Pokémon HOME details announced: free and paid subscription, Switch and mobile app, GTS is back

Disclaimer · Jan 28, 2020

People really surprised at them finding new ways to fleece their fanbase?

808s & Villainy said:
I told you every move Gamefreak had made with SwSh was bullshit nickel and diming, but some of you didn't believe me. Well, a lot of people knew this, but the defenders didn't want to believe it. This is pure bullshit and the pricing is absolutely absurd

Yuuup. This just in—folding hitherto free or multiple times less expensive services into Pokemon HOME isn't consumer friendly, and this corporation isn't your friend.

Richietto · Jan 28, 2020

So its $16 a year, and Switch app can't do the most important parts. You have to transfer your SwSh Pokemon using the Switch app and then you have to go on your phone to trade them and what not lmao. All I see is an app with a broadened featureset of what the games could do before SwSh. Any other developer wouldn't have taken out these features from their game, they would have kept it and expanded it. Batch wonder trading and multiple Pokemon in the GTS is something we shouldn't have to pay for, it should be something that was in SwSh itself. Fuck off TPC.

Deleted member 3010 · Jan 28, 2020

Holy shit at that price lol.

Metto · Jan 28, 2020

Fj0823 said:
Surely this is the straw that breaks the camels back on GF's bullshit.

It has to be.

There's no defense for that price.

What exactly is breaking the camel's back because I'll call Pokemon Home a crock of shit but still enjoy Sword and Shield and future Pokemon titles because if anything now more than ever I'll mainly have to appreciate them as their own experience.

NaDannMaGoGo · Jan 28, 2020

Bahahahaha

There are like 900 Pkm and they offer you 30 free slots.

When you ~~need~~ want most people to pay for a premium service just make something even so much worse and call it the free basic version.

"Well, premium isn't much anyway!" is all the stans will scream then anyway.

Soran · Jan 28, 2020

GameFreak greed know no bounds.

Derachi · Jan 28, 2020

Joseki said:

Using a Gen 4 Trainer sprite as your example, huh?

HMMMMMMMM

Deleted member 60992 · Jan 28, 2020

I'm going to pass on this and after the DLC I'm not going to mess with or even follow anything Pokémon related for a while.

I have my issues with the base games on top of me feeling like a sucker for buying one of their expansion packs (That's on me, I know) but the pricing for Home on top of them adding value to it was them taking features out from the main games that came in them for free is simply bullshit.

I don't want to deal with this bullshit ass money hoeing ass bitch ass let us gouge our dedicated fanbase for every nickel they're worth franchise any more.

I've stop supporting other gaming franchises in the past for doing the same.

Eventually I need to change my username.

JoJoBae · Jan 28, 2020

So... Most of the features you can't even use on the switch. Why did I expect otherwise. FOH

Gonna need to use it regardless but ugh.

Scarlet Spider · Jan 28, 2020

That's a lot of Sinnoh users.

Fumpster · Jan 28, 2020

Robin64 said:
Yeah, every single Pokémon ever.

I would like to know what happens if I have more than 30 on there and my sub runs out, though.

Yeah, for real. If they keep them on there, just inaccessible until you pay again, I actually think paying the $3 for a month can end up being a better deal. Maybe it's just me, but transferring stuff has always been a one-and-done kinda deal, and the GTS isn't actually all that useful.

I'll wait to see how they plan to deal with this I guess.

BlakeofT · Jan 28, 2020

There are some neat features with Home, but the price is just too much for the amount that I use it. I'm pretty disappointed.

Deleted member 31092 · Jan 28, 2020

Derachi said:
Using a Gen 4 Trainer sprite as your example, huh?

HMMMMMMMM

Scarlet Spider said:
That's a lot of Sinnoh users.

Sinnoh remake confirmed, but the Post Game island is sold as DLC, the Battle Frontier is not included, Mt. Coronet is redesigned as a corridor to not confuse kids, the Distortion World is mentioned but you don't visit it. Also the game has a smaller Pokédex than the original games and it's piss easy.

HardRojo · Jan 28, 2020

Nice features but that price is a no-no.

Xin_Eohp · Jan 28, 2020

Fj0823 said:
Surely this is the straw that breaks the camels back on GF's bullshit.

It has to be.

There's no defense for that price.

It's for me at least, I will never buy a mainline Pokémon game again now.

Metroidvania · Jan 28, 2020

The most hilarious part is that after the 'free month', you're basically double-dipping if you need to transfer anything else down the line from bank. And that's before if/when the bank service gets shut down, and then you can't do it anymore regardless.

Having the paid version get 200x more pokemon storage slots is one helluva way to disparage the free version, though.

....Just think, this is gonna continue and/or get worse once Switch 2 hits and we go to another new generation.

