Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Pokémon Home’s success is a good omen for the series’ future

Giovanni Colantonio
By

The Pokémon Company launched its new Pokémon Home app on February 11, which allows players to store and transfer Pokémon between games. The mobile service had a promising release week as it was downloaded 1.3 million times between Android and iOS devices.

Pokémon Home brought in $1.8 million in gross revenue its first week thanks to its premium tier, which gives players more features starting at $3 a month.

Related Videos

Much of that success came from American players, with 34% of installs and 41% of revenue coming from the United States. Japan was close behind with 23% of total downloads.

Related

The high numbers are surprising considering that Pokémon Home’s launch was filled with bugs, including crashes and a 992 error that would pop up when some users tried to transfer their Pokémon. The issues caused some fear that the storage system wasn’t secure enough to entrust with fans hard-earned Pokémon yet.

Even with the app’s launch woes, there are many reasons for The Pokémon Company to celebrate Home’s success. The company’s approach to the franchise has slowly evolved over the years, moving the games closer to service territory. The recently announced DLC pass for Pokémon Sword and Shield implies that those games will receive longer-term support, which could change The Pokémon Company’s one game per year model.

With a more modern push to monetize the franchise in place, The Pokémon Company could stand to make a lot of money off the upcoming DLC. Pokémon Home features a free tier, which means that the nearly $2 million revenue gained in the app’s first week all came from players who chose to shell out for premium features.

Even more impressive is that the app’s success comes after a wave of bad PR for Pokémon Sword and Shield, which prompted outrage from players who felt Game Freak skimped on development. The controversy didn’t seem to hurt the games much, which enjoyed the most successful launch of any game in the series with more than 6 million copies sold.

The Pokémon franchise feels bulletproof at the moment, thanks in no small part to the popular Pokémon Go. The Pokémon Company is in a good position to capitalize on the series with its new model and Home’s 1.3 million installs are a good omen for how much the company stands to gain with Sword and Shield’s DLC and the mysterious new Pokémon Sleep project.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
The best settings for Pokémon Unite on mobile
Pokemon and their trainers welcome players to the world of Unite.

Pokémon Unite is now available on mobile, offering the same experience you'd find on Nintendo Switch -- just on a much smaller screen. Like all games that make the jump from console to mobile, a few concessions had to be made for things to run properly, and you'll need to spend a few minutes fiddling around in the Settings screen to optimize your performance.

Whether you're a returning Pokémon Unite player or picking up the game for the first time, here are a few ways you can make the mobile experience just as incredible as it is on Switch.

Read more
5 changes we want to see in future Pokémon Unite updates
Pokemon and their trainers welcome players to the world of Unite.

Two weeks after its release, Pokémon Unite is still going strong. Nintendo and TiMi's new Pokémon-themed multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) debuted two weeks ago on the Switch, and it's already received its first balance patch. (Charizard got a buff, thank goodness.)

Though it's a fun game at its core and the gameplay is solid, this Pokémon adventure is marred with a lot of junk and missing some important features. As a free-to-start game, Unite is extremely likely to continue receiving new content and gameplay updates in the future, particularly with a mobile launch on the way in September. With that in mind, here are five things that we really want to see in future updates.
Expanded in-game information
One of Unite's most baffling omissions is the lack of information presented on the screen during a match. While the game was undoubtedly designed to be played on smaller screens and the developers likely didn't want to crowd the player's view with too much information, they erred on the side of too little.

Read more
How to transfer Pokémon from Pokémon Go to Pokémon Home
pokemon go

The introduction of Pokémon Home gave players a chance to trade and store all their Pokémon in one place. Now, players can bring their Pokémon from Pokémon Go into cloud storage via the Pokemon Home phone app. Storing Pokémon with this app gives players a chance to trade, store, and view all of their Pokémon across compatible games. For games such as Pokémon Go, players will be able to free up some of their Pokémon space to catch more Pokémon than ever before! You're also able to trade Pokémon on the go, which is helpful for impromptu trading with friends.

But transferring Pokémon from Pokémon Go to Pokémon Home isn't as straightforward of a process as you'd think. There are quite a few restrictions and things to think about before starting to transfer. Luckily, we've gathered all of the need-to-know facts on how to transfer Pokémon from Go to Home, and important notes to keep in mind.

Read more