PSA: Pokémon Bank Is Now "Free To Use" On Nintendo 3DS

But is Poké Transporter still downloadable, for those who didn't grab it?

Previously, you had to download it by getting into Pokémon Bank, which only paid subscribers were able to do.

As a heads up, people seem to be having issues with Poke Transporter, with the common factor being if you had an active subscription at the time of the eShop’s closure. Info is still developing on this, but it looks like even installing Poke Transporter even with a hacked system is a no-go.

Edit: The issues with Poke Transporter have been fixed. It will not work regardless of whether your subscription was active or not.

Oh boi, I can't wait to download it-

It’s worth mentioning that the “free trial” counter will supposedly continue to go down, but it’ll just reset every time it reaches 0.

@CharlieGirl yeah I’m curious about that too. I assume not?

@CharlieGirl just checked on a spare 3ds i downloaded bank onto before the eshop shut. you can't download transporter.

@domatron66 @Shepdawg1 I, fortunately, have had transporter on my 3DS for years. But why didn't more websites talk about this before the eShop closed??

Well this is worrying.

To be fair, several sites did talk about it, but The Pokémon Company was never super clear on the future of Poke Transporter itself.

They said Bank would become free to use, but didn’t really directly state you needed to pay the subscription at least once to use Poke Transporter.

@CharlieGirl I just checked transporter on my main 3ds (where i once had a bank subscription) & transporter can't be used as I'm not 'subscribed' to home.

@domatron66 now THAT’S worrying!

I missed the boat to update some of my apps including Poketransporter so I currently can’t use the service either. Darn.

@CharlieGirl We didn’t know. We kind of assumed it would still be usable. Will they fix it? Who knows?

There is a workaround though. The homebrew app PKSM has support for all Pokémon games (including Gen 1+2 VC). If you put a Pokémon from Gen 1-5 into the newer 3DS games, it’ll convert them according to the same logic applied by Poke Transporter, making them perfectly legal and transferable to Bank and HOME.

My old copy of Pokemon Sun is a little iffy with detecting the game cartridge, so my pokemon will probably be safer in Bank.

Still, it's nice that they kept this going for free. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had chosen to shut it down instead.

Edit: I've just checked, and I'm also getting that Pokemon Transporter error. Bank works fine on my end though.

Well, something is better than nothing right?

I seriously hope this Transporter error is an oversight and they’ll fix it, because dangling the free Bank service like a carrot in front of us, while secretly planing to make Transporter permanently unusable for everyone that didn't recently renew their Bank subscription would be a huge jerk move on TPC’s part.

Because why would anyone even consider renewing it right before it goes free?

Soon they'll acknowledge the issues with the recent "release" of this now free software and say they're working toward a fix and drip feed updates over the coming months-to-a-year until the Scarlet Violet DLC is released all buggy and focus switches to that.
And this guy will wish things were different even though I'll still purchase the DLC. Part of the problem, blah blah I know.
Hopefully it all works out.

Guess we wait for the Transporter issues to be addressed. Hope it gets fixed so it’s useable again.

Hopefully I can use it. I wasn’t able to buy a pass before the shop closed down.

My subscription ended literally days ago so you can bet I’m upset.

@Eel Actually they were on the Japanese side of things. They said Transporter can only be bought with an active Bank Pass, that if you don't download Transporter before the eShop closes that you can't download it, and that they're not offering reimbursement for those who bought a pass before the service becomes free and the subscription overlaps the eShop closure (i.e. You don't get credit for money spent on a pass)

Now while they didn't actually say Transporter would be usable once Bank becomes free, we all assumed it would - after all it's a part of the app essentially.

We'll just have to wait and see what Nintendo says. And yeah, Nintendo - not Pokemon Company, because Pokemon Company is responding and their advice is essentially "Go complain to Nintendo about it"

And for the Americas - NoA closed their help desk for the night, so it's up to Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo of Japan to respond to this.

Good news! It appears to be working now!

Update: the issues with Poke Transporter have been resolved and it now works for everyone. @Liam_Doolan

Source: https://twitter.com/serebiinet/status/1640613409916952576?s=46&t=6Mn2rI7zSGVDetXP2nwGsw

My subscription to this ended a few years ago, so since I was previously a paying user, I sure hope this works.

Transporter is working for me now, was able to transfer a box full of Mew into Bank from Pokemon Red

@CharlieGirl I was trying to get the word out yesterday. I subbed to Bank for the first time over the weekend just to get the Transporter for the first time. Boy, did it feel stupid subbing to something with a 2 day lifespan but I didn't want my Gen 3-5 pokes stuck in limbo forever.

I got my info on reddit and other websites more poke-oriented.

@Cashews Same. I only heard about this on Reddit a month ago, and lucky I did, because I didn’t realize Transporter was a separate app. When I purchased the sub, I just kind of viewed it as paying $5 to have Transporter forever, so I didn’t feel like it was that much of a waste lol

@CharlieGirl Presumably not, since you can't download anything from the eshop you hadn't already downloaded with your account previously.

I feel dumb. Bought crystal last minute and downloaded Pokémon bank and completely forgot about Poké transporter. By the time I could get the Pokédex, it was too late…my fault for procrastinating. I was also in mid purchasing 3D excitebike on my other 3ds when the shop went down 🥲

Looking on Nintendo’s support website, it says software updates should still remain available to download from the eshop. But at this point I can’t update my Pokémon bank app to update Poké transporter. Even when I check my available updates in the eshop, I have none on my list, but Poké transporter errors out when I open it asking for a software update.

I’m stuck :S

Unless I’m somehow missing something.

I posted this on Reddit as well and another user mentioned they had updates on their list yesterday before the closure, but now afterwards, some of the updates are missing from the list.

Definitely still gonna use it did not renew the plan due to impending eshop closure back in New year's day

@acuphoria updates on the 3DS can be a bit convoluted. It might be in the updates section of the eshop’s menu, or it could also be in the shop itself as a separate “software”. Try searching for it on both.

This better be free for well, the eternity. Otherwise, we won't be able to transfer Zigzagoon from the GBA games to the current ones. If you know what I mean

You can't get Transporter since it became only available when you had a subscription to Bank. Now Bank is free but you cannot download anything anymore. Sucks for the people who didn't know this..