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Pokémon Day 2026 - Pokemon Winds and Waves coming 2027! Champions April 2026

Another reason I don't buy those budget figures: SV had considerably more people involved in development than BotW! Off the top of my head, when you exclude translators and similar positions "outside" of development, BotW has around 300 people on its credits, while SV has around 500.

So either those figures are completely off-base and don't reflect the full scope of development, or BotW was even cheaper to develop, which renders the discussion around money completely useless!
 
Another reason I don't buy those budget figures: SV had considerably more people involved in development than BotW! Off the top of my head, when you exclude translators and similar positions "outside" of development, BotW has around 300 people on its credits, while SV has around 500.

So either those figures are completely off-base and don't reflect the full scope of development, or BotW was even cheaper to develop, which renders the discussion around money completely useless!
BotW was a Wii U game first, also it's entirely possible that Game Freak pays less than Nintendo proper. Also a large portion of the models and underlying for SV weren't new and that probably cut down the cost a lot. Probably better to compare SV to TotK than BotW.
 
BotW was a Wii U game first, also it's entirely possible that Game Freak pays less than Nintendo proper. Also a large portion of the models and underlying for SV weren't new and that probably cut down the cost a lot. Probably better to compare SV to TotK than BotW.
Maybe, but in both cases the majority of the people credited were freelancers or worked at support studios, I doubt there was a massive difference in pay there. And while it's true that a huge amount of models weren't new, they still needed adjustments and new animations for the open world gameplay, as you can see in the interview Creatures did with CGWorld: https://lewtwo.net/index.php/CGWorld_Vol._296_Interview_with_Creatures
 
which renders the discussion around money completely useless!

Quite frankly I think just about any discussion about budgets among laymen with little-to-no familiarity with the actual ins and outs of development (which in itself isn’t one-size-fits-all, and varies in hugely significant ways from company to company) is completely useless discussion. I’m not (just) saying that to be cynical — I genuinely don’t know what can productively be said when most people are going to be operating from a thesis as complex as “bigger number make better game.”

A lot of the money that gets spent on game development, or really any kind of entertainment media production, goes toward things that are “invisible” to a layman but are nevertheless important for creating a higher-quality product. To use TV as an example, how often is the average person watching a show and keeping track of the number of scenes, locations, or extras involved? And that’s just stuff they can actually, physically count on their own — there’s also elements that aren’t public, like rehearsals, or edits made to scenes in post-production. Does the average person know how much it costs to light a scene a certain way, or what the “budget” option for lighting would even look like in comparison to the higher-quality one?

Obviously, most people shouldn’t be expected to know these types of things in order to enjoy a product. But the trade-off is that anyone who doesn’t, isn’t going to have much to contribute to a discussion on the subject.
 
a lot of the fanart I'm seeing for Pompon evolution speculation is basically just Entei 2 or Arcanine 2. I get why people want that sort of thing but Game Freak really wants their starters to be different and distinct enough from regular pokemon. even the like most popular idea of it becoming inspired by the Barong in some way really just looks like either could be a new legendary or Arcanine regional instead.

also it's funny how just in general it is so difficult to know where exactly a starter line is going from just the first stage, if they showed us the middle we'd be able to guess so much more accurately lol. like in hindsight you can tell what the elements of like Tepig or Oshawott were pointing to but before we saw the middles I don't think it was as obvious they would become Wrestler and Samurai respectively. Gecqua feels like the Snivy of this group where yeah Snivy is becoming snake and Gecqua is probably some sort of Psychic because they called it intelligent like 3 times.
 
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a lot of the fanart I'm seeing for Pompon evolution speculation is basically just Entei 2 or Arcanine 2. I get why people want that sort of thing but Game Freak really wants their starters to be different and distinct enough from regular pokemon. even the like most popular idea of it becoming inspired by the Barong in some way really just looks like either could be a new legendary or Arcanine regional instead.

also it's funny how just in general it is so difficult to know where exactly a starter line is going from just the first stage, if they showed us the middle we'd be able to guess so much more accurately lol. like in hindsight you can tell what the elements of like Tepig or Oshawott were pointing to but before we saw the middles I don't think it was as obvious they would become Wrestler and Samurai respectively. Gecqua feels like the Snivy of this group where yeah Snivy is becoming snake and Gecqua is probably some sort of Psychic because they called it intelligent like 3 times.
Intelligent is also used for the more trickery based Dark and Poison types as well though.

