>>28197767It's pretty widely accepted that this happened.
The anime, the TCG, all of the marketing surrounding the games was "Z" themed.
But for the first time in 8 years, we skipped the annual release. So it's very reasonable to suggest that in the gap year, we were originally going to get Z, but for whatever reason, they decided to drop it and go straight to Gen 7. Probably so they wouldn't lose their nostalgia train that they've constructed with the Gen 1 pandering in X/Y, and the Gen 3 remakes. Pokémon is in the mainstream again, and they don't want to lose that. Why do you think literally all the exclusive Z moves and Alola forms so far are Gen 1 Pokémon? We're in a second golden age, and Game Freak is in no rush to lose that. So they're bombarding us with new stuff to keep us interested, while keeping a foot in Gen 1 to keep the normies.
TL;DR - Yeah, a lot of S/M seems like it was planned for Z, before Z was dropped in favor of skipping to Gen 7, likely to not bore fans who got back into the franchise in Gen 6. This is also evident by Zygarde's new forms being shifted over to S/M.
