Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver trademark suggests Switch ports coming

In 2009, the second generation of Pokémon games received a complete remake that are still to this day seen as the best games in the franchise by many fans. The games, HeartGold and SoulSilver, remastered the original Gold and Silver but added a lot of excellent features to the game that future releases failed to carry over.

Nintendo has applied for trademarks for "POKÉMON HEARTGOLD" (T2020-110933) and "POKÉMON SOULSILVER" (T2020-110934), filed on September 7 pic.twitter.com/5Oz5VWe34E

— abcboy (@abcboy101) September 22, 2020

For many, this is the highlight of the Pokémon franchise, and it seems that Nintendo could finally be porting the game to the Switch. On 22nd September, Bulbapedia employee abcboy reported that two new trademarks for the games had been filed by Nintendo.

This might not mean a lot by itself, but what’s interesting is that Nintendo filed this trademark on 7th September. Also on that day, we had a new leak from Nintendalerts, an account that has a decent track record when it comes to leaking insider information.

Nintendo has applied for trademarks for "POKÉMON HEARTGOLD" (T2020-110933) and "POKÉMON SOULSILVER" (T2020-110934), filed on September 7 pic.twitter.com/5Oz5VWe34E

— abcboy (@abcboy101) September 22, 2020

NEW POKÉMON GAME RUMOR

This comes from @Nintendalerts which has a very good track record at leaking Nintendo information:

"And to think that people complain about the [Mario] remasters, when they see the Pokémon thing that's coming, they're going to complain [even more]." https://t.co/Nq3izt8KlX

— Centro Pokémon LEAKS (@CentroLeaks) September 8, 2020

The account references complaints that Nintendo has been packaging three old ports onto a Switch cartridge and then charging full price for a barely-remastered game with Super Mario 3D All-Stars. The statement seems to suggest that perhaps the company is set to do the same with the Pokémon franchise, but perhaps this time only with a single game.

Whilst some are sure to find this an underwhelming release, the success that the Mario has seen with its ports suggests that Pokémon might see tremendous sales, even with an old release. After all, this is a fan-favourite title and what’s more, it’s one that’s increasingly hard to get hold of. 

(Picture: Nintendo)

Releasing Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver on the Nintendo Switch for £50 would be the best way to play the games to date, and fans would have to pay around that much to snag the original games on eBay anyway. For many, this would still be a no-brainer purchase.

• Read more: Talented Pokémon fan bakes cookies of all original 151 monsters

This could also be an indication that a follow-up game in the Let’s Go franchise could be coming, but the evidence seems to more heavily point at a port of the classic DS games.