Pokemon Home will allow you to keep your favourite Pokemon pals - for a price

The Pokemon Company has revealed pricing details for their upcoming successor to Pokemon Bank - Pokemon Home.

This new service will allow players of the mainline Pokemon games to store and transfer their favourite Pokemon back and forth from other games.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

An official blog post detailed the new service and its pricing tiers - and it's a little complicated, to say the least.

If you had Pokemon stored in Pokemon Bank from older games like Pokemon Sun/Moon or X/Y, you can transfer them to Pokemon Home.

Once they're in Pokemon Home, you can use the new service to transfer them to the Nintendo Switch Pokemon games.

That means that you could use your favourite Pokemon from older games in newer Switch games like Pokemon Sword/Shield and Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee - as long as your Pokemon are supported in those titles.

Pokemon Home can be operated from phones, other mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch itself - but the Switch version will only support games on its platform.

Soon, you'll be able to transfer Pokemon from Pokemon Go as well - but that feature is currently still in development.

HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST?

To ease players into this, The Pokemon Company has made Pokemon Home free for the first month.

However, the free version of Home won't allow players to transfer Pokemon from Pokemon Bank - you'll need the 'premium' version for that. The free version will only allow up to 30 Pokemon to be stored in Home, but the premium version allows for up to 6000 Pokemon.

The service will cost mobile users US$2.99 (S$4) a month, US$4.99 for three months and US$15.99 for a full year.

WHAT DO I NEED IT FOR?

You can basically use Pokemon Home to trade Pokemon in four different ways, and I'll quote the blog post directly here:

• Pokemon placed in the Wonder Box can be traded with people around the world. Pokemon placed in the Wonder Box will be traded even when Pokemon HOME is not being used.
• With the Global Trade System (GTS), fans can specify which Pokemon they want to trade and which Pokemon they want to receive. They will then be matched with a Trainer if both meet each other's criteria.
• Room Trade lets Trainers create a room and trade Pokemon among the people who join. Each room can hold up to 20 people.
• Trading in rooms has no cost, but users will only be able to create rooms when enrolled in a Premium Plan (paid).
• Friend Trade allows Trainers to trade their Pokemon with nearby users who they have become friends with in Pokemon HOME.

Trainers can add friends using the Add Friend feature in Pokemon HOME.

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Pokemon Home also comes with a couple of other features. The Pokemon you store in Home will be registered to the National Pokedex.

You can also receive Mystery Gifts from Pokemon Sword and Shield in Pokemon Home, and vice versa. Much like Pokemon Go's 'Appraisal' feature, premium customers can use a 'Judge' function to learn how strong their Pokemon are.

Players can also check information on Switch games in the mobile app, and receive 'Home Points' every time they deposit a new Pokemon - which can be converted to Battle Points in the mainline Pokemon games.

IS THIS A GOOD MOVE?

Online, Pokemon Home has garnered a near-universal negative reaction from fans.

It's no surprise why - Pokemon Home triples the cost of Pokemon Bank for very little reason, and forces players to pay even more for a service that used to be completely free.

This is Pokemon we're talking about, though. Negative online comments aren't going to be a dealbreaker for the company.

A launch date for Pokemon Home hasn't been released yet, but check back for more news as it happens.

This article was first published in Hardware Zone.