokemon I want.

Good to see the GTS back

So, $16 for 1 year like Pokemon Bank with $ 5 for 1 year ?
A bit expensive but still useful in my opinion. 😏

So if I want to keep my living Pokedex, the annual price goes up x3. Going to have to think about this.

Can’t wait for this!

@Anti-Matter Serebii.net does point out that for launch, Pokemon Bank and Pokemon Transporter will be offered for a month free. So it sounds to me its a courtesy thing to give everyone a chance to move on from Bank to Home for no cost

"The Premium plan will cost $2.99 for a 30-day subscription, $4.99 for a 90-day subscription, or $15.99"

And I have to pay in order to tranfer from Bank. WTF Nintendo? I already pay for Bank. You're charging me a second time to transfer them out of Bank? What a crock of crap

And its $16 rather than $5 annually. Game Freak can f*** off with this

I guess my Pokemon adventure ends with USun and UMoon.

No matter what everyone says, people will still pay for this, it's Pokemon.

That price is rubbish - Bank was £5 a year, why is this three times as expensive? I’ll probably just buy a 30-day subscription, transfer the handful of pokemon I care about from X, and then stay on the free plan. Way too expensive for what this is.

@AstralSoul I know, right? We have a family NSO subscription we split four-ways (myself, my mother, my partner and his brother), which works out at roughly £7.50 a head every year - that’s HALF of what GF wants to charge for this. Cheeky gits.

I could complain but, honestly, does any more need to be said?

It’s breaking my heart, but I’m done with Pokémon. Bring on Animal Crossing.

There are a lot of good things with this service, but the fact the free version only let's you store 30 pokemon is really weird. At least they are offering a free version at all, but $16 for the paid version is a tad steep.

The Pokemon Company just will not learn. But of course, the masses will lap this up

This has got to be a joke aha

bruh they legit have models for the Pokemon in Home

what the heck dude

Side note, glad they have a free plan. Makes things easier. Still gotta pay for Bank tho >.<

Edit: I have just realized that transferring to and from bank is locked behind the premium plan anyway. My bad.

Anyone wanna be friends so we can trade?

Initial impression: I feel okay about the service. Although I do recognize that the price can be steep for some.

At $16 a year (for Premium), it would have been great to have a direct connection between HOME and Sun/Moon/UltraSun/UltraMoon.

Gotta keep my Bank alive.

Um. Pokemon Bank was $5.30 a year. Why is this so much? It makes no sense

2 paid online services... they should of keep upgrading pokemon bank to be compatible with more future games and consoles to come for easy transferring and preservation of all your pokemon in one place

sure, I move pokemons from bank to home and then leave most of them there doing nothing, because that GF only put a part of national pokedex in those joke of games sword&shield.
And also charge separately for bank and home.
Pokemon fans get what they deserve

@liljmoore they must of not been satisfied from the profits from pokemon bank

@Mando44646 Bank and Transporter are free for the first month after HOME releases. Just transfer them then.

That diagram looks like a conspiracy theory.

I'm keeping Bank so I can use it with the older games and getting Home Premium for when I want to trade or move the older critters to the new platform on an as needed basis. More money yes but my main worry is if they ever shut Bank down and cut off the older stuff.

@justin233 Good idea, at least Animal Crossing won't disappoint.

@RupeeClock You can't do it like that, thanks to the fact that it'll only let you transfer if you have the premium anyways.

I really don't like that the mobile app has exclusive features, locking GTS behind the mobile version of HOME is just as bad as Nintendo locking voice chat behind the NSO mobile app.

Excuse my ignorance (still only up to Gen 4 over here) but with Bank (and presumably Home) you can trade freely between games, right?

Aside from specific examples (eg Black/White Kyurem, Pokemon into games without that ‘mon, Pokemon with moves not in that game), there’s no restriction?

So you can at least use this to trade between Sword / Shield, without needing a second Switch, and use it to bag all 3 starters? Just can’t evolve ‘mon that evolve when traded.

I’m also assuming that you can’t send a standard Kanto Koffing from Let’s Go into Sword/Shield, that it only recognises Galarian breeds.

Meh... guess I started not to care at the best time. Milking the fan base on every turn.

Whenever GameFly gets around to shipping Sword or Shield I'll play it and call it a day. And deal with whatever I can do with basic.

The really excluded the gts from SWSH to sell it through pokemon home? wtf and i though GF/TPC could not get worse

edit: obviously i can't read, so is basic free? but its still stupid to lock the GTS behind the app

Gotta have all your money! Pokemon!

Remember when this service was 5 bucks for a WHOLE year? Lol what a rip off this is now.