Also middle stages aren't always a particularly good indicator of the final stage either.
 
IDK if this is the place for this, but, given Pokopia's success - as it has sold 2.2 million in just 4 days - , how much until the inevitable Pokémon Warriors happens?

Omega Force, Pokopia's developers, are the same team who made Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors. This would be the perfect opportunity to finally feature the Kalosian War and, if co-developed by GF, to introduce new megas again after a few years.
 
IDK if this is the place for this, but, given Pokopia's success - as it has sold 2.2 million in just 4 days - , how much until the inevitable Pokémon Warriors happens?

Omega Force, Pokopia's developers, are the same team who made Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors. This would be the perfect opportunity to finally feature the Kalosian War and, if co-developed by GF, to introduce new megas again after a few years.
I think if they wanted Pokemon Warriors they probably would have done that (or greenlit it behind the scenes) separate from the game completely unrelated to it just because Koei Tecmo was involved.
Much more likely is the success of Pokopia just leads to...Pokopia 2.

If they do it I also do not think we'll see the Kalos Wars (or a bunch of new megas, we're kind of putting the cart before the horse here when we don't even know if Stereo Rotom makes the jump). It'll probably be a more original setting with a less death-filled fight, ala Pokemon Conquest.
 
A thought came to me regarding the fifth bullet point in the below graphic, regarding moves on HOME visitors:

01-en.png


Specifically, it mentions that if HOME visitors know moves that aren't usable in Champions, you have to replace them in the latter. Presumably this is mainly to account for things like Bank-transferred Pokémon that still know moves such as Return or Sky Drop that GameFreak probably never wants to add back in. However, what of things such as event-exclusive moves that are usable in Champions? As an example, in Gen 8 there was a distribution for a Pikachu that knows Sing. In the near-guaranteed event that Sing is a usable move in Champions, will bringing the Pikachu knowing Sing into Champions let it use Sing in battles? Given the wording of the bullet point specifically referring to unusable moves, it would suggest so.

This would also extend beyond event moves and into differing learnsets between games, such as a Gardevoir knowing Ice Beam which is a move it can only learn in LA. Because of this, I'm expecting Champions to internally define legal moves for each individual Pokémon so that even moves usable in Champions will be flagged as needing to be replaced if they don't appear on its legal list. In my Pikachu example, the game would alert the player that Sing needs to be replaced, despite Sing being usable by something like Lapras. I know the bullet point doesn't suggest such restrictions, but I think it would be way too convoluted and disadvantaging otherwise. Not to mention that having internally defined legal moves would also allow for revamps between seasons if they decide Pokémon need moveset buffs or nerfs, which is something that GameFreak already likes to do between generations.
 
A thought came to me regarding the fifth bullet point in the below graphic, regarding moves on HOME visitors:

01-en.png


Specifically, it mentions that if HOME visitors know moves that aren't usable in Champions, you have to replace them in the latter. Presumably this is mainly to account for things like Bank-transferred Pokémon that still know moves such as Return or Sky Drop that GameFreak probably never wants to add back in. However, what of things such as event-exclusive moves that are usable in Champions? As an example, in Gen 8 there was a distribution for a Pikachu that knows Sing. In the near-guaranteed event that Sing is a usable move in Champions, will bringing the Pikachu knowing Sing into Champions let it use Sing in battles? Given the wording of the bullet point specifically referring to unusable moves, it would suggest so.

This would also extend beyond event moves and into differing learnsets between games, such as a Gardevoir knowing Ice Beam which is a move it can only learn in LA. Because of this, I'm expecting Champions to internally define legal moves for each individual Pokémon so that even moves usable in Champions will be flagged as needing to be replaced if they don't appear on its legal list. In my Pikachu example, the game would alert the player that Sing needs to be replaced, despite Sing being usable by something like Lapras. I know the bullet point doesn't suggest such restrictions, but I think it would be way too convoluted and disadvantaging otherwise. Not to mention that having internally defined legal moves would also allow for revamps between seasons if they decide Pokémon need moveset buffs or nerfs, which is something that GameFreak already likes to do between generations.
Or they don't and Pokemon just go back to learning every move they've ever learned, barring the ones Game Freak don't want to exist.
 
