I think it's safe to say that most of us think that Pokemon Sun and Moon are a part of Gen 7. With that said, I still don't think that a 3rd installment in the main series of Gen 6 is out of the question. There's clearly still interest in Z version, Nintendo might want to capitalize on that. We have a new anime on our hands, Pokemon XYZ. Some might say that that might be there just in spite of a lack of a 3rd version to begin with, but then we have all these new forms of Zygarde, the Legendary Pokemon that would be on the front cover of a potential Z version. It'd be pretty weird to introduce these forms in the next Gen, when they clearly point to Pokemon Z being a thing.

I'm not sure when this game would potentially release, maybe Nintendo will announce it at E3 along with the rest of Sun and Moon. Pokemon Z could launch in the Aug-Sep range with S&M (yeah, I guess that's our new abbreviaton, get used to it) launching in November. It's hard to see a Z version releasing after S&M.

What do you think? Would you buy a Pokemon Z, even with Pokemon Sun and Moon on the way?

EDIT: To make this clear, I'm not a huge fan of Pokemon like some of you are, and I wouldn't buy a potential Z version.

I would love to know the story behind all of this. For a while it looked like Z was guaranteed, with all the promos and teasers out. But now they are probably just focused on the 7th gen. I wonder what happened.

Probably not

Not a chance for pokemon Z

If they would have released the Z version. Last year November would have been PERFECT!!! And probably made the 3DS last year in terms of outside of Japan much better.

Yeah I agree with that too. But I rather have 1 Pokemon game per year, than having 2 release in the same year, where the year before had nothing. It will also be good in terms of "sales". 

There's no need in the modern era to make a third or even third/fourth version when they could just make the contents an add-on. The only thing a third version ever does is focus halfheartedly on the third mascot and add Battle Frontier. They can just make an overpriced $10 Battle Frontier DLC instead and mooch that way instead of putting extra time into a third version. Two was already excessive as it was, three was always a stretch to maintain long term; the fact that it took 20 years to retire the antiquated concept is almost sad.

Next era of Pokemon is announced to come out later this year as stated by the official source and you're still fixated on the possibility of Pokemon Z...because that makes sense?

It interests me that some people seem almost upset at the lack of Pokémon Z. This third release business has always been a total rip-off, and good riddance to it I say. They actually did with it in the 5th generation of course, making proper new games with B2W2.

The only thing that's disappointing is that the "third game" tends to have by far the best post-game, and I'm hoping that Sun/Moon has a post-game that makes up for XY and ORAS's woefully disappointing post-game.

No Z is no chance now. It's an anime exclusive thing like the Orange Islands (which would have made a much better game than Z imo)