from "Pokédex" to "Rotom Pokédex" to "App on the Rotom Phone".
*from Pokedex to Rotomdex to Pokedex
the app is still called a Pokedex, which adds to my point imo
the only one with any change is the Rotomdex (when referring to naming scheme)
I think you're thinking of the name "Pokedex" as something similar to "iPhone", when it would be more accurate to consider it similar to "Phone" or "Smartphone". It's a colloquial term for a variety of different tools that serve the same core function - indexing Pokémon data.
Also, I had no idea about the other dexes actually having model numbers or considered the possibility that "Pokedex" is just a colloquialism, my bad.
...or, it would be, if this was
ever brought up in the games. Literally ever. I've put tens of thousands of hours into this series and spent years writing for its setting but not once have I known about this.
And they stopped giving out these model numbers in Sinnoh, despite HGSS' dexes still having differences to GSC's and the following ones being even more drastically different.
Not to mention, the Pokedex is
repeatedly and explicitly stated to be the name of that specific device, on multiple occasions in multiple different mediums (but mainly the anime if I remember correctly). Ash and the Special (manga) trainers don't get "a new pokedex", they got "new
models of the pokedex".
So I think my point still stands.
Also, I'm stealing the tidbit about model numbers for a bad joke someday and you can't stop me
Making super public clearly different names to different things that serve the same purpose would muddy the fact that these are meant to serve similar to the exact same function as each other in each game. It'd confuse things, and - to be blunt - most people don't really care. A pokemon center is a pokemon center, regardless of how the thing is set up, as long as it heals Pokémon. A barbecue is a barbecue.
You say they don't care, but I think they do- they just don't really say it or notice it consciously because why would the general population think of a game's issues and immediately go to the style of the Pokémon center.
People recognize that the thing is very different from what they remember, but it doesn't affect them too badly until combined with everything else. The newer "bad" designs, the newer focus on story, etc etc. It all adds up, that's what i'm trying to say here. Someone's not going to point out an outdated barbecue at someone's lower-class house, but if that barbecue is sat on the porch of a house that's from the 50s or otherwise noticeably old then people will take notice of it being an old house. They might not explicitly
comment, but they will definitely notice. Same goes for a super sleek barbecue at a middle-class house compared to a mansion (except that you'd actually comment on that irl, so the metaphor doesn't hold up as well.)
How many series do you know where this rule of tech aesthetic is held, being at a specific modern tech level consistently throughout a decade or two of both real-life in-game and out-game time? Or, maybe that description is a little off, but the core point is: what is a series that does this "right" in your eyes?
Tough question, honestly. Not many video game series have even lasted long enough to be candidates for that, and of those that have I probably haven't played plenty. Maybe, to stray away from gaming a bit, I think I'll bring up Dr Who.
It's got an honestly similar aesthetic: a lot of its iconography is centered around clunky grey tech or relatively grounded objects being "sci-fi'd". It's lasted for 50-some years- longer now- and yet, throughout that, through countless redesigns and Doctors and even a full-on reboot- it's always kept its level of technology around the same kind of theme. No matter how many times Cybermen are redesigned, they're still boxy robots with stupid antennae and funny walks. No matter how many times the Daleks are redesigned, they always rely on that traffic-cone base with the whisk-hands and tacky orbs down their torsos. No matter how many times the Sonic Screwdriver is redesigned, it's always a funny doohickey with lots of mechanical bits and a glowy thing at the end (even if it varies in design a lot more than the other two I mentioned).
This is a show centered on cool alien dudes taking modern-day girls (and boys sometimes) to different time periods while always returning to the present-day. There is
constant change,
constant and drastic differences even between individual seasons, and yet the show keeps its aesthetics very consistent and cohesive without changing too much (save for that one time with the Daleks but we do not speak of that time). You could argue that the mercurial setting is exactly
why Dr Who keeps its design consistent and Pokémon doesn't- because all the change in Who
requires that anchor of cohesive stability to prevent the audience from being lost, whereas Pokémon still has its old designs wandering the same old earth-like world to keep their audience aware- but now that Dexit is in full effect, and plenty of old Pokémon outright cannot exist in the newer games, I would argue that this isn't much of a counter anymore.
