Oh boy, I’ve been itching to talk about this! The Pokemon Company held a press conference this week and dropped a bombshell of new information on upcoming titles and accessories that shook the interwebs.
Before you say “DEAD GAME”, I’ll have you know that Pokemon GO is still the top-performing mobile games Nintendo has to offer, and plenty of people still get out and play it each day. I know some are just too lazy to get out of the house (myself included sometimes), but there’s a certain game coming in 2020 that might be a little more up your alley!
(Nintendo, The Pokemon Company, Select Button)
Pokemon Sleep
Look, not everyone is active. I get it. But now you can train your Pokemon in a new way! By… sleeping! At face value, it might sound a little weird, but it sounds like it carries a lot of potential. Pokemon Sleep is being developed by Select Button (the studio behind Magikarp Jump), and is designed to track your sleeping patterns and make it… entertaining? I’m personally not 100% sold on this, yet, but The Pokemon Company hasn’t given much deltail. I guess we’ll have to wait! The teaser was cute, though!
(Nintendo, The Pokemon Company, Select Button)
Outside of the Pokemon Sleep App, they’re also releasing a successor to the Pokemon Plus device called, uh, Pokemon Plus+ (“Pokemon Plus Plus”). I’m not even joking. Seriously, who is behind Nintendo’s naming conventions? Give them a raise. This basically has the same functionality as the original (connecting to Pokemon GO and notifying you of nearby PokeStops and Pokemon), but it also connects with Pokemon Sleep to monitor your sleeping patterns. How it functions with the game, we’ll have to see. Maybe the better you sleep, the more Pokemon Candy or experience you get? Welp, insomniacs are screwed.
(Nintendo, The Pokemon Company)
Pokemon Home
This is the announcement that had me so excited. Pokemon Home is a cloud service coming to the Nintendo Switch and mobile devices that is extremely similar to Pokemon Bank for the Nintendo 3DS. Pokemon Home allows you to take Pokemon you’ve collected from Pokemon GO, Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee, the upcoming Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, AND Pokemon Bank and bring them into one world. The transfer is all one-way, EXCEPT for Sword and Shield, which means you can bring all of those sick Community Day shiny Pokemon into your Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield games!
(Nintendo, The Pokemon Company)
The details of what you can do in Pokemon Home are vague, but from the sound of it, it seems to have a little more depth than Pokemon Bank. Do y’all remember My Pokemon Ranch for the Wii? I’m sorta hoping we see something similar to that, but with more depth. I’d love to see mini-games and other fun events to give you a reason to interact with your benched Pokemon.
To top it all off, trading was confirmed for Pokemon Home, which is great news for completionists! The even better news is that you can do it all from your mobile device! Out with friends and don’t have your Nintendo Switch on hand? No worries! Just open the Pokemon Home app and do it all from there. It’s crazy to think about how accessible Pokemon has become since the original games. 2020 is gonna be a great year!
Outside of those huge announcements, a sequel was announced for Pokemon Detective Pikachu for the Nintendo Switch, and the ever-amazing Pokemon Shirts are coming to North America and Europe. Not a lot of details were shared, otherwise, but I am still super hyped!
