Pokemon Bank

[randomspot555]

Oh, you poor thing.

1) I wasn't saying that I was going to pay for it out of any perceived notion of martyrdom. I wasn't making the point like I was heroically offering to pay for the service because... of what exactly I'm not sure what you're getting at. I think the service is worth it, so I'm getting it.

You poor thing. Having to pay]/b] for a service that has ongoing expenses, when the only other option would be to cut off compatibility with prior generations. Geez, what a horrible world we live in.

2) You're right. Transferring to gen 3-5 is not free. It was functionally free to me and a lot of people I know because we have access to multiple DS systems. Pokémon is a game meant to be played with friends, and was done so for a long time with friends you knew in Meatspace. When then Gen IV to Gen V transfer option came around, many people had friends that also had a DS. The interaction probably went a little something like this:
"Hey, can I borrow your DS so I can transfer some pokemon from SoulSilver to Black 2?"
"Sure"
"Cool man"
People have pointed out (frequently) that is not "free", so maybe I'm being selfish when I appreciated a feature that I was able to use without any additional expense to myself. For me it was free. I'm sorry if you felt like you had to buy a sixty dollar dollar used DS to transfer your pokemon. I know that as a bit of a gadget guy, I have three DSs now. I have the original when it came out, a DSiXL several years later because I was travelling a lot and because it was really neat compared to my old scratched up gray brick, and I bought a 3DS because I knew Pokémon was coming out for it. I know for a fact I am not the only person who has done this, which was basically Gamefreaks' thinking when they came up with the feature. You probably know someone who has every generation of DS, just like you have that one friend who has at least one limited edition Xbox 360, despite the fact that his other works fine. You can tally up the damages if you like, but how many of you who used the IV -> V transfer feature were actually out money because you bought an additional DS for it? If this does not apply to you, please picture me like Scrooge McDuck, swimming in my gold coins and used DS's.

The tune to this quote is "me me me me me me". For a lot of people, it wasn't free. For a lot of people, this "free" transferring could pay for Bank for several decades. Even a Game Boy Link cable, approximately $20 at the time of release, could pay for four years of Bank service.

2a) Also, since from my point of view, transfers from gen 3 to 5 were free, or functionally free to people with at least one other person to play with, that is a space of 10-11 years (Sapphire and Ruby released in 2002-2003) to present where the service was inconvenient, but functionally free of charge. So the argument (it's only been in the last couple of gens that you can make transfers at all!) is ridiculous.

I've never claimed that you aren't paying for transfers via Bank. But I have claimed many people have essentially paid for transfers via additional hardware. But you're not just paying for transfers, you're paying for PC box transfers AND storage. And the only other option, despite what the conspiracy theorists say, is no compatibility at all.

3) You're right. You caught me. I didn't read the FAQ. I only read the occasional article about its release and saw the page on Serebii.net about it. Allow me to prostrate myself before the internet forum gods (trolls) for not reading every single bit about it. So yes, you're right, from the looks of it, it does not look like credit card information will need to be placed before using the trial, but saying that I have a "conspiracy theory" over a tactic that is incredibly common in the 21st century is, I'm not sure. Again, I'll quote you and give you the choice between being a liar and ignorant.

You're the one who spouted the conspiracy theory nonsense. Regardless of how "common" it is elsewhere, there was clearly spelled out information that proved otherwise it isn't the case here. So kudos.

4) And yes, I am paying for transferring my pokemon. Part of the service I am paying for is the ability to transfer from older generations up to present. For example, if I want to go through the mind numbing task of importing 1000 pokemon at a time to My Pokémon Ranch to get a Mew egg, and then forward it to my XY account so I can trade it on the PSS for a Wailord, then that is my prerogative. If I want to teach one of my 'mons a whole bunch of tutor moves in three months and then send it forward to my XY, that is my prerogative. I am paying for the service, and that is one of the features of that service. Storage is the key point, but in the FAQ you helpfully pointed out, the transporter and the bank come as a bundled function.

Again, not claiming you aren't paying for transferring. I am claiming that many people have paid for transferring, albeit indirectly, in the past. And the whole point of paying for Transport in this case is because Transport goes to Bank storage. Regardless of if you use the storage for 5 minutes or 5 months, the maintenance for hardware and software is still a cost and still needs to be paid.