@NinjaWaddleDee it's not the same service at all

@Pichuka97,

So does this make the masses right then, and you wrong?.

Hahahahahahaha get the f- out, Gamefreak.

I'm so done with Pokémon.

The moment they took away national dex and being able to collect them all now gave me little reasons to want to pay for this. I did the bank a little bit, but hardly ever used it and only subscribed for 1 year. At least not everything is behind a pay wall like using at least 1 GTS at a time.

Yeah, time to cancel my Pokémon Bank subscription.

It's nice that Home still has some free functionality, though.

@isellpixels Throw all the numbers you want, slice it anyway it looks best to you - people are able but shouldn't be willing to pay this outrageous nonsense. And, frankly, unless I see some hard transparent data from Gamefreak, I have a VERY hard time believing that minimal data transfer and storage warrants a subscription and I will be chalking this up to greed.

@mariomaster96 Basic is free yes. The main reason to move GTS out is to still let GTS support Pokemon not in SS

Guess I’m keeping my Pokémon in Ultra Sun

I'm glad that the trading features will be free to use. I guess without the subscription, this will just be an easy trading solution, instead of a full on storage system.

I don't think I'll be moving my Pokemon bank "savings" to this one though... Unless they offer a free premium period at some point.

@isellpixels It isn't, but you seem to be failing to grasp it. Pokémon is an entertainment product and not even in the realm of being a core product like housing, utilities, etc. Yet, here we have Gamefreak doing one messed up thing at a time without any thought to long-term consequences.
Unlike your telltale and condescending defense of such shady business moves that are yet unbacked by data despite public backlash, my complaints will help allow others to feel free to express that they believe that they are being taken advantage of on the principle of the matter. Likewise, I've stopped buying Pokémon-related products (barring the Smash amiibo) and I encourage others to do the same until these multiple matters finally come to light. By myself, I cannot do a lot and won't prevent others from purchasing if they want. Frankly, it's good that only one person can do so very little, especially if power were left to people like you.

The IV judge is locked behind a paywall now, huh? Does Sword and Shield have one in-game? Haven't gotten it yet.

@DAHstroy,

Just wait until Nintendo announce the great Animal cull, and make you pay for the rest as part of their online service.

@KingBowser86,

Your comment demonstrates what is also wrong with the core audience, as they complain the masses do not care and will buy into anything, while at the same time refusing to take into account not everybody feels the same way they do, If you and others have decided the franchise is no longer made for you or them, then simply move on and leave the masses to it.

So I see what the mystery was all about - more and more once-free features are being moved to a paid service. Can I say a nasty word now? In ten years, we'll have to mortgage our homes just to play Pokémon. Neato.

@johnvboy
So you're okay with GTS being locked to Pokémon Home. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Doesn't look like it'll be an option given the diagram above, but I wish the Pokemon GO feature allowed us to upload and download Pokemon but it looks like it's just upload, same as the Let's Go games and Pokemon Bank. Kind of sucks that only Sword and Shield allow two-way Pokemon storage.

Yeah, no, thank you.

Also, 30 Pokemon? What's the point even?

@Kalmaro Succint and well said. The pricing is ridiculous, the number of steps is convoluted and poorly-considered, and the total cost to get a full experience out of this generation is a bad joke. Don't know if TPCi has new management or what, but even for a company that routinely sells two versions of the same game, this is particularly slimy.

@johnvboy Bear in mind that this is a TPC/Game Freak decision, not a Nintendo decision. No need putting blame where it isn't needed. If anything this would be an actually good game at a premium but reasonable price if this were an in-house Nintendo project.

@AlexSora89 well at least it seems the gts as we know it is still free within this app.

@TheBigK you get the iv judge feature after beating Leon in the battle tower. (All you need to accomplish this is a well trained Dracovish, and it'll be an easy sweep)

So I can store 30 Pokemon for free. That's not much. The premium costs three times the amount that Bank does.

...

WHAT?!?

@isellpixels Either way, you don't see this as a rip off?

I'd it just me..... Or does that Bulbasaur have a different model? Like it looks different from any game he has been in.

...... Yea I'll just stick with just having all my Pokemon in their respective games.

@Ttimer5 they seem to be using 3d renders of their official art.

@johnvboy no, people will spend money on what they want, in this case, without considering the poor consumer practices employed by the company in question

Took me few minutes to realise but since I share my NSO family account with seven other people I pay less than 5€ for it yearly. That's three times less than Pokemon Home.

Not happy with this service, no support from me... not that it matters.

$16 a year...oof. And for my is x3 because I’d need one for myself about both my kids. The free plan not allowing linkage with Pokebank pretty much makes it a non-option for me.