Any defending of this price for the feature set you actually get is........yikes.

Scarlet Spider said:
That's a lot of Sinnoh users.

Yeah, they're not exactly being subtle - but I'd be more than willing to bet that they conveniently keep a regional-only dex, and have just few enough box slots that you can't keep all your pokemon in that instead of home.

H-I-M · Jan 28, 2020

It's like they learned nothing from Dexit (I mean obviously seeing how well the games sold)...

Scarlet Spider · Jan 28, 2020

Joseki said:
Sinnoh remake confirmed, but the Post Game island is sold as DLC, the Battle Frontier is not included, Mt. Coronet is redesigned as a tunnel and the game has a smaller Pokédex than the original games.

Fantastic, I'll jump in on that for an additional $30. Based Gamefreak.

ILikeFeet · Jan 28, 2020

add a battle sim (even if it was just sprites bouncing up and down) and the price would be worth it

JoJoBae · Jan 28, 2020

Wait a second. If I'm not using my Switch to trade with the GTS, I need a Switch online sub for... What? Reasons?

Metto · Jan 28, 2020

JoJoBae said:
Wait a second. If I'm not using my Switch to trade with the GTS, I need a Switch online sub for... What? Reasons?

Trading and battling in the actual game itself. I don't think you need NSO to use GTS in Home

FeD · Jan 28, 2020

JoJoBae said:
So... Most of the features you can't even use on the switch. Why did I expect otherwise. FOH

Gonna need to use it regardless but ugh.

Probably a dumb question. But why do you need to use it?

I got into Pokemon a bit more serious with SwSh. But I don't really see the value in this service? Like what is the main reason you would want to use this? I got most of my Galar dex complete using Era and reddit. Is it just a convenience thing?

Like I said probably a dumb question but reading through the OP it literally offers me zero value for where I'm at currently with my Shield account.

Madao · Jan 28, 2020

well, i guess this is how i'll use those gold coins i have collecting dust.

i'l use the most basic plan and move everything i care for in one go.

Fj0823 · Jan 28, 2020

udivision said:
I don't think it's possible to break that camel's back.

I know, Pokemon was successfully able to cut on a ton of features and is now selling them back at a price...And people will defend it because poor indie dev Gamefreak doesn't know how to HD good

Metroidvania · Jan 28, 2020

FeD said:
Probably a dumb question. But why do you need to use it?

I got into Pokemon a bit more serious with SwSh. But I don't really see the value in this service? Like what is the main reason you would want to use this? I got most of my Galar dex complete using Era and reddit. Is it just a convenience thing?

Like I said probably a dumb question but reading through the OP it literally offers me zero value for where I'm at currently with my Shield account.

You're not missing a whole lot - this is basically Gamefreak fleecing the 'living dex' style of players (who often have been collecting since day 1) for more money after removing features previously found in mainline games and sidelining them into a separate app.

If you're not a 'collect them all' style player, home probably doesn't mean much to you if you just play the games and then stop playing, especially if you started with Sw/Sh and didn't experience some of the benefits GTS offered to previous generations of games.

Astral · Jan 28, 2020

This is some bullshit. So I gotta go premium at least once to transfer my Pokemon from the Bank. Then if I transfer more than 30 I'll probably lose access to them of course. But $16 when you already have to pay $15 for online? No thanks. I guess if I get the next Pokemon game I'm just not keeping the vast majority of my Pokemon.

Supermanisdead · Jan 28, 2020

JoJoBae said:
Wait a second. If I'm not using my Switch to trade with the GTS, I need a Switch online sub for... What? Reasons?

for the busted inferior version of trading rofl

Grand Galvantula · Jan 28, 2020

$16 and they can't even be arsed to at least put the GTS on the Switch app.

Fuck off.

Deleted member 51691 · Jan 28, 2020

FeD said:
Probably a dumb question. But why do you need to use it?

I got into Pokemon a bit more serious with SwSh. But I don't really see the value in this service? Like what is the main reason you would want to use this? I got most of my Galar dex complete using Era and reddit. Is it just a convenience thing?

Like I said probably a dumb question but reading through the OP it literally offers me zero value for where I'm at currently with my Shield account.

Some people like to maintain a living dex of every Pokemon. Since SwSh has no National Dex, TPC is pretty much milking $16 a year to keep your living dex in Pokemon Home.

AzureFlame · Jan 28, 2020

Fuck the price.

PaulLFC · Jan 28, 2020

GTS seems cool but I've never used it before - when Home is released, if I wanted to for example use it to get the other two starters in Sword, how do I know which Pokemon (and at what level) of mine I should be trading to increase my chance of getting them?

