Gaming

Pokémon Home details revealed: free service, National Pokédex, and GTS returns


Pokémon Home – will you be paying for it? (pic: Nintendo)

More information on the Pokémon Cloud service has been revealed, including the expensive yearly Premium Plan.

Some people will never stop complaining about Dexit and the lack of a national pokédex in Pokémon Sword and Shield, but at least there’s going to be one in Pokémon Home now.

Pokémon Home was announced some time ago as an evolution of Pokémon Bank – a cloud service app that allows you to import pokémon caught in Sword and Shield, and previous games, and manage your collection separate from any on individual title.

It still doesn’t have a launch date, beyond sometime in February, but it’s now been confirmed that Pokémon Home will work on both iOS and Android, as well as Nintendo Switch.

If you’ve played any Pokémon console game you’re be familiar with Pokémon Boxes, where critters are stored when you’re not using them. Pokémon Home is basically an extension of that concept, allowing you to deposit pokémon from any Switch game (including Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee!) and moving them to any other.

It’s mentioned that support for Pokémon Go is also ‘in development’ but not how that will work, given the differences between it and the mainline games.

Alternatively, you can move pokémon you already have stored in Pokémon Bank, but to do that you’ll need a Premium Plan, that costs money. Pokémon Bank and Poké Transporter will be free for one month after Pokémon Home is launched, but you can see the rather pricey costs after that below.

Although the biggest difference between the paid and free service is that the Premium Plan allows you to store up to 6,000 pokémon whereas you can only have 30 for free.



Pokémon Home UK prices

Nintendo eShop pricing structure*:

Subscription length Price (including tax)
1 month (30 days) £2.69
3 months (90 days) £4.49
12 months (365 days) £14.39

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

What will really interest fans though is that the Global Trade System (GTS) is returning via Pokémon Home, allowing you to specify exactly what pokémon you want to trade, rather than the much vaguer system used in-game in Sword and Shield.

As part of the Premium Plan you also create rooms to trade with up to 20 people, or you can trade with a nearby friend for free or use the random Wonder Box for a surprise trade.

Pokémon Home will also have a version of the National Pokédex, that can register all known pokémon including their mega evolutions and gigantamax forms – although that still doesn’t mean they’ll be in Sword and Shield.

You can also receive mystery gifts, earn battle points (BP) for depositing pokémon, and access an array of stats and data.

It all sounds a lot more complicated than it is, if Pokémon Bank is anything to go by, but for the hardcore Pokémon fan it’s going to be a must-have.

Some things are free… some are not (pic: Nintendo)

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