Pokémon.com
Pokémon.com is the official international Pokémon website. Each iteration has had an online Pokédex. Pokémon.com has updated info on most Pokémon games, particularly the latest ones, such as new missions for Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness. There is also a section called the "Fun Zone" where there are downloads, games (mostly on the Advanced Generation series), and puzzles. A video game section provides information on every Pokémon video game and links to a few mini-sites, as well as the pages for the games on nintendo.com. The "TV & Movies" section has a complete episode guide, from the very first episode to the most recent episode; it also has links to the official movie sites. Pokémon.com is known as the number-one source for Pokémon news and information. 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 quizzes, puzzles, and wallpapers. Before the 2010 update, these were mostly based on Generation III and Pokémon Platinum; after the update the games featured a larger number of Generation IV Pokémon. The games released after the site revamp are interactive, and allow players to earn Trainer Tokens for shoping, so you can customize your trainer in Trainer Builder . The games that were previously available on the site are not available any longer, and can be found at an archived version of the site.
Some other aspects of the Fun Zone include a Trainer Builder (where fans can construct and create different Pokémon Trainers), new downloads and a store.
TCG
Before the overhaul, there weren't many news articles of the various TCG cards and sets. However, after the overhaul, the TCG got a new section of the site, and a database. There is also a featured card of the day. However, things like pre-release images are no longer present on the site, and many news stories were lost in the transition.
Pokémon Trainer's Club
The Pokémon Trainer's Club is a fairly new club developed by the Pokémon company. It has customizable trainers, with the outfits being bought at the Trainer Store. These outfits are bought with Trainer Tokens, which are rewarded when reaching goals in the online games. One must first sign up for the club before being able to register high scores or to earn tokens. Anyone who has a 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, several anime episodes can be viewed from the site, including the first anime episode. EP018 has been skipped.
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 the VG Organized Play.
Nintendo Events
Pokémon.com is generally the first site to report on a Nintendo event in an effort to obtain event-only Pokémon. One of these was the the Ranger Net code for receiving Manaphy from Pokémon Ranger. An advertising technique used for the majority of the Generation IV event Pokémon is a floating image. A Manaphy egg was shown before the Ranger Net code was revealed, whilst shadows of Darkrai and Shaymin appeared before their revelation. For unknown reasons, this did not apply for Arceus, whom was directly revealed without any gimmick.
Sub-sites
At times, when a new Pokémon game, movie, or other item of importance is revealed, a sub-site on Pokémon.com could later be created. The sites could either be on the Pokémon.com domain, such as the Giratina and the Sky Warrior sub-site,[1] or on their own domain, like the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series.[2] Other examples include a sub-site with the Pokémon currently on the GTS,[3] and a sub-site for Pokémon Platinum.[4]
Mini-sites
Mini-sites are areas of the website made for games that are not main series games, such as Pokémon Battle Revolution or My Pokémon Ranch. These are linked to via the video games section of the site.
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.
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.
- Around the time of 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.
- 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.
- If one types in origin2.pokemon.com, it will go to a minisite about Darkrai which appeared in 2008.
- However, since the old version is no longer available, all old links are once again broken.
- In the season 3 section of the animation section, the Johto Journeys is described despite season 3 having Orange Island episodes. It should also be noted that it also lists season 3 episodes and summaries.
External links
Links to subsites
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