Pokémon Direct reveals Pokémon Bank, PokéTransporter and more Mega Evolutions

Pokémon Direct has just finished airing and they revealed lots of fantastic details. The video featured Satoru Iwata (President of Nintendo), Tsunekazu Ishihara (CEO of The Pokémon Company) and Junichi Masuda (Director at Game Freak). First in the video they talked about how trading between games has evolved over the years, from link cables to wireless to wi-fi trading over the internet.

Then a new service called Pokémon Bank was announced, which is an online cloud storage service for your Pokémon! In Pokémon X&Y you will be able to send any Pokémon from your game to the Pokémon Bank. This will be a paid service - in Japan it's confirmed to be 500 Yen per year, which is about $5 or £3.

Furthermore, a new app called PokéTransporter will be released for 3DS. When you have any generation 5 game (Black/White/Black 2/White 2) in your 3DS, the PokéTransporter app will allow you to migrate the Pokémon off the cartridge and in to the Pokémon Bank. Then, back on Pokémon X&Y you can download them from the bank into your game!

Next up they talked about Mega Evolutions. It was confirmed that Professor Sycamore gives you one of the original starters - Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle - later in the game. But then it was confirmed that they all have Mega Evolutions! Also key to Mega Evolution is a new Mega Ring item, that causes Pokémon to Mega-Evolve when the ring connects with the Mega Stone the Pokémon is holding.

Official art of the Kanto starters Mega Evolutions

All three Mega Evolutions keep their type, but get new abilities. Mega Venusaur has Thick Fat (which halves the damage of Fire and Ice type attacks), and its Defense and Special Defense increase; Mega Charizard has Drought (makes it sunny) and its Special Attack increases; Mega Blastoise has a new ability Mega Launcher which makes pulse moves stronger (such as Water Pulse and Dark Pulse).

At one point Ishihara seemed to imply that every Pokémon will get a Mega Evolution: It's fun to imagine how each Pokémon will turn out with Mega Evolution. I want to see what happens to every single Pokémon. This is not 100% confirmed, however; it's possible that Mega Evolutions for all Pokémon will come in future games. More pictures below, including a new mystery Pokémon!

Mega Venusaur

Mega Charizard

Mega Blastoise

Pokemon Bank box view

Pokemon Bank filtering/sorting view

PokéTransporter and Pokémon Bank

A new mystery Pokémon was seen for a fraction of a second in the video:

Finally, special X&Y themed 3DS systems, already confirmed for Japan, will be released in North America and Europe on September 27th!