5) The software may have been created by a separate subset, but let's not pretend that this is some colossal undertaking. This is no herculean task as far as programming goes. This is not a development team of half a dozen people in a tiny office sweating and wondering whether or not their project is going to make it up off the ground. While I don't really believe that any corporation, especially something like this, is ever moustache twirlingly evil, the thought that "It's a video game company, they produce fun! They would never stoop to less than honest tactics to make a profit" is just as naïve as my point has obviously been perceived as paranoid.

I don't think anyone is claiming it is a herculean task. But it is a separate task outside of the normal development of the game that'll require ongoing support and that costs money. That you don't feel they should be charging money for this service is nice. But since you clearly have been fine with paying $10 for Ranch, this same $10 could buy you two years of Bank service and provides you with 3x the storage of Ranch AND has no limits in regard to save files.

But yeah, obviously this is just a money making scheme and Game Freak is obviously offering a raw deal. Sounds horrible. As I've said, you guys really should just not put up with this horrible treatment from video game companies and protest it by not buying any more Pokemon or Nintendo related merchandise or games.

 

[Hex Maniac]

I think it sounds like a good idea, actually.

It's relatively cheap and the fact that it's paid is ok for several reason. It's probably expensive to keep the servers the running and if you're going to just use it to quickly transfer over something, you can get the free trial. If you're going to be a regular user, $5 or whatever per year is really reasonable and far cheaper than a lot of paid online services or game features that other games have. To me it's like when we had to buy a cable to transfer pokemon between versions, just cheaper (I paid a lot more than $5 for the cable at the time, and didn't get as much use out of it as I probably will get out of this service if I sign up for it).

I think that most people are complaining because it's an electronic-only thing they have to pay for, but frankly, a lot of games now are betting on downloadable and online content for the sake of convenience. Most adult players probably have a credit card they can use. For younger players, I assume the free trial won't require credit card information, and if it does, to me it's no different from a kid asking their parents for money to buy the game or something like that.

 

[Heredity]

You're right. You caught me. I didn't read the FAQ. I only read the occasional article about its release and saw the page on Serebii.net about it. Allow me to prostrate myself before the internet forum gods (trolls) for not reading every single bit about it.

What an absolutely blech response. People with factual information are trolls now, I guess, even if that information is really easy to access.

Also, were indeed perpetuating a form of conspiracy theory. You didn't have the correct info, despite it being available, and preached about it. At least try and prove your claims, instead of pulling the troll card when others call you out for bullshit. We're way, way beyond the point of needing to conspire about this topic - we were doing that long before X/Y were released, when there was no concrete info available about this service (check back a million pages, we were all arguing at that point). However, now there IS concrete info available now and you WILL look stupid when you come into a thread full of 'forum gods' and spread stupid stuff like what you were. If you want to conspire about something, conspire about the service's ability to check for hacked Pokémon and the like.

Pokemon Bank is $5 a year, it's cheaper than transferring ever has been. No one is selling your info to Somalian Pirates, or making you clean dishes at TPCI.

 

[LieutenantJoker]

You aren't paying for transferring.

For the record, the trollishness I'm commenting on is the based on the needless hostility. Sorry, I didn't realize there was an FAQ out there that addressed the issue I might have read it, had I known. I thought I could enter a relatively informal conversation about an upcoming feature of a video game without having a PhD in Fake Monsterology.

So, just to be clear, I sound stupid because, in a forum post dedicated to discussing an upcoming feature, I didn't know everything? Instead of saying, "Oh hey, they've actually addressed that, check out this FAQ", you said, "YOU MUST BE STUPID/CRAZY/LYING. HOW COULD YOU BE SO STUPID BY NOT TRACKING DOWN EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF INFORMATION."

But what is the internet for, if not being an asshole to a complete stranger.

 

[bluestarfish]

It's pretty reasonable to assume that if someone is talking about something seriously and in depth that they've read the FAQ on it at least, I mean that's kind of the point of FAQs, to quickly and easily answer common questions and misconceptions about something. That isn't expecting someone to have every single piece of information, that's expecting someone to do the bare minimum of research on something before getting all huffy about it because they jumped to conclusions.

I also don't believe you know what it means to be a troll. Calling someone out on something is not trolling, neither is disagreeing with them, or even being a bit rude.

 

[randomspot555]

How horrible it is to actually have a discussion on a discussion forum. If only everyone could be as super uber cool as the people jumping at the chance to say "this sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and not at all question them or challenge them or try to have a discussion with them.

