Maybe you’ve already caught them all, but now you can finally save them all for retirement.
After a surprise delay, Nintendo has finally released Pokémon Bank and Transporter for North American 3DS owners. The apps, which enable players to store their collected pocket monsters in the cloud and transfer them to other Pokémon games, are available to download now for free.
.@Pokemon Bank has continued to roll out in certain locations. Stay tuned to our social channels for availability in your region.
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 5, 2014
Pokémon Bank enables gamers to store up to 3,000 creatures. Using the Transporter tool, gamers can upload all of their saved monsters from the DS games Pokémon Black and White as well as Pokémon Black 2 and White 2.
After downloading Pokémon Bank, the utility is free for the first 30 days. After that, Nintendo will charge an annual fee of $5. That will help the company pay for the server and bandwidth costs. The free period will also give more casual users the chance to easily move their older Pokémon to the 3DS’s X and Y releases without having to pay anything.
Nintendo originally tried to release Pokémon Bank and Transporter in North America right after Christmas, but it pulled the apps down due to catastrophic connection issues that affected all of the Nintendo Network.