@Eel
Either it's just flat art and only used once (not moving per sé) ..... Or we could be seeing how they may look at future date (maybe next gen or whatever) which if the case, Bulbasaur actually looks really cute and nicely modeled

@Mando44646 heres a box of tissues

they can stick this where the sun don't shine, i would be relatively content if it was around the same price as the bank but triple the price is a complete rip off

@Ttimer5 I assume it's just 2d images, considering it's gonna be a mobile app too. They'll probably keep it as simple as they can.

Though, yeah, their official art usually has more personality than the boring 3d models they've been using in the games.

Finally. Kinda been waiting for this for awhile.

I’ll probably get the 3-month plan and see where it goes from there. Looking at all the features including the ability to use your smart devices, mystery gifts, and “your room” it is an improvement over Pokémon Bank. I’ll mainly use it for the transferring part and store them in the game, so I wouldn’t be utilizing 6000 space, much less 50 (at this current time). I think I can survive off the basic plan afterwards since you can do everything else (but less), just not Pokémon Bank.

It is nice that they will have Pokémon Bank (and Poké Transporter) available free for one-month. I haven’t renewed mines in years and I will feel weird paying for a year only to use it for a day.

@Menardi What's more annoying is that there are some that are still acting as if this is the pinnacle of the Pokémon experience... Yeah, okay.

@Pichuka97,

Poor in your personal opinion, my daughter and wife play on Roblox and do spend money on micro transactions etc, now if i tell them I am buying a £50 video game they think it's expensive, so it's just different points of view when it comes down to these things.

Yikes! Well that’s a fat no from me. Was happy buying Bank year in year out. That price was acceptable. This price is not. What I’ll do instead is complete my Ultra games dex then buy the shortest time possible for Home to transfer them all into Sword and Shield.

Losing a lot of faith in game freak. Once the devs that I’d go crazy on buying all versions of their games due to the sheer amount of content and fun in them… to a greedy company selling the same DLC twice (it’s the same content yet you need to buy it twice if you have sword and shield). No sir. Dunno what’s going on with them but as a studio manager it just appears they’re pushing what they can;

How much can we charge people for X, what can we get away with not adding to Y, how many additional costs can we apply to our customers?

Nah.

@AlexSora89,

I am not a massively obsessive collector, the amount of Pokemon in the latest game is no issue for me, plus the expansion pack will add more Pokemon and a huge amount of extra content for a very good price.

So if I want Pokebank AND Home I would need to pay about 20 dollars a year... Way too expensive, especially when you add the cost of Nintendo Online on top of that...
I'm probably not gonna get premium if that's how much it will cost.

@Kalmaro,

While this may surprise you it should not be annoying, the market the games are aimed at will love them, if people want to enjoy these games who are we to say they can't or are wrong.

You still have to pay for decent room and Pokémon that can't be transferred to Sword and Shield will still be stuck? I'm glad we have a free tier, this is ridiculous. At least make it easier to not get Pokémon stuck in Home.

@johnvboy "won't prevent them from buying" Clearly, I have taken that into account. This as opposed to protesting disruptively or hacking, etc.
I haven't played since Gen 3. But I still like the franchise. I miss it. I'd like to return to it. But between the shady business, microtransactions, and absurdly arbitrary in-game hurdles, I have no desire to participate.

@Grumblevolcano actually this is the only thing about home that makes sense. The reason for the mobile GTS is because of trade servers. Right now you can’t use GTS with Gen 4/5 because they killed those servers. Not to mention gens 6 and 7 each have their own unique servers. If they move the trade servers to one centralized location all games going forward will continue to have GTS access.

Now everything else meh, but that move makes sense.

They have pretty much taken this franchise out back like Old Yeller.

@johnvboy Why would it suprise me? I knew this would happen. Gamefreak has been criticized for being lazy and greedy for years and it's only gotten worse.

Right now, we have a newer generation of gamers who just aren't as familiar with the history behind gamefreak and how things used to be. They see a game like Sword amd Shield and see how nice it looks and assume this is the best we've ever had.

Its very annoying and a little sad since we could have something better if people wouldn't reward gamefreak and everyone involved with these games for rushing and being greedy.

Thanks. I hate it.

$16 per year for the premium version is ridiculous. I never subscribed to Bank and never intended to subscribe to pay for Home, and this only further cements that decision.

Nice that the free version exists...if you are fine with the 30 Pokemon storage/transfer limit.

Well... this was expected. Sadly no "battle" mode in Home. But yeah... I might pick up the subscription

@mousieone
GTS is on mobile so Gamefreak can bypass the Switch's online service so you won't need to pay for NSO to use GTS.

