Pokemon Home, previously announced for a February 2020 release, has been launched on time. This cloud based subscription service mainly allows you to transfer Pokemon from older games into the newest titles, Sword and Shield. While it had been announced that it would be released in February of this year, no specific release date had been confirmed, so it’s a bit of a surprise to get our hands on it so suddenly.
Similar to the Pokemon Bank service, Home allows you to store Pokemon that you’ve caught from various games, much like the storage system that is actually in the games. Two versions of Home exist, with the mobile version for iOS and Android having some nifty features like trading available, but they are a companion app to the main instance of Home for the Switch itself.
Home also comes with two payment plans: it can be used for free, in which one can access the majority of its features, but in a limited capacity. By paying $3 a month, $5 for three months, or $16 for a full year, one can get perks like added storage and more functionality out of all the features in general.
In order to commemorate the release of Home, the boys in charge have made it so everyone can get a free month of Pokemon Bank on the Nintendo 3DS, along with the Poke Transporter app, which is used in conjunction to take Pokemon from DS games to newer games. Usually this would be around $5, so it’s not like you’re saving much, but any money you aren’t spending is a good thing. That said, the prices for Pokemon Home’s premium functionality aren’t bad at all, which will certainly prove to be well-liked by fans.
Either way, the release of Pokemon Home is something that fans have been anticipating since its announcement, since it will allow them to move their favorite Pokemon around various games (though mostly to bring them to the newest one). As things stand, Pokemon Go is not compatible with Home yet, but it has been revealed that the fellow mobile app will be compatible with it at a later date. That said, when that will be is still in question. But it is a feature that many fans are looking for, so it probably won’t be too long of a wait.
