Director of Pokémon Sun and Moon, Junichi Masuda reportedly said in a 2013 interview with Nintendo Life that he would like to create a translation machine for ‘future games’ in the Pokémon franchise. Such a translation machine would translate the cries of Pokémon so that trainers can understand what they’re saying.
Of course I have a lot of ideas every time around, so quite a few of them didn’t make it into the final game. It really comes down to balancing the ease of implementation and whether or not people will really enjoy that feature … But one thing that I wanted to put in that didn’t quite make it was a translating machine for Pokémon cries, to find out what they’re saying. So you have this machine, and when a Pokémon cries out something, text would appear telling you exactly what that Pokémon is saying.
So why didn’t it happen? Ultimately, the answer is that there simply are too many Pokémon. With over 600 of the critters to choose from, there was no way to include enough text to satisfy every single one, and so the idea was dropped from Pokémon X and Y. Masuda does, however, say that “this could be something that might appear in future games”.
As speculated by Design & Trend, that time is right now. With Pokémon Sun and Moon only months away, it seems entirely possible for this feature to be included with the upcoming games, although the stakes are now even higher as the number of Pokémon has likely swelled substantially. Will the team be able to conquer this challenge, or will this feature remain on the cutting room floor? We’ll have to wait and watch for more info.