@Yorumi
Could you explain to me then why a company like Google gives many of its products for "free", and generates more money than Nintendo, I'm curious about that argument you mention, please.

@TheBigK yea Sword and Shield has the Judge function do the Battle Tower until you encounter Leon for the first time and beat him to get it

@Kalmaro It's not looking good, not to myself and likely not to most other players who have been playing since Red. Every single decision Game Freak and the Pokemon Company have made with this generation has been divisive, poorly-considered, and just plain off. That is not a good thing contrary to what obsessed fans might posit online — it's not good business practice to alienate longtime customers (who are likely the biggest spenders when it comes to Pokemon).

If I'm not mistaken, in order to have the full Pokemon experience this generation, you would essentially need to:

• Purchase the base $60 game
• Purchase the $30 DLC that summarily locks half of the game's content behind a paywall (this is in no way a loaded statement; there is literally no post-game content in the base game of Sword and Shield. You capture one legendary and participate in a generic gauntlet battle).
• Purchase a $20/yr. Switch Online membership to be able to battle and interact online
• Spend $5 for the soon-to-be-discontinued 3DS Pokemon Bank transfer solution to transfer 3DS Pokemon to Bank, from which they can then be transferred to Home, then transfer them from Home to Sword and Shield (this makes Nintendo's Splatoon voice chat solution seem simple in comparison)
• Pay $16 for this new Home service if you wish to attempt to bring your old Pokemon up to the latest games, which is itself a roll of the dice because the new game doesn't even support all past generation Pokemon, and soon the old games won't even be able to transfer Pokemon to Pokemon Bank when they sunset the 3DS services, making the most fully-featured Home plan a waste of money once that does occur.

All of this coinciding with the worst mainline Pokemon entry in years does little to heighten players' spirits. I've loved Pokemon for many years and I would love to actually enjoy this generation, but so far it seems every small decision Game Freak and TPC are making is carefully crafted specifically to prevent that from happening. They are consistently proving themselves to be incapable of handling the series the way it deserves to be handled, and they now noticeably skimp on the quality of the games in an effort to bolster their merchandising opportunities (hence in-game gimmicks like "Z Moves" and "Dynamaxing" existing solely to sell merchandise), which is a strategic error on the part of TPC. While merchandising is their biggest source of revenue, they are foolish to believe they will have an ever-present customer base if the quality of their base product (the games) suffers in the process — blockbuster sales are not guaranteed forever with an increasingly sour customer base. There is a fine balance to be had in producing consistently high quality software while curating a healthy merchandising arm, see Mario or Zelda for examples of how to produce a great game series that is enhanced by its merchandising rather than the other way around.

@westman98 Just one more reason why it makes sense to move the GTS to home.

If I can't move pokemon back into Let's Go, I have no interest whatsoever.

If you think $16/yr is expensive for virtual home, man are you in for a shock when you start paying for a real home 🤦‍♂️

@Kalmaro,

We keep going over and over this, and I do get it that some people do not like these new games, and think that Gamefreak in some way have abandoned them to cater for the younger mass market, but at some point the people who are complaining just have to move on.

Now last time we debated you were waiting for a price drop on Sword or Shield and then was going to buy the expansion pack, or am I remembering that wrong?.

Why can't they update the actual game with these trading features?

@KingBowser86,

You can look at this both ways, I loved the extra content in Mario kart 8, as it put a new lease of life into a game I loved, sometimes the DLC can be good, these new Pokemon expansions look awesome to me.

@Kalmaro
You could have done a mic drop, pal.

@Menardi I'm not at all defending Game Freak and TPC. And I suspect this won't necessarily be any consolation. But they are offering Bank for free for the first month which, if you take advantage of it, does bypass the need to pay for two services.

With that being said, I guess some kind of discount would have been nice for those who already paid $5 for the year Bank. Maybe take $5 off of the yearly premium price.

I do agree I think the plan is to eventually discontinue Bank eventually. And I wasn't to nonplussed about it until someone on Twitter pointed out by doing that, it will eventually cut off having access to an entire chunk of the mainline games.

@johnvboy
Well, you're either a global gamer (or just a Nintendo fan outside Pokémon, as your Yoshi seems to imply) or your Pokémon-only trainer's trousers are very much ablaze.
Unless someone is a Pokémon fan that's devoted to the franchise to the point he or she basically has no other games on Switch, having to pay this much for a single game is going to take its toll on our poor wallets. Sadly, what's happened to Pokémon for the last year is ripe for a slippery-slope fallacy: where will it stop?
Most importantly, is The Pokémon Company at the very least aware that the overpriced, barely-beta base game is already 60€/$60 expensive as-is? Will we have to pay for Poké Balls via microtransaction in Generation IX? Oh wait, that's already a thing in Pokémon GO!
It's a worrying thought, and the sooner you become aware of it, the better.

