The Pokémon Direct on September 4th, 2013 was hosted by Nintendo President Satoru Iwata (岩田聡), The President of The Pokémon Company Tsunekazu Ishihara (石原恒和) and Game Freak Director Junichi Masuda (増田順一). The broadcast featured the announcements of many new features in the upcoming games Pokémon X and Y.

New Features Announced

• Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle will be the Pokémon Professor Sycamore gives out to players.
• Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise can Mega Evolve into Mega Venusaur, Mega Charizard and Mega Blastoise.
• Chespin, Fennekin or Froakie will be given to player by their friend in game.
• Trainers must also obtain a bracelet called the Mega Ring that holds a mysterious stone called a Key Stone in order to perform Mega Evolutions.

Pokémon Bank and Poké Transporter

Pokémon Bank (ポケモンバンク) and Poké Transporter (ポケムーバー PokéMover) are separate 3DS applications for the Nintendo 3DS that complement the Pokémon games. Players can securely store their Pokémon using this cloud service. Up to 3000 Pokémon can be stored but users must pay a yearly $5 subscription fee.


Poké Transporter allows players to send stored Pokémon from previous generation games and retrieve them in X and Y. It supports Pokémon all the way back to Generation 3 but only Pokémon Black, White, Black 2, White 2, X and Y will be able to directly communicate with the service. All previous games will first have to transfer their Pokémon to one of those games through a variety of previous generation methods in order to get them into one of those games.

Two Limited Edition Pokémon-themed Nintendo 3DS XL Systems Launching on September 27

Available September 27th, 2013 at a suggested retail price of $199.99, two Limited Edition Nintendo 3DS XL systems featuring the new Legendary Pokémon Xerneas and Yveltal from Pokémon X and Pokémon Y will be available for purchase in North America and Europe. Pokémon X and Pokémon Y will be both sold separately.

Pokémon Direct - September 4th, 2013

Get Excited for Pokémon X and Pokémon Y!

CHOOSE BULBASAUR, CHARMANDER OR SQUIRTLE AND BATTLE WITH THEIR MEGA-EVOLVED FORMS IN POKÉMON X AND Y

Two Limited Edition Pokémon-themed Nintendo 3DS XL Systems Launching on September 27

BELLEVUE, WA—September 4, 2013—In a surprising twist announced this morning during a special Nintendo Direct presentation, Pokémon X and Pokémon Y players do not receive Chespin, Fennekin, or Froakie from Professor Sycamore but are in fact given the choice of a classic partner Pokémon—Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle—from the very first Pokémon games, Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue! Adding to the excitement, once a player has evolved this Pokémon into Venusaur, Charizard, or Blastoise and obtained its unique Mega Stone, the Pokémon will be able to Mega Evolve while in battle. Mega Venusaur, Mega Charizard, and Mega Blastoise will possess overwhelming powers never before seen in a Pokémon game. Players can choose fan favorite Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle when Pokémon X and Pokémon Y launch worldwide October 12, 2013, for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems.

More secrets about Mega Evolution were also revealed today. It was previously announced that certain Pokémon needed to hold a unique Mega Stone in order to Mega Evolve, but now it's known that there is a second requirement players must fulfill for Mega Evolution to occur. Trainers must also obtain a bracelet called the Mega Ring that holds a mysterious stone called a Key Stone. The Trainer's Key Stone resonates with the Mega Stone held by his or her Pokémon, and together they trigger the Evolution that is normally impossible—Mega Evolution.

Director from GAME FREAK inc., Mr. Junichi Masuda, also announced Pokémon Bank—a new Nintendo 3DS application and service that allows Pokémon X and Pokémon Y players to conveniently store up to 3,000 of their beloved Pokémon on the Internet. Pokémon Bank gives players the flexibility to store and deposit 100 Boxes worth of Pokémon. This is in addition to the Boxes found within Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, just like in previous Pokémon titles.

Additional features of Pokémon Bank include the ability to deposit and withdraw Pokémon from multiple copies of Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. Once a Pokémon X or Pokémon Y Game Card is inserted into a Nintendo 3DS system or the downloadable version of the game is opened, the Pokémon Bank software can be turned on for use. Players can then transfer Pokémon from multiple copies of the game via Pokémon Bank to one copy of Pokémon X or Pokémon Y.

Pokémon Bank software is activated upon payment of an annual service fee. This charge will support maintenance of the online server that allows players to store up to 3,000 Pokémon conveniently, and will provide the application's support for future Pokémon titles.

Players who activate Pokémon Bank, will be able to use its linked application, Poké Transporter, which makes transferring many Pokémon caught in other Pokémon games easy. What used to be a lengthy process to transfer Pokémon from a previous Pokémon game to the latest titles is now a breeze with Poké Transporter—just insert Pokémon Black, Pokémon White, Pokémon Black 2, or Pokémon White 2 into your Nintendo 3DS system and use Poké Transporter to transfer Pokémon from those games into Pokémon Bank.

Pokémon Bank will be available in North America on Nintendo eShop. More details about this software, including a free trial period, will be added to Pokemon.com in the near future.

Also announced in this morning's Nintendo Direct presentation were details for the North American release of two special Nintendo 3DS XL hardware designs featuring imagery from Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. These systems come in Red or Blue and feature brand new Legendary Pokémon Xerneas and Yveltal. The systems will launch on September 27 at a suggested retail price of $199.99 each.

Source: http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=40392

Seriously $5 for Pokemon Bank because of server maintenance costs? That site could be literally run off a Raspberry Pi. A 32GB SD card could literally store 200million Pokemon. Rip-off Nintendo. Stop charging for services that should come with the game.

I don't think $5 a year is unreasonable. I agree that the server costs are unlikely to be too high since pokemon data is so small, but when they said it was going to have an annual fee I was worried it would be something like $20-30, so it was a relief to hear it will only be $5! Either way, I'm glad they're giving us a pokemon storage system right from the start of XY - it was disappointing that we never got one for BW because my boxes are almost full on Black 2 after completing the National Pokedex. =|