Honestly, Pokemon is one of the games with fewer money issues than other TCGs. A tier 1 deck in Pokemon costs $30-$120 for Standard format, which is what most people play, apparently. JustinBasil has good posts detailing the decks and key cards, as well as strategies and example gameplay videos.
I say this coming from MtG, where that price point is only really something you can do in Pauper (commons only format), and a Standard deck will cost $50-230, a Pioneer deck will cost $120-380, and a Modern deck will cost $270-700. In Magic, the most powerful cards (for competitive 60 card play) is the credit card.
Pretty sure YuGiOh and One Piece and Lorcana and Flesh&Blood and Digimon also have more expensive decks than Pokemon. Obviously, Pokemon can get expensive once you try to bring out your deck with special art and special foil versions, but for just obtaining usable competitive game pieces, it’s basically the cheapest thing around.
For anyone not into PokemonTCG, this looks like PokemonTCG but will play with different cards and different rules. Energy is different (it looks like you have energy in an Energy Zone instead of attaching to individual mons), the battlefield is different (3 bench spots instead of 5), and so far the cards look to be simplified from actual existing cards.
I believe last time they showed it off it was something like 2 free packs a day, and trading is included (unlike the current digital platform, Pokemon TCG Live).
So overall, it’s probably a fairly different game that’s looking to simplify the gameplay and introduce the entire “collect and play” thing to people for free. Hook them in with this, and maybe get some people invested in playing “real” PTCG.