Gaming News

Here’s Everything Revealed During The 2019 Pokémon Press Conference

The Pokémon Company held its annual press conference on Tuesday, using the opportunity to announce new software and memorabilia. Here are all of the details for those who missed it.

Those familiar with the core RPGs on the 3DS may be familiar with Pokémon Bank, a storage application that lets players deposit and withdraw their partners across their games. Since Bank‘s launch, Pokémon GO hit the smartphone space and the first two Switch entries, Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Eevee!, released last year. In 2020, series aficionados will be able to migrate their teammates across all of these ecosystems with ease through Pokémon HOME, a new cloud-based smartphone app that will allow players to “manage their collection of Pokémon across many of their games,” including the forthcoming Sword and Shield. The Pokémon Company also teased that a “potential future addition” could let multiple users in an area trade together.

Pokémon Sleep, a smartphone app, was another new announcement, which will hit smartphones sometimes in 2020. It’s being helmed by The Pokémon Company, and Sleep will utilize the new Pokémon GO Plus + accessory to monitor your sleeping habits and reward those with positive ones. The awkwardly named device can be used with its namesake Pokémon GO app too, and GO is now featuring a Snorlax-themed event honoring Sleep‘s reveal.

 

Pokémon Masters is the third and final smartphone game revealed during the conference. Game Freak artist Ken Sugimori “wanted to create a game featuring all past and present Pokémon Trainers from the video games” and drew the above key art. Longtime fans of the franchise should be able to identify all of the returning faces present on the poster, which highlights Gym Leader Brock, Champions Steven, Diantha, Cynthia and Lance, and legendary Trainers Rosa and Red. (Curiously, Red’s sporting a new design that composites elements of his prior incarnations.) The trailer also features two more familiar faces: Misty and Blue. DeNA is developing Masters, which will feature more traditional battling than prior smartphone apps and will launch this year.

Some speculated a new entry in the Detective Pikachu spin-off series would be announced here, and it was. It appears to be a sequel to the 3DS original and will follow up on its cliffhanger ending. The Pokémon Company implores those who enjoyed Pokémon: Detective Pikachu in theaters should keep an eye on this title. Finally, Pokémon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara closed the presentation by discussing Japan’s Pokémon Shirts service, “which creates made-to-order original clothing designs featuring the first 151 Pokémon.” Plans are underway to bring this service to more territories, including the United States and Europe.

The entire 36-minute press conference can be seen below:

Matt Reisine

I want to be the very best, like no one ever was.

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