Switch online versions of Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2 do not support transfers

At the latest Nintendo Direct broadcast, the next batch of games coming to the Switch Online N64 service were revealed. In addition to titles like Mario Party and the long-rumored return of GoldenEye 007, Nintendo also confirmed that Pokémon Stadium and its sequel Pokémon Stadium 2 would be coming next year.

This is the first time that these special Pokémon games have appeared on one of Nintendo’s digital services. Unfortunately, it looks like you can’t transport Pokemon to the Switch Online versions. In case you missed it, some fine print below the “Pokémon cannot be transferred to these games” message revealed:

In the original Nintendo 64 games, players could use the Transfer Pak accessory to upload their own batch of Pokémon from the Game Boy series. Nintendo is in the process of winding down its 3DS digital services, which hosted all of these Game Boy entries. It also currently has the Pokémon HOME service on Switch and mobile, which allows users to transfer their Pokémon across games.

While the exclusion of transfers isn’t necessarily a surprise, it apparently is some Pokemon fans are a little upset.

Serebii.net webmaster and Nintendo Life contributor Joe Merrick believe that the 3DS Virtual Console games would not solve this, and that HOME is not necessarily a solution either. Here’s what he had to say in a series of tweets:

So Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2 lack connection with other Pokémon games on NSO and based on my mentions people are angry about this. Let me explain why this is the situation and is not an easy fix. In short: the Game Boy games are not on the Switch

Many argue “oh just use the 3DS Virtual Console games” but that’s actually not possible. What Stadium does is read and access the stored data through Transfer Pak and has frequent connections with it. The 3DS can’t do this with the Switch. It requires a consistent connection

In theory they could potentially rig up a system to do that and take the save data, but that would require a massive workload and probably wouldn’t be out in time as these will likely drop AFTER the Nintendo 3DS eShop closes for new software downloads in March.

The next argument is Pokémon HOME. Many have mentioned that HOME saves different structures now and it could allow that, but to do that they would have to convert every Pokemon AGAIN to allow the format of Pokemon in Gen 1 and Gen 2. Last time it took days

There’s also the factor that it has to interact with the NSO save file, which contains ever-increasing amounts of games. I’m not entirely sure how the connection between Stadium N64 and Pokémon HOME would work since HOME’s servers are not Nintendo’s. It would require a lot of rework

Merrick signed off by saying how a possible solution could be if the Game Boy (and the retro Pokémon games) were added to the Switch Online service. On a more positive note, these new versions of the games will support online multiplayer.

Earlier this year there were reports that Nintendo was apparently testing N64 and Game Boy connectivity to the Switch Online service. And evidence of a Game Boy emulator for Switch Online has also been reported.

What do you think about transfer support being excluded from the NSO versions of Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2? Do you think Nintendo could potentially patch this later? Share your own thoughts below.