@mousieone
Yeah that's the part that I can agree with. The success of Go + bypassing NSO means moving GTS to mobile is probably the best decision.

What I don't agree with is the pricing. $16 per year for the premium version is laughably steep.

Wait so there is a national dex now?

@Menardi Yep, no thanks.

They better not discontinue Bank, that would be the worst possible thing they could think of doing.

Think, dexit, but with actual consequences.

@AlexSora89 Dang, missed opportunity. Maybe I can edit it in...

@johnvboy I am! I'm still going to get the game, just not at the current price, and the amount I'm willing to spend on this game is steadily dropping. This really isn't helping them.

@UmbreonsPapa At some point Nintendo will stop supporting the 3DS entirely. That will also be the end for Pokémon Bank.

The way Home is set up, it would be easier to transfer Pokémon to a newer device generation (Bank is Nintendo Network Id bound, Home is linked to your Pokémon Club account) so when Nintendo releases their next console you only have to make a simple app for it that can access the Pokémon Club account.

Wow, this seems like a bad joke.
The best part of pokemon games were the specified trades.
Now they took it out of the games and I have to pay separately for that?

Well, I guess, that was the last drop.
After 20 years, bye bye Pokemon!

@AlexSora89,

I play video games for entertainment, I am a very big Nintendo fan but am not that obsessed with it, I split my time between watching movies and playing video games, that is what spare time I manage to get for myself, I have no issues with the pricing of games, or what shape the market takes in the future, and certainly have no time to worry about it.

By the way here is a link to my other hobby.

https://www.blu-ray.com/community/gallery.php?member=jonmoz&folderid=905

@construx YOU DO NOT have to pay for the GTS.

@Kalmaro,

I think we said the games would come down to a more palatable price sooner or later, I think you will enjoy the game when you play it, I just love the art style, and for me not having masses of time to invest the game is perfect, that being said I have managed to put over 300 hours into Zelda..I don't know how I have managed or was even allowed to do that.

@sanderev I guess my point is once Bank is unsupported, then anything from the Ultra games and before no longer come into play if you haven't already transferred them. Unless I missed the part where the Ultras/XY/ORAS and before will still somehow be accessable in transferring Pokémon to Home somehow, which I doubt. Which I guess is just unavoidable and inevitable

@johnvboy I hate to admit it, but I have finally reached that point in my life that having a 100+ hour epic is very hard to play.

I'm STILL trying to finish Digimon cyber sleuth and it has two games.

Still, I've git okebty of games to play, not having Pokémon yet isn't killing me and the mystery dungeon game has me hyped so there's that.

Honestly, I've always enjoyed the Pokémon spinoffs more than the mainline games.

...they got a free version and still pay walled the transfer, free version is a single box too.

@Kalmaro,

I bought Resident Evil 4 in the sale, now I am having to play through it again for yet another time, still fun though, but I must admit I like the ease of just watching a movie whilst chomping on some sweets.

The real game changer is what happens when you stop paying?
If so I will just pay one month, transfer everything, and just stop

@westman98 no disagreement there. Like I said the only part that made sense was the move for the GTS to mobile.

@johnvboy Apples and oranges. Expansions, done correctly, are of no issue and certainly more environmentally friendly than a third run of cartridges (as would have happened back in the day). Sure, the content is great and interesting and all — but released questionably soon, has the misfortune of adding back in the National Dex piecemeal, and is/will be cartridge-expensive to boot despite being only digital content.

The price is ridiculous. Basic offers only 30 pokemon storage. That is nothing. If it was something like 200 or so then I can can atleast be useful but still the premium price is way too high.

I knew it would be a separate cost but I was expecting it to be €5 like bank was at €21 for both is way too much for what it is.

Whatever. The free version is fine and I really don't have an issue with the premium plan, except I just don't like how they put PokeBank transfers behind another paywall, personally.

What a PoS
You have to pay to transfer from 3DS games to Bank
and then pay to transfer from Bank to Home

$15.99 per year after we're already expected to pay $20 yearly for Nintendo's online service (which is literally just charging us for what was free before). Very crappy move. I know Pokemon Home is more extensive than Pokemon Bank, but I think the price point should remain the same.

@Harmonie,

This is nothing to do with Nintendo's online service, and as far as I can see nobody is forcing anybody to buy this if they do not feel it's good value.

