Pokémon has a long-running history of producing new video games every few years, and in the past, The Pokémon Company has always found ways to bring your old Pokémon from previous generations to current consoles. Unfortunately, a service The Pokémon Company launched to help transfer Pokémon is now set to shut down in just a few months. Over the course of the last 30 years, over 1000 Pokémon have been designed and featured in the games, and for a while, The Pokémon Company has made it easy to transfer them to different consoles. But that will all change in 2027.
Pokémon began as a franchise in 1996 with the release of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan for the Game Boy, which later came out in the West as Pokémon Red and Blue. Since then, the company has released nine mainline Pokémon games, with the most recent being Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and announced its 10th generation through the release of Pokémon Winds and Wavesin 2027. With the new release, fans may officially have to let go of some of their oldest pokémon.
The Pokémon Company has announced it will be shutting down its Pokémon Bank service in 2027. Introduced in 2013, this subscription cloud service platform allowed players to transfer their Pokémon from the 3DS games to online storage, which let them send them to the current system. According to the Japanese Pokémon website, Pokémon Bank will end its services on Friday, February 26, 2027, along with the function to transfer from Pokémon Bank to Pokémon HOME.Pokémon Bank’s end-of-service date was already expected by Pokémon fans when Nintendo closed the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo 3DS back in 2023, which prevented new users from downloading Pokémon Bank after the shop’s closure date and gave existing users free access to use the service.
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Collider Exclusive · Universe Personality Quiz Which Iconic Universe Do You Belong in the Most? Star Wars · Lord of the Rings · Harry Potter · Game of Thrones · Star Trek
Five legendary universes. Five completely different visions of what the world could be — or already was. One of them is the world your instincts, your values, and your particular way of existing were built for. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🚀Star Wars
💍Lord of the Rings
🧙Harry Potter
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👑Game of Thrones
🖖Star Trek
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01
What gives your life its deepest sense of meaning? Every universe is built around a different answer to this question.
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02
Which kind of world do you most want to inhabit? The environment shapes who you become. Choose carefully.
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03
How do you prefer your conflicts resolved? The shape of a world’s conflicts tells you everything about its soul.
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04
Who do you want beside you when things get difficult? Your ideal companions reveal the world you were made for.
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05
What is your relationship with power? How you seek, wield, or resist power is the map of who you are.
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06
How does your universe treat good and evil? A world’s moral architecture tells you more about it than any map.
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07
What role would you naturally fall into? Every universe has archetypes. Which one fits you without trying?
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08
What do you ultimately believe about the future? The answer to this is the clearest window into which universe already lives inside you.
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Your Universe Has Been Chosen You Belong In…
Your answers point to the iconic universe your values, your instincts, and your particular way of seeing the world were built for. This is where you would find your people — and your purpose.
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A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
You believe in the cause — in the idea that freedom is worth fighting for even when the odds are impossible and the empire is vast.
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You are drawn to the moral clarity of a universe where hope itself is a form of resistance.
You’d find your people in the Rebellion — a ragtag coalition of true believers held together by conviction more than resources.
Star Wars is fundamentally a story about ordinary people choosing to matter in an extraordinary conflict — and that is exactly your kind of story.
The Force may or may not be with you. But the will to use it for something larger than yourself certainly is.
Middle-earth
Lord of the Rings
You understand, in the deepest part of yourself, that the journey matters as much as the destination — and that the world’s beauty is worth protecting even at great cost.
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Middle-earth is a world of ancient wonder, deep friendship, and a darkness that only retreats when enough small acts of courage accumulate.
You would thrive here because you value the fellowship more than the glory — the road more than the arrival.
Tolkien’s universe rewards patience, loyalty, and the willingness to carry something heavy across a very long distance.
Those are not burdens to you. They are simply how you move through the world.
The Wizarding World
Harry Potter
You believe that love, loyalty, and doing what’s right are not naive sentiments — they are the most powerful forces in any world, magical or otherwise.
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The Wizarding World is a place of wonder hidden in plain sight, where learning is transformative and the bonds you form at school follow you into every battle.
You would flourish here because you take both the magic and the friendships seriously — and you understand that one without the other is incomplete.
Harry Potter’s universe ultimately rewards those who choose to stand for something even when standing is terrifying.
That choice — made quietly, without guarantee — is something you understand completely.
Westeros · The Known World
Game of Thrones
You see the world clearly — its power structures, its hypocrisies, its brutal arithmetic — and you are not paralysed by that clarity. You use it.
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Westeros is a world that rewards intelligence, adaptability, and the willingness to understand that every alliance is also a negotiation.
You would survive here — possibly thrive here — because you don’t confuse the world as it is with the world as you’d like it to be.
Game of Thrones is a story about what happens when the idealists and the realists collide. You are sharp enough to know which one lasts longer.
Winter always comes. You are already prepared.
The United Federation of Planets
Star Trek
You believe the future is worth building — that curiosity, cooperation, and the expansion of understanding are not just ideals but the most practical path forward for any civilisation.
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Star Trek is a universe where the questions matter as much as the answers, and where encountering something utterly alien is cause for wonder rather than fear.
You would belong here because you are fundamentally optimistic about what intelligence and decency can achieve — while being honest about how hard that achievement is.
The Federation is the universe’s most ambitious thought experiment: what if we actually got better?
You don’t just hope that’s possible. You think it’s the only thing worth working toward.
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Pokémon HOME Is Now the Only Service Left To Transfer Pokémon Across Generations
With Generation 10 set to come out next year, the only way for players to bring their old Pokémon to newer generations post 2027 will be through Pokémon HOME. Pokémon HOME is a cloud service for iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch, released in 2020, that lets players transfer Pokémon not just from Pokémon Bank, but also from other games like Pokémon GO. Like Pokémon Bank, Pokémon HOME offers a subscription option for players who want to store more Pokémon, and like the older service, certain Pokémon cannot be transferred to cloud storage. Because of the “Dexit controversy” (the incident when The Pokémon Company revealed that some pre-existing Pokémon would not be transferable to Pokémon SwordandShield), some Pokémon also cannot be transferred out of HOME or sent to certain games.
Before these cloud storage services, Pokémon were transferable through features like the Nintendo DS’s free Pal Park, which used the Nintendo DS’s Game Boy Advance slot, the Game Boy’s Link Cable, which allowed trading between Generations I and II, or later through the Virtual Console on the Nintendo 3DS.
Pokémon Winds and Waves is scheduled to come out in 2027. Follow Collider for more updates.
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