I'll speak in the simplest terms I can, so you can get it - TPCi killed the traditional console-based spin-off, choosing the mobile route in favour of them. All well and good. However, for the health of the franchise, which has put out a game of some description every year since 2002 (indeed, 2001 was the last time it didn't spit out a game, coinciding with the most speculation on whether the franchise would even live to see its 3rd iteration prosper)., they need a console-based game to carry the brand name. TPCi knows it, Nintendo knows it and Game Freak knows it, which is where LGEP comes in - a spin-off to keep the brand visible, while they finalise Gen VIII
>"Hurr, but it's mainline"
And as evidenced not only by Game Freak calling the projected new entry in the series as core back in the E3 2017 video but subsequently equating Gen VIII to Gen VI, VII and back and re-iterating them as core games, while also merely describing LGEP as mainline shows the paradigm shift in their thinking. They've never considered any side games as main before and by continuing to describe their previous efforts as being inherently different to their most-recent still shows that to be true, or else they would be called and referred to in the same terms.