Serebii · Jan 28, 2020

Fj0823 said:
Surely this is the straw that breaks the camels back on GF's bullshit.

It has to be.

There's no defense for that price.

Mate, if you can find a server accessed continually by millions transferring a lot of data that runs for free, let me know. I could do with that rather than the costs of my server.

Thanks.

Syntsui · Jan 28, 2020

So the most optimal move to soften the blow here is to pkhex the entire dex with all best nature, IVs, singles/doubles builds, shiny and hidden abilities.

Pay for the bank, pay 1 month of home, transfer them all.

Transfer everyone obtainable in SWSH, use the free service after the 1 month subscription ends.

JoJoBae · Jan 28, 2020

FeD said:
Probably a dumb question. But why do you need to use it?

I got into Pokemon a bit more serious with SwSh. But I don't really see the value in this service? Like what is the main reason you would want to use this? I got most of my Galar dex complete using Era and reddit. Is it just a convenience thing?

Like I said probably a dumb question but reading through the OP it literally offers me zero value for where I'm at currently with my Shield account.

No, it's not dumb. And honestly you made me think more about it. There's zero reason to even move Pokemon forward now. So I guess really I won't even bother. Just move my bank Pokemon back to Ultra Moon and wait for a good reason to move them forward.

Wijuci · Jan 28, 2020

And just when people were finally happy in the last Pokémon news cycle.... they drop this stupid price on us.

This is such bullshit.

And the GTS looks way less convenient than ever before, I don't know what they're thinking.

Serebii · Jan 28, 2020

H-I-M said:
It's like they learned nothing from Dexit (I mean obviously seeing how well the games sold)...

What the hell are you talking about?

Wijuci said:
And just when people were finally happy in the last Pokémon news cycle.... they drop this stupid price on us.

This is such bullshit.

And the GTS looks way less convenient than ever before, I don't know what they're thinking.

How is it less convenient? Seems identical to me

Moist_Owlet · Jan 28, 2020

Metroidvania said:
The most hilarious part is that after the 'free month', you're basically double-dipping if you need to transfer anything else down the line from bank. And that's before if/when the bank service gets shut down, and then you can't do it anymore regardless.

Having the paid version get 200x more pokemon storage slots is one helluva way to disparage the free version, though.

....Just think, this is gonna continue and/or get worse once Switch 2 hits and we go to another new generation.

Any defending of this price for the feature set you actually get is........yikes.

Yeah, they're not exactly being subtle - but I'd be more than willing to bet that they conveniently keep a regional-only dex, and have just few enough box slots that you can't keep all your pokemon in that instead of home.

Well this is TPC. They'll find a way to reinvent it for switch 2 and make it worse

chaobreaker · Jan 28, 2020

If you have a huge collection of Pokemon that aren't available in SWSH or the next gen down the line, you have to basically pay the sub indefinitely to keep them on Home.

Bank's yearly sub price was reasonable. This is triple the price for negligible amount of new features. Its too much for literal kilobytes of data. I want to know what happens when you lose your sub. Will they delete your Pokemon like they allegedly would do on Pokemon Bank?

Fj0823 · Jan 28, 2020

So just to be clear. In order for your 2020 Pokemon Experience to have all the features that "POKÉMON Black " had in the DS for $40 you will need:

$60 Game
$30 Expansion (This one adds the challenge!)
$20 NSO
$16 HOME

THAT'S $126

Supermanisdead · Jan 28, 2020

moves like this really cripple the value of NSO. pokemon already doesn't support cloud saves, now we have to pay another $16 for basic online functionality? what the hell does the NSO app do if it wasn't built for literally this.

Serebii · Jan 28, 2020

Fj0823 said:
So just to be clear. In order for your 2020 Pokemon Experience to have all the features that "POKÉMON Black " had in the DS for $40 you will need:

$60 Game
$30 Expansion (This one adds the challenge!)
$20 NSO
$16 HOME

THAT'S $126

Don't forget the Switch, rent, electricity, food etc.

Supermanisdead said:
moves like this really cripple the value of NSO. pokemon already doesn't support cloud saves, now we have to pay another $16 for basic online functionality? what the hell does the NSO app do if it wasn't built for literally this.

How is any of this "basic online functionality"?

Astandahl · Jan 28, 2020

Fj0823 said:
So just to be clear. In order for your 2020 Pokemon Experience to have all the features that "POKÉMON Black " had in the DS for $40 you will need:

$60 Game
$30 Expansion (This one adds the challenge!)
$20 NSO
$16 HOME

THAT'S $126

Don't forget that the DS games were much better than the current ones so the difference is higher because you have to pay for the increased cost of playing a worse game.

