Pokémon.com
Pokémon.com is the official international Pokémon website. Each iteration has had an online Pokédex. On January 11, 2010, the website was overhauled, now having full episodes, new online games, and Trading Card Game information, among others.
Sections
Fun Zone
The Fun Zone contains games, wallpapers, and screensavers. Before the 2010 update, the games were mostly based on Generation III and Pokémon Platinum; after the update the games featured a larger number of Generation IV Pokémon, all translated from the Japanese Pokémon Daisuki Club. The games released after the site revamp are interactive, and allow players to earn Trainer Tokens, also brought over from the Pokémon Daisuki Club. The games that were previously available on the site are not available any longer.
TCG
Before the overhaul, most TCG news was on Go-Pokémon.com. However, after the overhaul, the TCG was brought to Pokémon.com. The Trading Card Game section of the site includes sets from EX Ruby & Sapphire to the current set, strategies, and news. Most news articles and images from Go-Pokémon were not transferred over, and thus have been lost.
Pokémon Trainer Club
The Pokémon Trainer Club is the equivalent of Japan's Pokémon Daisuki Club. Many features have been brought over from the Pokémon Daisuki Club, including customizable Trainer personalities for each user. Outfits and accessories are bought with Trainer Tokens, which are rewarded when playing the online games. Users must have a Pokémon Trainer Club account in order to register high scores in the online games or to earn tokens. Anyone who has a Pokémon Trainer Club account can also keep track of their Organized Play statistics.
Anime
Before the overhaul, the anime section simply had synopses of almost every anime episode. After the overhaul, a changing selection of episodes can be viewed, along with summaries and screenshots for every episode and movie, and trailers for new games.
Video Games
Before the overhaul, the video games section had information of the games, with some of them having mini-sites and sub-sites. After the overhaul, the section was expanded to include game strategies, and information about video game Organized Play. However, many of the game mini-sites were removed.
Defunct sections
Pokémon Center
The Pokémon Center was an online store where people could buy different kinds of Pokémon merchandise over the internet. It also featured exclusive items only available at the online store. The store closed on January 31, 2008. When it was closed, it was claimed that Pokémon merchandise would now be mainly distributed by other retailers.
Mailbag
The Pokémon.com mailbag was an official source of information from the company directors. Fans could write in and ask questions about the games, anime, and other aspects of the franchise. It had been updated quite regularly, often providing information that was not available in other sources (such as the English name of one character from the eleventh movie), but the last update came in October/November 2009. When the site was revamped in January 2010, the mailbag section was removed.
Media player
The site once contained a media player that played music from the Pokémon X collection. Like the mailbag, it was removed in the revamp.
Errors
Throughout Pokémon.com's lifespan, it been notorious for errors. Some of these are as minor as referring to Team Galactic as Team Rocket, others as important as erroneously stating that Phione was a Legendary Pokémon. Other errors are stated below.
- After the 2010 overhaul, in the Advanced Generation series's overview in the animation section, Mt. Coronet was noted. However, Mt. Coronet is in Sinnoh, and is in the Diamond & Pearl series. This was later fixed, with Mt. Chimney being noted instead.
- The site once stated that Jessie was 12 years old.
- Pokémon.com also mentioned that the shadowed figure in Unbeatable (and, by source, Pokémon Symphonic Medley) was Red Lightning, when in fact that character wasn't yet created.
- In an article for Jumping Rocket Ship!, the site referred to Ash's at-the-time Staravia as Staraptor.
- On the subpage for Pokémon Red and Blue Versions, Pokémon.com states that "Catching the Legendary Mew will require lots of luck!" while showing a picture of the Mewtwo encounter in Cerulean Cave.
- Similarly, a comment for an image on Pokémon Emerald Version's subpage states "The Kanto region has never looked better!". Pokémon Emerald took place in Hoenn.
Trivia
- Several (but not all) Pokémon namespaces (such as "bulbasaur.com") redirect to either Pokémon.com or Nintendo.com, and others, such as Manaphy.com and Darkrai.com, redirected to their respective minisites. Ironically, typing the correct spelling of Pokémon in the URL, Pokémon.com, will not redirect. After the update in January 2010, many links became broken as the respective pages no longer exist at the same location.
- Despite the overhaul the site received in early January 2010, the old version was made available for a limited period of time at http://origin.pokemon.com/. This also affected links that got broken with the revamp, making them available again, only at a different address.
- However, since the old version is no longer available, all old links are once again broken.
- A minisite about Darkrai which originally appeared in 2008 was located at http://origin2.pokemon.com, but has since been taken down.
- The website uses sprites from Platinum in the My Profile and Pokédex sections.
External links
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