 

[GatoRage]

Mod Note

Drop the flaming and baiting please. Warnings/Infractions will be handed out accordingly.

Try to keep the discussions civil from now on.

 

[faucin]

is there any info on transporting eggs? to my knowledge we never had the chance to transfer eggs from one gen to another, but given that poketransporter will export whole boxes maybe it's possible. anyway i haven't found anything about it in the FAQ the last time i read it so what y'all think? should i start hatching the eggs in W2?

 

[JaBray]

is there any info on transporting eggs? to my knowledge we never had the chance to transfer eggs from one gen to another, but given that poketransporter will export whole boxes maybe it's possible. anyway i haven't found anything about it in the FAQ the last time i read it so what y'all think? should i start hatching the eggs in W2?

I couldn't seem to find anything on eggs, either. I'd recommend that you start hatching soon.

 

[Amoebo]

You aren't paying for transferring.

For the record, the trollishness I'm commenting on is the based on the needless hostility. Sorry, I didn't realize there was an FAQ out there that addressed the issue I might have read it, had I known. I thought I could enter a relatively informal conversation about an upcoming feature of a video game without having a PhD in Fake Monsterology.

So, just to be clear, I sound stupid because, in a forum post dedicated to discussing an upcoming feature, I didn't know everything? Instead of saying, "Oh hey, they've actually addressed that, check out this FAQ", you said, "YOU MUST BE STUPID/CRAZY/LYING. HOW COULD YOU BE SO STUPID BY NOT TRACKING DOWN EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF INFORMATION."

But what is the internet for, if not being an asshole to a complete stranger.

I told you guys not to feed him after midnight!

The point is that you say transferring was free.

If we add in all the ds's, lets say 4, we are up to >500$. That cost 100x more than pokebank.

 

[Sheep]

I've been dying for Pokemon Bank. Have so many good Pokemon to move over from B/W2 but there's still over a month left, haha. It's not very pricey at all so I'll likely at least subscribe for a year ($5/year, yes?).

 

[Johan]

I'm still waiting to see what kind of payment methods they have in store for the Pokemon Bank. Maybe I'll use, maybe I won't. It's pretty much dependent on that.

 

[randomspot555]

I'm still waiting to see what kind of payment methods they have in store for the Pokemon Bank. Maybe I'll use, maybe I won't. It's pretty much dependent on that.

It'll probably be paid just like every other featured offered on the E-shop and thus just like every other online feature that exists where one can purchase products. You pay with your credit or debit card or pay by purchasing a pre-paid card at retail outlets.

In theory I guess they could set up an entirely separate processing system but I don't see why they'd do that.

 

[Johan]

It'll probably be paid just like every other featured offered on the E-shop and thus just like every other online feature that exists where one can purchase products. You pay with your credit or debit card or pay by purchasing a pre-paid card at retail outlets.

In theory I guess they could set up an entirely separate processing system but I don't see why they'd do that.

Remember, the one year payment is seperate from the e-shop. Still, I think it will somehow use the credit from the e-shop for payment.

 

[lugia61617]

Just popping back on this thread for one thing:

They have done EXACTLY what I said they should not do. They are ripping people off...by not getting a basic exchange rate right.
From serebii:

Following on from the reveal of the pricing for North America last month, the pricing for Pokémon Bank outside of North America has been confirmed. The price is a yearly fee to be paid after the trial of the game in order to continue access to the service. The price is as follows: United Kingdom £4.49, Europe €4.99, Australia $6.50 and New Zealand $8.50. For comparison, in the US it is $4.99 and in Japan it's 500 ¥

Nintendo/Game Freak, you fail at exchange rates.
I had another rant here but then I realised New Zealand pays more than us. So...Why rip off New Zealand!? And even so, the UK still pays more than both australia, Europe, Japan and the USA. Just charge 500 yen and make the bank do the exchange, don't scam people like this!

 

[bluestarfish]

I've got one word for you, taxes.

 

[lugia61617]

I've got one word for you, taxes.

That is not an excuse. Not in the slightest. Even if we are the most taxed nation (or one of).

 

[bluestarfish]

....


Uh, you do realize that nintendo has no control over that sort of thing right?

 

[faucin]

of course they do, but they take advantage because they are evildoers that just want our money.

has a price for south america has been released yet?

 

[Stratelier]

I've got one word for you, taxes.

Depends on whether or not taxes are already figured in to the stated price tag.