Hmmm, this will be very interesting to watch. How they did the cut? It is very obvious that insanely popular like Lucario and Charizard MUST be there. To be honest, I don't think they can cut ANY of the original 151 from any future game soon. If I stop any person of around 30 years old and speak about voltorb, the person might think less of me for still being into pokemon, but they will definetely know what is a Voltorb.
The second gen is also fairly popular, and than the legendaries, at least the main ones, and all starters. Than you have smogon OU, can they really cut anything there without making their most hardcore players rage?
On the other hand, new pokemons need to have their space, as they are part of what makes a new region feel different.
To be quite honest 500 models is still way more than most games would have to work with I think. I think this was going to happen sooner or later, but it would be naive from them to not expect some backlash. Let's see how they handle it.
