An argument for why Gen 8 could be Britain

I'm thinking that PokéSwitch and Gen 8 could be set in Britain, whose post-story would act as a sequel to Pokémon XY. I'm first going to explain why a sequel to XY is likely in three points. Then I'll explain what that has to do with Britain.

1. Zygarde is the center of the 2018 legendary distribution events. One may argue that this is because Shiny Zygarde was not previously available, but that then begs the question why it wasn't released alongside Shiny Xerneas and Yveltal in October 2015. This could be because they were planning on saving it for whenever Zygarde would have a prominent role. Note that Sun/Moon was released in November 2016, and hence in development much before said events.

2. In an interview, Masuda explained that the reason why they didn't have "a Z straight afterwards" is because they're always trying to surprise people. Perhaps the surprise was not having any follow-up to XY, period. Yet with SM having a follow-up, it begs the question why XY is the only region that didn't have one.

3. The Nintendo "NX" was in development as early as 2012, and by 2013, it was decided that it would be a hybrid-portable system. When Nintendo unveiled the NX, they assured fans that there would be a lot of 3rd party support and strong release titles, having learned from the failures of the Wii U. It's fairly believable that Gamefreak, responsible for Nintendo's 2nd best-selling franchise, would have been notified about the plans for the Switch early on so that they could work on the development of a game sooner than later. This could have been soon enough after XY, released in late 2013, to decide to shelve any plans for a a follow-up for XY for the Switch.

So, now let me explain why I believe Britain could be the next region for PokéSwitch, with Kalos available as post-story à la Kanto with Johto. Here's why:

Historically, Britain had a reputation of being France's greatest and most despised rival. Kalos had a war with another unknown region 3,000 years ago. There was a chance that this could have been Alola, considering Alola's existence was implied in XY; however, that wasn't the case. So if there's any country that this unknown region will ever be based on, it's Britain.

Now, this conjecture is independent of whether it'll be Gen 8 or not. However, Britain is a strong candidate to be chosen for the next region. I wasn't able to dig up stats on Pokémon game sales by country (let me know if you do!), but I figure the UK is comparably high alongside Japan, US, and France--the 3 countries which have had regions so far. And it would make sense to tribute a region based on Britain sooner than later. The UK is also a very popular place to travel to and one which is very recognizable. This would create all the more memorability and hype for Pokémon's lead title on the Switch; vice versa, being the lead title's region for the Switch would make the tribute to their UK fanbase all the more meaningful.

In contrast, if Britain's region had been released immediately after France's and both on the 3DS, perhaps the Europe-experiences would blend in too much and feel stale. Same if they had mega evolutions for two generations in a row, considering the connected lore of the neighboring regions would suggest that they both would have exposure to mega evolution. Some fans had vocalized that they were tired of mega evolutions as early as when ORAS megas were being revealed. Shaking up the series with new ideas (Alolan formes, Z-Moves, and Ultra Beasts) and choosing to save the return of mega evolution for later gave us some time to feel less burned out by megas and showed us they weren't just going to rely on mega evolution to carry them through every single generation.

I know this sounds similiar to the arguments for ORAS-Z, Emerald-Z, or SM-Z, but a difference is that Hawaii (Alola) and Japan (Hoenn) wouldn't have geographically made sense. Whereas Britain and France are actual neighbors.

Well, it's a bit of a stretch, but what do you all think?

I think this makes a lot of sense! Admittedly I didn't like Kalos and didn't pay much attention to the lore, so it having had an ancient war was something I forgot about haha. I'd love to see more cross-region stories - not necessarily games with multiple regions to explore, because that can have some issues, but games where the existence of other regions is relevant to the story and the main region doesn't feel totally standalone - and Britain and France seem like as good a chance as any to do that. Hopefully we can see a Legendary Pokémon at stonehenge :fufu:

You know what I really love about this theory
If this theory would become real my beloved Mega Evolutions would come back *.*
I gotta admit what I love the most about Pokemon is the Evolution part. I loved it since I was a child and in most of my playthroughs as a child I would use a full party of three staged Pokemon. I was fascinated when Mega's first came out and many Pokemon gained something you could call a fourth stage which was very new. So new Evo's and Mega Evo's for a XY sequel Britain I am in on it!!