‘Pokemon Home,’ ‘Pokemon Sleep,’ ‘Pokemon Masters,’ And More Announced!

Pokemon’s 2019 press conference just concluded in Tokyo! The Pokemon Company announced new game titles and initiatives for the franchise.

A sequel to the 3DS Detective Pikachu video game will launch on the Nintendo Switch. The original game ended on a cliffhanger, but the sequel will conclude the story and feature a different ending than the film’s. No release date was announced.

A new Pokemon Center will open in Shibuya, Japan in fall 2019. It’ll feature a stylish black design and a Mewtwo statue at the entrance.

We already knew this, but Pokemon Quest will be released in China in collaboration with NetEase Games, the second largest game developer in the world. NetEase will presumably help Pokemon release more of their titles in China in the future. The press conference opened with a Chinese translator, which was to foreshadow this development.

Junichi Masuda announced a new mobile cloud service called Pokemon Home. It will allow you to store and manage all of your Pokemon from your various games, like Pokemon Bank, Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee, and Pokemon Sword & Shield. It’ll be compatible with the Switch, smartphones, and all future titles. You’ll be able to trade your Pokemon with your friends simply by using your smartphone — you can also trade with other players worldwide. The service will launch in early 2020.

The Pokemon Company announced a new initiative to promote sleeping. Like how Pokemon GO promoted exercise and going outdoors when it launched in 2016, Pokemon wants to promote healthy sleeping so players “look forward to waking up.”

A new mobile title called Pokemon Sleep will launch in 2020. It will track your sleep and reward you in Pokemon games for sleeping well. Pokemon GO will also incorporate benefits for resting and sleeping.

A new device named the Pokemon GO Plus+ will work like past Pokemon GO devices, but will also be able to track your sleep. If you place it on your pillow at night, it’ll send your sleep data to Pokemon Sleep via Bluetooth.

An event is now running in Pokemon GO where you can see sleeping Snorlax. They have the move Yawn. The event will last until June 3rd.

Another new mobile title called Pokemon Masters will launch this year in collaboration with DeNA. The game will feature Pokemon’s famous Trainers from the past and present and their partner Pokemon. You will battle with them and against them in a new type of Pokemon battling experience. Each Trainer is also voiced by an actor. More game details will release next month. Presumably the TCG is promoting this mobile game with the release of SM11b Dream League.

That’s it for the press conference’s announcements! Remember, a new Pokemon Direct will stream on June 5th at 6 AM PDT. It will cover new Pokemon Sword and Shield news and will last for 15 minutes.