@Primarina,

They will never look at any positives, they are so consumed with their dislike for these new games nothing will please them.

Okay... $5 year for existing Bank subscription for the 3DS+ $16 Home Premium +$30 DLC x2 + $60 Pokemon games x 4 (LET'S GO and SwSh)+$20 NSO subscription = too much for a completionist who wants a complete National Dex for Gen 8... I didn't bother with the math but that is EASILY Over $300, not counting the cost of the systems. Not attacking, but this is very disappointing.

Edit: did the math for transferring from Bank to getting Home
Even with just one version of SwSh and skipping Let's Go. That is STILL over $100...

Not sure I can be bothered but might try it the free version. Already have NSO so don't want to be paying any more than that really.

Really disappointed but what I understand to be the mobile app requirement. My kids are too young for phones but would love to trade and it seems to be at best really difficult for them to do this under the new system.
Getting them online through a family plan was tricky enough (I'm not that bright.)

@cmk8 Just stick with the free version to be safe. It'll not be as problematic.

People will forget about this like they did about the lies surrounding all the Pokemon in sword and shield. Plus since the main market is children it will fly under the radar.

@Yorumi Dude, screw the lootboxes. I think their next strategy is to charge you $1 every time you boot the console and it recognises a Pokemon game being played. Game Freak is on the way to become the new EA.

at least there is a free version too and I don't really need more than the basic version. Props to Gamefreak doing something positive for the customers again in a while

@Saro will do, ta. At least in this version I get multiple save files so have only had to buy the game once for us each to play!

The downward trajectory of Pokémon is just absolutely incredible.

Absolutely amazed by the hide and sheer contempt of Game Freak in the space of just ONE generation.

If this is what Gen 8 is going to look like, I do not even wish to contemplate what is to come. The fact that they have imposed an ad for the DLC in Sword/Shield post-update angers me on the few occasions that I have looked at it as I can't even stand to play the games since the announcement of the DLC passes, which have completely soiled my enjoyment of the series and almost obliterated my goodwill.

I don't buy two of what is essentially the same game year in and year out to be sold DLC packs on top of that (in fact I have bought THREE copies of several games). Nope. No way. Go to hell, Game Freak. EA destroyed my love for The Sims over a decade ago, and now Game Freak are destroying Pokémon. At this rate, in-app purchases will come next, and moronic shills will defend it because it's "optional", quality of future games be damned. It absolutely confounds me that people defend anti-consumer practices and products that aren't even theirs to sell.

I might still give the spin-offs a look, and possibly Let's Go Gen II and/or a Gen IV remake, but unless Nintendo releases a complete edition of Sword/Shield with the DLC content on cartridge, this will most likely be the end of the road for me. I have been a loyal fan for 20 years, but I am not masochistic enough to lay idle while Game Freak has their way with me, and for the sake of the future of the franchise, I hope Game Freak's greed blows up in their faces sooner rather than later.

Temtem is getting rave reviews?

Ahah they keep screwing over fans. I am so glad I didn't buy swsh.

This price is absurdly high for what we actually get. I could see this being MAYBE justifiable for $10 a year, but $16 for a Pokemon Storage and Online Trading service?!

No wonder the online in SwSh is so lacking, they purposely saved it for this mobile app instead of actually implementing it into the game.

@Yorumi

Well, there is no denying that they "inflate" the prices of online services for the sake of making more profits, however I cannot believe that with "little" they maintain the system for those services; so, if so, that with "little" that they get a company, they can keep the server for years, and I say that because many MMOs (and games that require mandatory connection), many games would still be in force, even today Of course there are cases that the same company decided to close it and not for the cost, but many games and services closed.
I'm sorry, but I can't believe you, I believe that companies charge a lot, but not that their expenses for these services are "cheap"

And about Google, like others that manage online services (the cloud), I think that if you know that these companies "are obliged" to give those services free to the population because of the arrangement of governments to provide free internet services to users in addition of other things, and therefore, unlike Nintendo, Google would not worry much about systems, maintenance and expenses, adding the contracts that are made with other companies and what you mention, the implementation of ads, premium services, etc. .

In the end, nothing is free.

This looks awesome to me! I absolutely love it! I'll be dumping everything into Home and then letting Bank expire.

Personally I blame Niantic for no Pokemon Go connection at launch, but that's cool, it's still coming. Hopefully not too long post-launch.

I predict I will be using this a LOT! It will also be nice that I will be able to send Pokemon between Sword and Shield without needing another Switch. I'd like to play through the game with some shinys.

The price is fine by me. 3 bucks for 1 month is less than a pack of Pokemon cards and I suspect the majority of people only want the service to transfer all their old mons forward. Once that's done, they'll let it go.

