Well this is getting fun again.
To get to Naval Rock you had to attend an Event in New York (for americans as none others were done) to get the Event Ticket to go there. Lugia and Ho-oh were Event Pokemon in Gen 3 which treats them like Jiranchi and Deoxys. By that I mean they don't count for anything. You can get Ho-oh and Lugia easier and more efficiently in G/S/C/HG/SS as they are mandatory encounters. Any game that is not part of the main series does not count either as they do not effect any decision made by Gamefreak nor do they influence any of the Main Series games.
DSi was not a "New DS" but an Upgraded DS. Even if they were not compatible with GBA, the series they were born into were still compatible. DS and DSlite are compatible and by extension DSi and DSiXL are factored in with them in the larger view.
With the games moving to the 3DS we move back to the 50:50 chance as now there is a slight need for remakes, but the need to remake them is no where as bold as it was for Gens 1 and 2. Even if we get Gen 3 remakes, we'll get Gen 1 remakes since they were still on the same system meaning if one gets remade, they both have the same chance of being remade.
Just to mix things up as they have been, we may get one of each. With the new goal of "Evolving the Pokemon World" I don't believe we'll get any more remakes anytime soon. Unless they do a focus change from Evolving the games to something dealing with preserving or reliving the past.
Ok, so Lugia and Ho-oh don't count because they were treated like event Pokemon then, but in the last post you were implying this:
As for Gen 2 Pokemon. Only Ho-oh and Lugia were unavailable in Gen 3 main games. The two box legends of Gold/Silver. Not a real enough reason to make two whole games, but it was done and they were added into distribution through main games.
Sounds like a slight contradiction on that part. Did they or did they not play a role, if even super minor?
Regardless of the fact that they were just that, upgrades, that can't just be a reason to ignore that the later redesigns of the DS and onward dropped the GBA slot and therefore the connectivity of the GBA games(and Hoenn/
Kanto if you want to get picky). I'm not even sure how we got on this subject because it's not really going to go anywhere because, even now, we don't have direct connection between
all regions and probably never will have it.
Other than FrLg(because of them not adding every Pokemon to Hoenn), we didn't need anymore remakes anyways, HGSS obviously included as it is the only other set to date. Johto
did not have a real reason to be connected itself with every Poke available from both sets of Gen III games(minus the said few legendaries, although the concept back then only complicated things anyways because of the lack of WiFi),a bigger part than the regions themselves. If we're going that whole connecting regions route, why don't they just prolong every gen so that they can keep all regions up-to-date and directly compatible with every other one? As I mentioned above, we still don't have direct connection between them all anyways. If they remade Gen I also then so be it, no complaints there personally.
Considering Hoenn games had the weakest sales of the series, and a well-made entirely new game has possibly more chances of being successful, I don't think it's a given that remakes are profitable.
And don't bring the "GBA was the worst selling Nintendo handheld" card. The GBA was the Nintendo handheld with the shortest lifespan, of course it would sell less than for example the entire Game Boy line, which lasted eleven years, or the DS, counting the DS Phat to the DSi XL, and considering the DSi, despite lacking new games for the 2013 exercise, is still being updated. In fact the 3rd gen games were helped by the fact the old DS still had compatibility with GBA games and by the release of DP a lot of Pokémon were only available via Pal Park.
Weakest sales or not, you can't ignore that they were the top selling games on the GBA. On top of that, they could take this opportunity to improve what was flawed in the original games and to see if they can make the region more appealing in general(I disagree and loved them, despite the flaws, but apparently the masses is made to believe the games sucked). How good they were is subjective anyways and there are plenty more people who haven't played the originals who may give them a go if remade, among well everyone else. Pokemon has been proven to be a system seller regardless, which is something that alone makes a statement.
The idea was to catch them on the DS only, not to mention the version mascots were never officially available in the handheld series apart from events which couldn't even be widely distributed because the GBA didn't have access to the internet. Meanwhile, Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza could be caught in HGSS and sent to BW.
So far there are two instances in the series where you need cross-gen trading to acquire all the Pokémon: from RBY to GSC (since GSC didn't have the RBY legends), and from DPPtHGSS to BW. The difference is that they're all within the same generation of console. They wouldn't support the GBA forever, because the GBA carts are huge compared to the DS and they could easily make all GBA games available in Virtual Console, so it was needed to make all Pokémon accessible within the DS only. And Hoenn fans who own only a DS can't complain, as the games feature most of the Hoenn Pokémon if not all of them (I think only Jirachi and Deoxys must be acquired through events).
Johto was a neglected region in the 3rd gen. You couldn't access most Pokémon without owning a Gamecube and having the console games. Only Emerald gave you the possibility of acquiring a Johto starter in the handheld series. Whereas in the DS, the Hoenn starters could be acquired in HGSS with no major requirement, and all starters are available in 5th gen through Dream World events.
Going by Xander's previous statement(nothing personal), since the Dsi and other revisions are still in the DS line, then that makes all of them relevant which, due to the slot on the older models, still makes the GBA games relevant. Furthering that, as has been mentioned numerous times, Johto pokes were readily available in Gen III and could be transferred to Gen IV games as well, which means they were all available for the DS, so in that sense HGSS was not needed other than to see Johto all 'prettied' up.
Looking at that, why is everyone so harsh on Hoenn and act as if the region should just fade into oblivion? Why can it not get the all 'prettied' up treatment like Johto, another region which had no real reason to be remade in itself? Hell, throw in Kanto as well if you must with it being constantly added in as relevant too.