Why only Six Pokemon?

That's an interesting question.
How would you like it solved? Through in game head canon or perhaps it was a limit on the rm of the cartage? I like to think it was a design choice whenever you go to the PKMN menu / Switch Screen from gen 1 and how small that space is. If pokemon was on SNES I bet you would be able to carry more pokemon. I also like that GF has expanded on the idea of only including 6 pokemon on a team by allowing double and triple battles.

As for why you can only have 6 pokemon in cannon. I think it has to do something with "Poke League Regulations"

The Elite 4 set up rules against having. "Mystery at the Light House" may have some answers.

I'd actually lower the amount to 5.

Balancing a game is hard. The ramifications of changing the amount of Pokemon from 6 to 5 or 7 on a whim would be an immense burden in terms of rebalancing everything. To answer the original question, I am perfectly content with the amount of Pokemon able to be held.

I might suggest, if HMs are not reevaluated (not removed, but rethought) then a 7th slot be opened for HM slaves. Actually, that's a terrible solution. Nevermind! HMs shouldn't be complained about, but that's for another thread.

KorpiklaaniVodka said:

I'd actually lower the amount to 5.

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Could you explain this? Why would you lower the amount to five? Any specific reason?

Karnavaly said:

Could you explain this? Why would you lower the amount to five? Any specific reason?

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Lowering the amount of Pokemon would reduce the emphasis on teambuilding in competitive play.

Lowering the team limit to 5 would mean the 5 pokemon you choose are even more important now, and I personally think that could make for a more interesting metagame than 3 on 3.

I can't say as to why the limit is six, unfortunately, but I positive many of us have grown into this; it's accepted by mostly everyone, haha. Also, I agree that it'd be sort of a big hassle if they were to change the limit to either five or seven.

I think the limit has as much to do with strategy as it does any technical limitations that were in place at the beginning. With only six slots available, you have to really think about what types you want available on your team. If they were to change the limit, I'd rather see them raise it in twos... seven just seems like a weird number, but eight might round things off nicely. I don't see any reason for the number to change though, six is traditional by now!

i've always thought it would be cool if you could carry your regular 6 to battle with and then maybe three added slots for hm slave pokemon that can only be used outside of battle.

besides that im satisfied with six as the most, sometimes i really dont feel like dealing with that many and i'll play a whole game with two or three

Six is just a nice even number. Four isn't really enough to get a good variety of the Pokemon in the game (talking more so about when this limit was first implemented in Gen I) and eight is a bit too much to keep track of. In fact, I find that other than five, six is a commonly used number for the amount of main characters in a fictional cast.

Although nowadays, you have far more options, I still think six is good.