Update: The Nintendo Direct was shorter than expected (about six minutes), but we got what we came for: Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon are confirmed, and both are coming to the Nintendo 3DS this year. Unfortunately, they didn't show much of it at all -- just some concept images. A disappointing showing for everyone who saw that news leaked yesterday.
They also announced that the soon-to-release 3DS Virtual Console releases of the original Game Boy games, Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Yellow, will be able to interact with the Pokemon Bank. This will allow you to transfer Pokemon you catch in those old games into newer games from the series, including Sun and Moon.
And then the video ended. There was no mention of Pokken Tournament, no North American announcement of Great Detective Pikachu ... Nothing. Hopefully some of that will come during live Pokemon celebrations this weekend (see below).
But we did get this pretty sweet video celebrating the history of Pokemon, so there is that.
Original story: The Pokemon series is turning 20 years old this weekend, which only makes me feel kind of old. The official anniversary is Saturday, Feb. 27, but Nintendo is kicking the celebration off a little bit early with a live Nintendo Direct that you can watch on their website at 9 a.m. central time.
What can we expect from it? Well, odds are very, very high that they'll announce the next main game in the series. This was already a pretty safe bet, but on Thursday, trademark filings and logos for Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon were leaked, so... We'll probably see those.
Other than that, it's anybody's guess. They'll almost certainly remind people that the original Game Boy classics Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Yellow will be available to download on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. They might also mention Pokemon Go, the upcoming mobile game that will let you catch Pokemon in the real world, so to speak.
But regardless, the festivities won't end there. The Pokemon Company is declaring February 27 as "Pokemon Day," and they'll be hosting a bunch of activities, discussions and "an animation marathon" (which I assume is either Pokemon movies or episodes of the various shows) starting on Saturday at noon central time and running until 8 p.m. Sunday.
If that's still not enough, you can check out Pokemon.com/20 for even more stuff.
