Pokémon Bank (ポケモンバンク)

Pokémon Bank (ポケモンバンク) is a separate application and cloud service for the Nintendo 3DS that complements the games Pokémon X and Y. Players can securely store their Pokémon using this cloud service. Up to 3000 Pokémon can be stored in 100 different boxes but users must pay a yearly $5 (500yen) subscription fee.

With Pokémon Bank, players can deposit and withdraw Pokémon from different copies of Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. Both the download and cart versions will work so it doesn't matter which versions of the games players have. It makes it an easy way to trade Pokémon between game versions.

Pokémon Bank has a variety of search functions that allows players to find a specific Pokémon stored in their boxes. Players no longer have to worry about being unable to find the Pokémon they are looking for. Some search fields include: Pokémon name, Pokémon type, gender, and Nature.

Pokémon Bank 1.2 Patch

On Tuesday November 18th, 2014, the Pokémon Bank 1.2 Patch was released and it updating the following:

• This update allows Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire to use Pokémon Bank.
• Various bugs have been fixed in order to provide a smoother gaming experience.

Pokémon Bank - Pokémon Sun and Moon Update

On January 24th, 2017, Pokémon Bank underwent a major update so that it would work with Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. Players could also now transfer Pokémon they had caught in the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console versions of Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Yellow into their Pokémon Sun or Pokémon Moon game.

To celebrate this update, all Pokémon Bank subscribers could also get a Mewnium Z, the Z-Crystal that only Mew can use. When players launched the new updated version of Pokémon Bank and received the gift, the new Wonder Card would appear in their copy of Pokémon Sun or Moon.

Pokémon Bank 1.3 Patch

On September 6th, 2017, the Pokémon Bank 1.3 Patch was released requiring 421 blocks and it updating the following:

• Various bugs have been fixed in order to provide a smoother gaming experience.

Pokémon Bank 1.4 Patch

On November 19th, 2017, a new update for Pokémon Bank became available bring it to version 1.4 and it required 516 blocks. The update supports Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon.

• This update must be applied in order to use the Internet features of Pokémon Bank.
• Save data will still be available for use after downloading the update.
• After downloading the update, please do not delete the update data. Update data can be viewed in the "Downloadable Content" area of the Data Management menu.
• Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon are now supported.

Poké Transporter (ポケムーバー)

Poké Transporter (ポケムーバー PokéMover) allows players to send stored Pokémon from previous generation games to the Pokémon Bank Online store boxes and retrieve them in X and Y. It originally only supported Pokémon all the way back to Generation 3 but only Pokémon Pokémon Black, White, Black 2, White 2 were be able to directly communicate with the application and Online service. All previous games had to first transfer their Pokémon to one of those games through a variety of previous generation transfer methods in order to get them into one of those games.

When a player purchases and downloads Pokémon Bank from the Nintendo eShop, they can also download the linked application Poké Transporter. Poké Transporter is a free downloadable application for the Nintendo 3DS system but players need to have purchased Pokémon Bank.

Note for Illegally Created Pokémon: Players may be unable to use Pokémon Bank or Poké Transporter to deposit or to move Pokémon between online Boxes that were not obtained through normal gameplay. These Pokémon are created illegally by external software applications and are unauthorized by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo.

Poké Transporter Pokémon Sun and Moon Update

Poké Transporter was also updated on January 24th, 2017 making it compatible with the Virtual Console versions of Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition. Deposited the Pokémon could be sent to Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. If a player uses Poké Transporter with the Sun and Moon update to move Pokémon from the Virtual Console versions of Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue or Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition, they can only be sent to Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon and they cannot be sent to Pokémon Omega Ruby, Pokémon Alpha Sapphire, Pokémon X, or Pokémon Y.