The Pokemon Company aired the 2019 Pokemon Conference tonight, and one of the biggest announcements is definitely a new cloud-based Pokemon storage serviced called Pokemon Home.

As announced by Game Freak, it's the natural evolution to the Nintendo 3DS-based Pokemon Bank, which let gamers transfer and store Pokemon from a variety of 3DS and Virtual Console Pokemon titles. With Pokemon Home, that same concept is applied on a much larger scale.

The newly-announced cloud service will allow trainers to transfer Pokemon to the cloud storage service from Pokemon Bank, Pokemon GO, Pokemon Let's Go, and Pokemon Sword and Shield. Pocket monsters transferred to Pokemon Home will only be able to move to Pokemon Sword and Shield, which avoids any huge continuity problems with newer-generation Pokemon showing up in timelines they aren't meant to.

In essence, it means Pokemon from previous games can travel with trainers to the new ones, but not vice versa.

Pokemon Home is planned to release in 2020 for both iOS and Android, and will also allow trainers to trade their Poke-pals with nearby trainers, friends, and with others across the globe. The Pokemon Company has also confirmed that Pokemon Home will work with future, as-yet-unannounced Pokemon projects as well.

To that end, the company also announced a few new projects tonight, which include a new Detective Pikachu for the Nintendo Switch, and a bizarre sleeping-based mobile Pokemon application.

Fans might hear a little bit more about Pokemon Home next week when the Pokemon Sword and Shield Nintendo Direct airs on June 5. With E3 2019 just a few weeks away, Nintendo will be eager to build as much Pokemon-based hype as possible.

Given that Pokemon Bank costs $4.99 a year, it's fair to assume that Pokemon Home will also come with a subscription cost. However, Game Freak has not announced whether Pokemon Home ultimately requires a subscription or not.

Pokemon Home has a planned release date of 2020 for iOS and Android.