Pokémon has been an international phenomenon ever since it populated the early Game Boys. By now, the franchise has become considerably more cross-platform, with Pokémon GO available on Android and iOS and Pokémon Let's Go on the Nintendo Switch. At a press conference on Tuesday, the company behind the games announced Pokémon Home, the missing link between its games: It allows trainers to bring over their favorite pocket monsters from one platform to another for the first time (well, wirelessly anyway).

There are still many unknowns about this service, but the gist is that it will allow you to play with the same powered-up Pokémon across GO, Let's Go, and Sword and Shield, the upcoming classic games for the Nintendo Switch. It even gives you access to your collection on Game Boys by connecting to Pokémon Bank which syncs your favorite monsters across different editions of the game. You'll also be able to trade with other trainers on the platform. What remains unclear is how Home will handle the different training mechanisms across GO, classic Game Boy editions, and Sword and Shield, but the company will probably find a way around that.

There is one caveat though: Pokémon Home will only be available in early 2020, so you'll have to hold out with your unsynchronized monsters for quite a while. Still, it's great to see the franchise finally acknowledging our nomadic device behavior today, and it's reminiscent of many other services that sync their data across many different platforms.

Source: Twitter

UPDATE: 2020/01/28 9:22am PST BY MATTHEW SHOLTZ

Nintendo reveals Pokémon HOME is coming to Android in February

Back in May of 2019 we last heard that Pokémon HOME would eventually be coming to Android, and today Nintendo has revealed that Pokémon fans can expect to store their captured pocket monsters inside of Pokémon HOME sometime this February, and of course, a monthly fee will be attached, and as expected, the entire process is extremely convoluted.

Users will have to first figure out which games they would like to move their Pokémon from, then they'll have to figure out if they need the Nintendo Switch Pokémon HOME app or the Android/iOS version. The Android and iOS versions of Pokémon HOME will not be able to connect to any of the Nintendo Switch Pokémon games, and they will also not be able to exchange Pokémon Home points. On the opposite side, the Nintendo Switch app won't be able to trade Pokémon, receive mystery gifts, check battle data, or check news. So as you can see, both apps will be necessary if you'd like to use its full feature set, which is completely idiotic.

The pricing for Pokémon HOME is already listed on the official Pokémon HOME website, so I've pasted the full pricing structure below. Of course, I'd like to mention that these prices may change before release, but at least this list gives us a good idea of what to expect next month.

iOS and Android device pricing structure:

Subscription length Price (including tax)

1 month (30 days) $2.99

3 months (90 days) $4.99

12 months (365 days) $15.99

Clearly Pokémon HOME will offer a premium pricing structure, but there will also be an optional basic plan that will allow users to store up to 30 Pokémon, but as you can see in the chart below, all of the app's most useful features will be locked behind the premium paywall.

Despite going through the effort to announce the release date for Pokémon HOME, Nintendo hasn't actually offered an actual date, and so all we really know is that the app will arrive sometime in February. On top of this, it's clear Pokémon fans will still have to struggle with a convoluted method to store their Pokémon despite the fact that Pokémon HOME is essentially a paid service designed to mitigate the convolution of the previous storage system. So not only will fans have to use two separate apps if they own Pokémon on the Switch and Android just to utilize all of the features of Pokémon HOME, the fact that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have monetized such a convoluted system instead of putting in the work to create a smoother process tells me all I really need to know. It would appear that the Pokémon franchise has finally evolved into the cash-grab it was always meant to be.

Source: Pokémon

UPDATE: 2020/02/12 3:42am PST BY MANUEL VONAU

Pokémon Home is out

The Pokémon Company has delivered on its promise to publish Pokémon Home in February as the app is now out on the Play Store. You can also download it over at APK Mirror. You can find out more about the storage solution on Pokémon Home's website.

Pokémon HOME Developer: The Pokemon Company
Price: Free
4.1
Download

Thanks: Armando