The Pokémon TV app, previously available on the Nintendo Switch, is no more, meaning you’ll have to look elsewhere for the show. Nintendo has provided their own Where to Watch Pokémon guide, but it’s magnificently, hilariously complicated.
How complicated? Nintendo’s Where to Watch Pokémon guide, as spotted by Nintendeal, features eight different video-on-demand services, from Netflix to Tubi. And that’s just in the United States – outside the US, availability varies immensely. In the UK, for example, Pokémon Horizons, for example, is exclusive to the BBC.
So if you’re in the US and want to watch the original Pokémon cartoon, you’ll have to hop over to Netflix. Then, when you hit Gold and Silver it’s off to Amazon Prime. The good news is that you don’t have to hop between every single one of these eight services, there is a lot of overlap. But it’s making us yearn for the good old days of streaming when it was Netflix or nothing.
The situation is due in some part to the enduring appeal, and profitability, of Pokémon. The first Pokemon anime series, now referred to as Pokemon: The Beginning first hit screens in 1997, and was only last year that protagonist Ash Ketchum finally bowed out (if we’d been ten years old for over 25 years, we’d want out too). With 26 seasons and many, many movies, the screening rights have shifted several times.
Related: The best games like Pokémon on PS4 and PS5
So why did Nintendo ‘sunset’ the Pokemon TV platform? The company’s Pokémon TV support page states that “We are sunsetting Pokémon TV as we explore other distribution platforms that make it even easier to access the ever-expanding library of Pokémon content”, which doesn’t exactly explain the situation.
If you want to track down the Pokémon show, take a look at the full Where to Watch Pokémon guide here. The page hints that there might be an alternative in the offing but there’s nothing definite. But, as of just a few days ago, Pokémon TV is no more.