Bonejack · Jan 28, 2020

PaulLFC said:
GTS seems cool but I've never used it before - when Home is released, if I wanted to for example use it to get the other two starters in Sword, how do I know which Pokemon (and at what level) of mine I should be trading to increase my chance of getting them?

If this GTS will be like the GTS in the 3DS games ... it's basically 95% bullshit crap like "My Lvl 1 Magikarp for a Lvl 100 Arceus" with some few trade requests made by people with common sense.

I never really used the GTS due to that, and because i was bored to search for something good or wait until someone takes on an offer i would make. No shit, i think i got better Pokemon through the SwoShi wonder trades than i ever got in the GTS.

Still in the end, it's not something they should've cut. And not something that is not in the Switch app of Home.

PlayBee · Jan 28, 2020

Defense force, activate

Siege_Almighty · Jan 28, 2020

PaulLFC said:
GTS seems cool but I've never used it before - when Home is released, if I wanted to for example use it to get the other two starters in Sword, how do I know which Pokemon (and at what level) of mine I should be trading to increase my chance of getting them?

Assuming it works the way it always has, you can just look at the starters that people have put up for trade, and if you have what they want, you can just trade it. There is not particular pokemon that you necessarily have to trade if you're the one making the offer, it'll just depend on someone seeing your offer and accepting it. People sometimes set level ranges for things they want, but it's not required.

Metalsnakezero · Jan 28, 2020

In terms of how this will impack the community, it'll be split the base from who can pay and who cant to a degree in a way that it'll be hard for people to continue their pokemon collection.

For me, I will deal with since I can afford it and I'm in a system where I want to keep my collection going. Also I need to get my 6 IV ditto cause I need to breed!

FeD · Jan 28, 2020

Metroidvania said:
You're not missing a whole lot - this is basically Gamefreak fleecing the 'living dex' style of players (who often have been collecting since day 1) for more money after removing features previously found in mainline games and sidelining them into a separate app.

If you're not a 'collect them all' style player, home probably doesn't mean much to you if you just play the games and then stop playing, especially if you started with Sw/Sh and didn't experience some of the benefits GTS offered to previous generations of games.

stealthyfrog said:
Some people like to maintain a living dex of every Pokemon. Since SwSh has no National Dex, TPC is pretty much milking $16 a year to keep your living dex in Pokemon Home.

JoJoBae said:
No, it's not dumb. And honestly you made me think more about it. There's zero reason to even move Pokemon forward now. So I guess really I won't even bother. Just move my bank Pokemon back to Ultra Moon and wait for a good reason to move them forward.

Thanks for the answers. Yeah this service isn't for me then.

Metroidvania · Jan 28, 2020

Astral said:
This is some bullshit. So I gotta go premium at least once to transfer my Pokemon from the Bank. Then if I transfer more than 30 I'll probably lose access to them of course. But $16 when you already have to pay $15 for online? No thanks. I guess if I get the next Pokemon game I'm just not keeping the vast majority of my Pokemon.

Honestly?

A part of me feels like this is what GF is trying to get people to do - force people to either adapt to their 'change' in policy moving forwards, or get fleeced for trying to still keep their living dex.

PaulLFC said:
GTS seems cool but I've never used it before - when Home is released, if I wanted to for example use it to get the other two starters in Sword, how do I know which Pokemon (and at what level) of mine I should be trading to increase my chance of getting them?

There's no way to 'know' for sure - you'd be better off searching the GTS for people offering up starters to trade, rather than offering up randoms.

Serebii said:
How is it less convenient? Seems identical to me

Having to trade with the mobile app 'seems identical'?

.....ok.

Serebii said:
Don't forget the Switch, rent, electricity, food etc.

Going with the 'starving kids in Africa'-type defense?

I guess I wouldn't necessarily expect anything less, but that's still pretty lol-worthy.

PlayBee said:
Defense force, activate

Yeeeep.

Soran · Jan 28, 2020

Serebii said:
What the hell are you talking about?

How is it less convenient? Seems identical to me

Because you need to use the mobile app if you are not willing to pay the ridiculous price for premium.

Syntsui · Jan 28, 2020

chaobreaker said:
If you have a huge collection of Pokemon that aren't available in SWSH or the next gen down the line, you have to basically pay the sub indefinitely to keep them on Home.

Bank's yearly sub price was reasonable. This is triple the price for negligible amount of new features. Its too much for literal kilobytes of data. I want to know what happens when you lose your sub. Will they delete your Pokemon like they allegedly would do on Pokemon Bank?

Why would you pay indefinitely. The fact there's a free option confirms you won't lose Pokémons this time if you stop paying.
Just do what I said in my last post and you will be fine.

Pokémon HOME details announced: free and paid subscription, Switch and mobile app, GTS is back

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