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RingoGaSuki on 08 November 2019
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Darwinianevolution said:
RingoGaSuki said:
The newest information seems to indicate that the GTS has been cut from Sw/Sh too, and is likely going to be locked behind Pokemon Home when it eventually comes (effectively locked behind two subs, Home and NSO)... That's going to make getting version exclusives ridiculously hard at first (you'll be completely at somebody else's whims through Wonder Trade or have to have a friend with them to trade to you). That's some absolute shit. I'm used to GF doing the one step forward two steps back thing, but this is like two shuffles forward, five leaps back.

I have a theory that Game Freak is being pushed into a corner after Pokemon Go made more money in a couple of years than all regular pokemon games combined. The Pokemon Co. sees mobile as the future and they are investing heavilly in mobile stuff, thus leaving GF in a weak position. So they are going to monetize this game way more than before.

The signs are there already: Mainline pokemon is an annual franchise since Sun/Moon (SM in 2016, USUM in 2017, Let's Go P/E in 2018, Sw/Sh in 2019), so they barely have time to do anything big anymore and they recycle more and more stuff from previous games, with USUM being a practical carbon copy of the game released a year before. Masuda accusing of today's mobile gamers of having little attention spams and thus not bothering to add most extra features. Sending your old pokemon to newer versions is now a paid privilege, first with Poke Bank and now with Pokemon Home...

This is going to go a lot worse before it gets better: if the game succeeds, the cuts will continue, and may even increase. If the game fails, the people at Pokemon Co. will increase their investment in mobile at the cost of traditional games. Either way, dark times are ahead. I'm not sure what Nintendo can do to preserve the quality of one of their biggest hardware sellers, if they can (or want) at all...

I just hope they don't dare to put the cut pokemons under a paid wall. That would be EA levels of greed.

That's exactly what I think is happening too. They're afraid of being pushed out of their biggest money driver, as evidenced from their efforts to find something other than Pokemon to give them success, and the increasing casualisation of the main games in an effort to bring in similar levels of money to the mobile market.

They've never provided any substantial updates once a game has released before, so I really don't think the older Pokemon will come back, but if they do, I don't doubt for a second that it'd be monetised.