Pokémon Champions: Nintendo Switch required for major tournaments — The Verge
At the Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco, USA, the mobile version of Pokémon Champions was not permitted in competition. At the same time, from September 1 it has been allowed for use at certain local tournaments, while participants still need Nintendo Switch hardware for regional competitions and higher-level tournaments.
As The Verge reports, Pokémon Champions supports cross-platform battles on Switch, Switch 2, and mobile devices. The game was released on Switch and Switch 2 in April, while the mobile version became available in June.
Producer’s explanation
Pokémon Champions producer Masaaki Hoshino said during a roundtable at the world championship that Switch 2 provides higher-quality graphics. He also noted that allowing participants to use their own mobile devices could complicate the organization of competitions because of the large number of different phone models.
VGC rules provide for the possibility of using equipment supplied by organizers for broadcast matches. Participants can create an identifier for their team, allowing a copy of it to be recreated on another account.
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Cross-platform play
According to Hoshino, all battle calculations in Pokémon Champions are performed on the server, enabling cross-platform play. He called this interaction between the mobile and console versions one of the most difficult aspects of the game’s development.
Hoshino said Pokémon Champions has been downloaded about 25 million times in total across Switch 2 and mobile platforms. Preparing a team for a tournament does not depend on the platform: Pokémon can be obtained in Champions through the Recruit function or transferred from Pokémon games for Switch through the Pokémon Home cloud service.
The VGC final at this year’s Pokémon World Championships was held at the Chase Center arena in San Francisco. According to Esports Charts, VGC was the most popular of the four game disciplines featured at the championship in terms of viewership.
