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A Legitimate question for gamefreak to be asking moving forward is, "how many pokemon should there be?" And while Masuda's point about there being too many pokemon to remember (as a justification for 72 pokemon in XY) is well taken, there is also something to be said of enough pokemon so as not to dissapoint fans.

For this reason I set out to answer the question, "how many pokemon should there be?" My answer? Well, my answer is however many pokemon fans demand, if that puts the count past 1000, then so be it. However, the approach I took to confirm my answer is much more logical than just the demands of the fans. I started thinking how it always seems that for each new generation of pokemon games I can find less and less pokemon to use on my team. This of course undoubtedly has to do with the fact that bias will forbid me from using certain pokemon ever, such as pokemon that are too popular (Lucario), or pokemon I hate too much (Barbaracle). But what if my self limiting bias was out of the picture and I could use any pokemon on my team for any given playthrough of a pokemon game? How many would there viably be to choose from? To answer this question I used Bulbapedia and the list of all the pokemon currently in existence.

For starters I put a competitive barrier in the way. Most players want pokemon that can actually battle without being killed in one hit, and this excludes almost all the baby pokemon (also because no one uses baby pokemon rather than those that they evolve into) and various others, so I made it a rule that the pokemon must have a stat total of 400 or more to be considered viable (keeping in mind that this is subjective and does exclude some viable pokemon such as those with Mega evolutions; Sableye, Mawile, etc...), when that is accounted for we have:

439 pokemon to choose from (excluding mega evolutions and non permanent forms for obvious reasons).

I Thought of what other viability barriers might be put in place to give us our true count. Again, because people do not use pokemon that are pre evolutions, generally speaking, I eliminated all first and middle stage form pokemon of respective evolutionary lines (pokemon such as Wailmer or Gabite) and the amount of pokemon to choose from drops to:

386 pokemon.

Then I went to blatantly subjective eliminators, such as pokemon that have stat totals above 400 that simply can't be used in my opinion. Here I refer to pokemon such as Plusle, Waboufett, Carbink (Yes I know that Steven Stone uses one) etc...
Our count after these pokemon are eliminated falls to:

371 pokemon to choose from.

Then excluding legendaries (Rotom not included) and the unobtainable starter pokemon the total count falls to:

292 pokemon to choose from.

So there you have it, for the sake of legitimately viable team building (with no pre evolved or middle stage pokemon) there are 292 pokemon to choose from. So It is not surprising that I felt that there wasn't pokemon to choose from for my sun and moon team.

On that topic, how many pokemon should be introduced in Sun and Moon? Of course the question is complicated by Ultra Beasts (which may or may not be pokemon) and Alolan forms, which I would consider new pokemon because they bring a new viability to a team.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

Though I have not looked at all their sprites and I do believe not all alolan forms were included in the datamined pokedex, there are 81 new pokemon in Sun and Moon (and I guess that is including ultra beasts ((Better rewrite the theory that they're also people because that would be weird)))

Is this enough. Personally i don't think so, but that is just my opinion. As I see it the count will breach 1000 eventually, there is no purpose in trying to put it off, and with the new game mechanics of sun and moon (what with the type weaknesses being shown and what not) which pokemon you can remember no longer seems to be a problem to me. I would have liked to see Sun and Moon's pokedex count at 90 -100 and certainly no more than 120, but 81 is certainly better than XY which just felt cheap.
So there you have it, how many pokemon are there to choose from? How many pokemon should there be? What do you think?

Description
A Legitimate question for gamefreak to be asking moving forward is, "how many pokemon should there be?" And while Masuda's point about there being too many pokemon to remember (as a justification for 72 pokemon in XY) is well taken, there is also something to be said of enough pokemon so as not to dissapoint fans.

For this reason I set out to answer the question, "how many pokemon should there be?" My answer? Well, my answer is however many pokemon fans demand, if that puts the count past 1000, then so be it. However, the approach I took to confirm my answer is much more logical than just the demands of the fans. I started thinking how it always seems that for each new generation of pokemon games I can find less and less pokemon to use on my team. This of course undoubtedly has to do with the fact that bias will forbid me from using certain pokemon ever, such as pokemon that are too popular (Lucario), or pokemon I hate too much (Barbaracle). But what if my self limiting bias was out of the picture and I could use any pokemon on my team for any given playthrough of a pokemon game? How many would there viably be to choose from? To answer this question I used Bulbapedia and the list of all the pokemon currently in existence.

For starters I put a competitive barrier in the way. Most players want pokemon that can actually battle without being killed in one hit, and this excludes almost all the baby pokemon (also because no one uses baby pokemon rather than those that they evolve into) and various others, so I made it a rule that the pokemon must have a stat total of 400 or more to be considered viable (keeping in mind that this is subjective and does exclude some viable pokemon such as those with Mega evolutions; Sableye, Mawile, etc...), when that is accounted for we have:

439 pokemon to choose from (excluding mega evolutions and non permanent forms for obvious reasons).

I Thought of what other viability barriers might be put in place to give us our true count. Again, because people do not use pokemon that are pre evolutions, generally speaking, I eliminated all first and middle stage form pokemon of respective evolutionary lines (pokemon such as Wailmer or Gabite) and the amount of pokemon to choose from drops to:

386 pokemon.

Then I went to blatantly subjective eliminators, such as pokemon that have stat totals above 400 that simply can't be used in my opinion. Here I refer to pokemon such as Plusle, Waboufett, Carbink (Yes I know that Steven Stone uses one) etc...
Our count after these pokemon are eliminated falls to:

371 pokemon to choose from.

Then excluding legendaries (Rotom not included) and the unobtainable starter pokemon the total count falls to:

292 pokemon to choose from.

So there you have it, for the sake of legitimately viable team building (with no pre evolved or middle stage pokemon) there are 292 pokemon to choose from. So It is not surprising that I felt that there wasn't pokemon to choose from for my sun and moon team.

On that topic, how many pokemon should be introduced in Sun and Moon? Of course the question is complicated by Ultra Beasts (which may or may not be pokemon) and Alolan forms, which I would consider new pokemon because they bring a new viability to a team.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

Though I have not looked at all their sprites and I do believe not all alolan forms were included in the datamined pokedex, there are 81 new pokemon in Sun and Moon (and I guess that is including ultra beasts ((Better rewrite the theory that they're also people because that would be weird)))

Is this enough. Personally i don't think so, but that is just my opinion. As I see it the count will breach 1000 eventually, there is no purpose in trying to put it off, and with the new game mechanics of sun and moon (what with the type weaknesses being shown and what not) which pokemon you can remember no longer seems to be a problem to me. I would have liked to see Sun and Moon's pokedex count at 90 -100 and certainly no more than 120, but 81 is certainly better than XY which just felt cheap.
So there you have it, how many pokemon are there to choose from? How many pokemon should there be? What do you think?