I have a pretty close relative living in Osaka, it's certainly not a cultural difference about smart phones availability. The situation is getting fucking ridiculous
It's not difficult to explain at all, and it's bad: bottom line above all, but they also seem unaware that you should also try to retain customers for, you know, future bottom lines.
The services proposed are the bare minimum with any game with compatibility and continuity content, and they know that the loyal fanbase that wants to transfer over mons and collections can hardly cope without Bank/Home. So, what they do is try to dumb down the game for the "masses" as much as possible (as if doing the bare minimum is acceptable: unless disaster strikes, they're in for a rude awakening when TemTem hits, mark my words), while gating everything behind a paywall for people that really want the service.
It's disheartening, really. Should't "kids" (God I hate the term) should also be granted the best services possible associated with the games they love? Moreover, why should the most loyal fans, the one that have put in the most hours, always been treated comparatively the most poorly? I'm not a cow to milk, you know.
And I'm not even talking about the prices, don't get me wrong. You can value and prices the cloud services you provide however the fuck you want. It's the lackadaisical service, absolute mediocre customer service and blatant ineptitude that I'm worried about. I'm talking about the convoluted mechanics and their evolution after q-o-l improvements were made in XY and OrAs:
1. GTS
I can actually understand not putting it into the games and make it work on the cloud service. The problem is, to not make it far worse than in previous games you should have the following: being free (check - even if a bit of a stretch), be it available at launch to balance not being in the base game (no check), have all features to be the exact reproductuion of proper link trades (no check -if items are not allowed this is a formidably bad downgrade due to item dependent evolutions). To make matter worse, from what I've understood, the ingame trade with friends at the moment is absolutely atrocious.
2. Retrocompatibility/forwardability (I'm inventing words on the go, just as a reference)
To not see that you can give basic HOME for free, but requiring bank subscription to bring forward mons it's sheer arrogance. And don't give me the "but 30 days of free bank" counterpoint. Nobody in his right brain will upload everything meaningful to Pokemon Jail in a month, to then have it sit until GF decides to patch them into their games at their own will. No, people have used bank as a) convenience and b) use a mon in whatever game when you feel like it. With both rendered moot by Dexit and no possibility to go Bank-Jail-back to Bank, no serious player will risk uploading everything without playing. And that's a kick in the mouth, honestly.
3. Accessibility
Ah, so wonderful to add manure to a pile of shit.
Phone access to trade would not be a problem but it is when it's the only way to trade. In the best case scenario possible, I'm at the airport, wired on wi-fi, waiting for an intercontinental connection flight for the next 4 hours. I have my 3DS, my switch and my phone ready, and I want a newly patched-in Volcarona. Steps: a) grab phone to look GTS up if there's anything available. b) Mon required isn't in my Jail yet, so either grab switch to upload it or grab 3DS to put it into bank, then grab Switch to put it in home c) wait! Get back on phone to do the trade, hoping the coveted Larvesta is still there.
I get the convenience of trading while having a walk, but without all of your data connected (and, especially, connectible at a touch, with either Switch or phone), the convenience is out. And, mind you, the above was the dream scenario. What if I had forgotten anything back home?
Minor professional rant: don't even get me started on how this is a terrible idea from a database management standpoint. I saw some posts ago that the detachment was done due to some legal restriction and privacy concerning kids. While it may be true, it opens a further snake nest for GF over potential cross-database data access (your phone mails, accounts, apps, and so on on your phone together with your nintendo subscription, history, etc...). Regulation on that is particularly stingy, especially here in Europe following GDPR regulation - but hey I guess they will have good lawyers in case something goes awry.
TL; DR:
What I get from this is that they're trying to mold Go, canon and non-canon games into one thing, as well as phone access and consolle services, but instead of continuing with the good things they have and had done, and planning and implementing a final solution once it's ready and feasible, they're assembling a puzzle on the go, picking some pieces together, then apart, then try to fit pieces where they should not be placed and see how that goes. Then turn the table upside down just for giggles to then check if no piece has been lost.
And, in the mean time, ask for some money to the players who are most attached to your franchise because why not. It's worth puking over how I've been treated. When I will finally get SwSh, if I ever get it, I'll make sure it's an used copy to be sure to not give GF even a cent.
