Pokémon Bank Update: 'Pokémon Go' trading might be possible thanks to the cloud service

Impact

The Pokémon Bank has finally made its way to Sun and Moon via the latest update, but rumors point to another update bringing the service to mobile title Pokémon Go as well. Many continue to criticize the game for not including core components of the Pokémon experience, like player-versus-player battling and trading. With the alleged arrival of Pokémon Bank for Pokémon Go, this might finally change. 

Here's how a Pokémon Go Bank could potentially bring trading and player-versus-player battling to the game. We're just speculating, but if this is the Pokémon Company's plan it may open the door for some interesting debates. Let's dive in.

Pokémon Bank meets Pokémon Go: Could Bank support come to iOS and Android? 

Currently, Pokémon Bank only supports the adventure games that come to Nintendo handhelds like Pokémon Sun and MoonX and Y and more. Retrofitting Pokémon Go with support for Pokémon Bank would provide the first non-mainline game with the ability to interact with your Pokémon cloud storage account, potentially making it possible to trade the pocket monsters you caught in the augmented reality game by transferring them to one of the main games and then trading with a friend.

Introducing trading to Pokémon Go via the Pokémon Bank would require players to go through a bunch of extra steps, but there might be a big benefit for the Pokémon Company and Nintendo. Even though Pokémon Go has made millions, it's not clear how big of a cut the Pokémon Company gets from that — especially with Apple taking a 30% cut on purchases made in the iOS version. Linking in the Pokémon Bank could push Pokémon Go players to try out the main games too, meaning even more money for the Pokémon Company and Nintendo. 

Of course, trading between Pokémon Go players directly on your smartphone would be much easier, but the Pokémon Company stands to make more from using Pokémon Bank. It might be better for Nintendo, but it might also be worse for fans.

The catch: Pokémon Bank is not a free service. And it's harder than regular trading.

Pokémon Bank support for Pokémon Go might be a step up over not being able to trade at all, but it comes with a big catch. The Pokémon Bank costs $4.99 per year to use. So you'd have to pay up to trade.

This sort of setup would also require a ton of extra steps to complete. For each trade, you would have to upload your Pokémon to the Bank, then transfer it to a main Pokémon game and then trade it to a friend. At that point, you'd have to do the entire thing in reverse to get your new creature back into Pokémon Go.

This potential method might be better than nothing, but it's certainly not the simplest or cheapest solution. It's not out of the question that we could see the Pokémon Company roll out a system like the one we just described at some point in the future, but we hope the official trading mechanics for Pokémon Go are a lot better.

Check out more Pokémon Bank news

While you wait for the Pokémon Bank to add Pokémon Go support, you might as well read up on the popular cloud service. Check out Mic stories on how to transfer Mew to Pokémon Sun and Moon, how to get a Mewnium Z-Crystal and how to get Pokémon from the original games into the Bank.