A thought came to me regarding the fifth bullet point in the below graphic, regarding moves on HOME visitors:

01-en.png


Specifically, it mentions that if HOME visitors know moves that aren't usable in Champions, you have to replace them in the latter. Presumably this is mainly to account for things like Bank-transferred Pokémon that still know moves such as Return or Sky Drop that GameFreak probably never wants to add back in. However, what of things such as event-exclusive moves that are usable in Champions? As an example, in Gen 8 there was a distribution for a Pikachu that knows Sing. In the near-guaranteed event that Sing is a usable move in Champions, will bringing the Pikachu knowing Sing into Champions let it use Sing in battles? Given the wording of the bullet point specifically referring to unusable moves, it would suggest so.

This would also extend beyond event moves and into differing learnsets between games, such as a Gardevoir knowing Ice Beam which is a move it can only learn in LA. Because of this, I'm expecting Champions to internally define legal moves for each individual Pokémon so that even moves usable in Champions will be flagged as needing to be replaced if they don't appear on its legal list. In my Pikachu example, the game would alert the player that Sing needs to be replaced, despite Sing being usable by something like Lapras. I know the bullet point doesn't suggest such restrictions, but I think it would be way too convoluted and disadvantaging otherwise. Not to mention that having internally defined legal moves would also allow for revamps between seasons if they decide Pokémon need moveset buffs or nerfs, which is something that GameFreak already likes to do between generations.

More likely they do a SWSH and just make the moves unselectable even if they exist in data, but removing it in champions won't remove it when brought back to home.

What concerns me more is this;

1773638961589.png


Way I'm seeing it is lets say you train a keldeo in resolute form, give it secret sword/TMs in champions, transfer it back to home then into scarlet and violet, change it back to ordinary form for the sake of running a non-secret sword set... then bring it back to champions all those changes done in champions were deleted just because its no longer resolute.

Sounds like a pain in the ass for rotom, shaymin, etc.
 
Or they don't and Pokemon just go back to learning every move they've ever learned, barring the ones Game Freak don't want to exist.
Ah, so any Pikachu brought into Champions can be taught Sing, any Gardevoir brought in can be taught Ice Beam, etc.? I hadn’t considered that possibility, but I suppose it is possible. I do find it unlikely however, as it would mean things like the return of near-universal Toxic for Gen 1-7 Pokémon and widespread Scald for Water-types, which were changes that felt very deliberate for the official circuit. Not to mention making No Guard Machamp with Fissure finally possible.
 
I think the easiest assumption is they just use SV as a baseline, with Pokemon that weren't in SV being brought up to that base line. Then they just update that base line every time a major game hits ie: WiWa, then WiWa's DLC. Stuff like Legends prrrrrrrobably gets ignored just because they function so differently (Z-A in particular, can't see Razor Wind coming back "for real" so to speak), but I guess we'll see.
 
I have nothing against Orreheads, I am truly happy for them, but I still think it's insane this duology got rereleased before Emerald, HGSS, BW1+2 etc
It's really not that surprising. They're spin offs on a platform with a fairly limited set of things to release, with which there were no extras to do to it and has no connection to anything implemented. For so long as they were not interested in standalone GBA releases (DS re-releases are not even remotely in this conversation at this juncture) these were probably always going to come first; the more surprising thing is FRLG squeaked in for the 30th before these two could release. And while we'll probably get Emerald eventually, I suspect they will slow roll it just like they did with Crystal vs GS.

The actual more surprising thing is they put out XD first and not either alongside or after Colosseum. I guess it does have more Kanto Pokemon in it...
 
(DS re-releases are not even remotely in this conversation at this juncture)
I have nothing against Orreheads, I am truly happy for them, but I still think it's insane this duology got rereleased before Emerald, HGSS, BW1+2 etc
yeah unlike the gbc, gba, and gamecube games, the ds games would take real effort to port because they'd have to figure out how to get the screens to work on the switch. the castlevania ds games were ported to the pc and they just moved the bottom screen to the side, but it still looks kind of awkward. in order to preserve the original intention of the touch screen bottom screen and main screen top they'd have to force people to only play the ds game ports in docked mode, which wouldn't work on the switch lite.
 
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