A single Pokemon's data is roughly a 1/4 of a kb, making 6000 Pokemon is just about 1.5 mb. That's one-ten thousandth of the storage space Google offers for free.

1.5 MB is so small why is it even a cloud storage to begin with? That could have just been allocated into the application itself, which is likely hundreds of times larger than that anyways. Accessing your bank from other Switches is really situational and could have been done through cloud saves, and the only reason to access from your phone is for GTS, which was a feature that should have been in the main game.

Long story short, saying this is excusable because it's a service make sense, because the only reason this is a service is so that it could be charged like one.

You can transfer to PH from GO, let’s go, bank and SS. But you then only transfer those pokes to SS. Is this correct?

@mantez
Yes, only Pokemon Sword and Shield you can both deposit and receive Pokemon in Pokemon Home
Bank, Let's Go and Go are only for deposit and tranfer to Sword and Shield (and future generations)

***
For me, the only inconvenient is the price, $10 would be "nice" (if Pokemon Bank is $5 and add more for more games y Trading fuctions), but, $16 + Bank, well, this is some expensive, I hope that they lower that cost...

Would have nice to transfer some pokes to go.

Aus pricing from vooks.

$4.49 (AUD) $7.99 (AUD) $24.99 (AUD).

So in other words I'll have to pay $16 annually just for the extra Box space because the free plan's 30 Pokemon is a joke, on top of Bank's annual fee if I want to keep stuff for my Gen 6 & 7 games. You'd think for $17, only $3 less than the Nintendo Online, they'd at least add in Bank with it. Really wish I could just pay a single price once and have infinite access to it like the real old storage systems like Pokemon Box & Ranch, instead of having this subscription BS that's going to cost more.

I don’t see the problem...I’m just going to use the free option and transfer mine using that. I’ll still be able to complete my national dex too for free.

@Mando44646 Serebii is reporting that bank will be free for a month on release, so players won't have to pay overlapping subs if they choose to upgrade and transfer everything in February.

@mantez : I knew the Aussie pricing would be AU$25. Absolutely pathetic. The Pokédex 3D Pro app on 3DS wasn't even that expensive, and that's a once-off purchase!

I'm pleased for free GTS use. Everything else I'm less pleased about.

@Zeldawakening How can you complete the dex? Free Home only offers space for 30 Pokémon, and SwSh don't have the full dex.

I may have missed it but .... do we have to continue paying for a separate Pokemon Bank account? Mine expires soon (likely before Home releases).
It would be great if I could just get Home and dump all of my pokemon from Bank into it before having to pay for Bank again (even though it's so cheap for both)

@adam9431 Yeah, it's separate, unless there's an announcement that says otherwise. There was an announcement that during the month of Home's release, Bank would be free to use, so dumping everything into it quick should be feasible, at least this month for those who aren't interested in paying.

@Andrew5678 thanks! My Bank subscription ends in about 2 weeks so it would be nice to not have to renew. If not, no biggie as it is about the same cost of a premium coffee. Thanks for the reply.

@adam9431 You're welcome

@UmbreonsPapa its not free even if bank is free u still have to pay at least 3 dollars for pokemon home paid subscription to transfer them to the app

called it months ago

actually thought they where going to go for the full 20$+tax.

I’d like it if you could complete the entire Pokédex within Home and also options for sorting or locking in Pokemon also.

The only interest I have in this is that Pokemon Bank will eventually be shut down and I don't want to lose my (mostly shiny) living dex

@Silly_G,

I doubt anyone outside of the obsessives are going to buy both versions of a Pokemon game, the DLC is a matter of opinion to it being good value or not, personally I think it looks pretty good to me, but at the end of the day you can't blame GameFreak for catering to the mass market of younger Pokemon gamers.

I am very happy with this news, could be a bit cheaper overall, but then I seem to say that about most things nowadays.

Most disappointed with the many trolling comments towards people who are positive about this news.

Gonna catch “em a-actually as many as I can afford, due to all these pointless, greedy paywalls that have now been put up, From this to poke ball plus and everything in between. The Pokemon company are really becoming shameless shysters imo.

@flightsaber except I paid for a year of Bank a few months back because I had to renew it. So that's worthless to me. Our Bank sub should roll over into this new one

@dew12333,

Always the same on her with any Pokemon related article.

@bidinga Pointing out Bank being free is just pointing out that for at least a month, you don't need to pay for two separate subscriptions.

What I think they should have done is given people already subscribed to Bank a discount on Home and just update Bank into a stripped down, 3DS version of Home.

@johnvboy
To me, it's kind of the opposite. I do play "more than just Pokémon", but that's exactly the reason why I want to get my money's worth when purchasing a game.
If I were such a hardened Pokéfan that I had just Sword and Shield to play with, then all of my gaming money would be there. So of course I would be glad to pay up for more content.
This scenario isn't mine anymore - it was like this back in the GBC days with Pokémon Gold, but now, while appreciating Pokémon as a gateway to Nintendo as a whole, I'm having fun elsewhere. There's just too much coming out on Switch to shell out money I don't have (unemployment, yeah!) on a game that ends up being worth the initial price tag only after paying thirty more for DLC just on the basis that "come on now, it's Pokémon".
Look, I wouldn't be praising Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled just because the original PS1 is the home console I got my start on, but just look at the sheer size of the content that comes out every single month; it's microtransaction-friendly, sure, but can also be bought with one hour of gameplay every day. I can't blame grinding when there's so much content on the table.
You've been defending Pokémon in every article just on the basis that it's Pokémon. It's very hard to look away from everything The Pokémon Company is demanding us to put up with. And deep within, you know it to be true - why would you kickstart the comment section with an acknowledgment of ensuing backlash otherwise?

@Kalmaro
Google Image Search is your friend. Look for gifs, go nuts!

@Eel
Well, sure, but I'm talking about transfers from Bank to Home, which aren't freebies. Given that's what I - and I guess other people, as well - need Home for in the first place, then yeah.
Add the "no guarantees your favorite mon will make the cut, lol" so-called "strategy" TPC is keeping, and you get the whole picture.
Paying for something you might get is straight-up gachapon mentality that has sadly extended to DLC fighters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. There's no need to envision the fandom as... who am I even kidding, we are walking wallets waiting to be emptied. We put up with too much crap in Pokémon's earlier days to show shreds of dignity now.

Surely even the lowest paid Game Freak employees are millionaires by now, why are they milking fans for even more money? I feel sorry for families who all play Pokemon. The price of NSO, the games and now this subscription will be through the roof!

Create the problem, sell the solution. Everything they're offering are things we've had for free in older games. I had chalked everything we've seen so far to Gamefreak's sheer technical incompetence as developers and almost felt sorry for them having to deal with the negativity surrounding SWSH, but looking at this I'm starting to believe they really are just trying to monetize as much as the little effort they're putting in

@AlexSora89,

There is no need to defend anything fella, you either like the games or you do not, and by the same token why do you and others moan at every article.

" And deep within yourself, you know it to be true " You sound like Darth Vader.

@AlexSora89 "more and more once-free features are being moved to a paid service. [...]

So you're okay with GTS being locked to Pokémon Home. Whatever floats your boat, I guess."

That's what you wrote in the comment I replied to.

The only feature you mention specifically in the comment is the GTS, so forgive me for assuming you included it in the "more and more".

If you meant the transferring instead, well, I'm sorry, but that feature has been blocked behind a paywall for about three generations now. So I didn't think you were including that.

Setting aside the price gouge on the cost of storage, there's a missed opportunity here. I feel like if it allowed me to do SOMETHING with the pokemon stored in Home it would be more attractive as a service, and help alleviate the sting of the national dex cuts in Sw/Sh.

All they had to do was let you battle with your stored Pokemon. No battle animations, no breeding, no training, maybe even no held items, just a barebones battle system with static models. Because then I'd be able to do something with the 'mon that can't go into Sw/Sh while maintaining the value of Sw/Sh. And that's ignoring how much I'd use the mobile app if battling was a feature that was available in it (hint: all day every day).

But nothing like that will ever happen. And if it did, they'd sell it as DLC and then charge an additional subscription fee to keep accessing it.

This is too expensive. What the.....

@Yorumi Don't forget the Expansion Passes...

I’m intrigued by the mobile access. I’ve been wanting that for Bank.

I don’t have a Switch and I don’t plan on getting one until next fall at the earliest. I do play all the DS and 3DS Pokemon games though. I think I’ll get a Home subscription just to Wonder trade on my phone. That sounds really fun.

My only disappointment is I was hoping for some Pokémon Pelago like features.

@Mando44646 Ah - that makes a lot more sense. Making a month of pokemon bank free doesn't solve the problem of overlap if you're subbed for a year.

@johnvboy you love defending Pokemon every chance you get, right?

@jowe_gw,

As I have said many times on this forum the game does not need defending, it's selling well and the mass market Pokemon fans like it, I am simply stating the issues people have are not breaking the game, and that I do not have the same opinions as the people who do not like the game, that is not to say you or they do not have a right to complain, but in this comment section and others they have gone a little to far imho.