Eggs Being Banned in Pokémon GO

When she said, I don't dance now, I make money moves, that was a mission statement for a whole new generation. Respect. But that's not the Mount Rushmore. Listen. Cash rules everything around me. When that line dropped, it changed the whole hustle. The greatest tracks are never finished. They're just debated forever. Introducing the sprite living tracklist. 50 tracks that shape the culture from six decades of hip hop. Scan the QR code on a Sprite or Sprite zero Sugar to see the full breakdown. Obey your thirst. Sprite Foreign. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the 729th episode of the Pokemon Podcast. It's super effective. It's my. That's my birthday podcast. 729 it is. Whoa. I'm your host, Steve. With me is Bobby. Hello. It is your birthday podcast, but not your actual birthday. But it does say Happy Birthday behind you. It does say Happy Birthday behind me. I don't know if the YouTube can see that. It says it's going to stay up all month at this point. Took me too long to hang that, so it ain't coming down anytime soon. Bobby here. Austin. Also here. Since the last episode, I actually did become the egg frying champion. Oh, I make a sick egg now. Ray Rizzo is about to call you. Hey, Rizzo, I'm waiting. Hit me up. I'm gonna teach you how flying gem acrobatics Tornadus works. I'm coming with all my skillets prepared. We are recording this episode of shortly after we recorded last week's episode. So if we're wearing the same clothes and you're watching on YouTube, that's why. It's because I'm out of town on Sunday. Because I'll be at. When this podcast comes up. I will probably be flying back from New York. So the news we have here is not like breaking news. Although I don't think anyone's listening to this podcast for breaking news. But it is news we didn't cover last week. So if there is other Pokemon news and we aren't talking about it this week, that's why. But I think all this news is still needed to be talked about. And I don't think that any of this news was like super time sensitive. So that that's our episode to lay out the show notes here we have some TCG news about the 30th anniversary collection. Spoiler. You probably won't be able to buy any of it. There is a Pokemon Go Egg ban, which I think leads to a bigger conversation about however that's gonna work. Pokemon will be at Legoland, which I guess Bobby could go to that. Yeah. Have you been to Legoland? Have I been to Legoland? Yeah, of course I've been to Legoland. Okay. Yeah, it's like 30 minutes. I had. I used to have a membership to Legoland. Oh, crazy. Some new poke lids. And then for our bonus segment for our Patreon listeners, or if you're on the Apple Podcast app on your iPhone, the native podcast app on your iPhone on the premium section of that, which you could upgrade to if you want, or do the free trial. You get the longer episode as well, where we will talk about GameStop, which we love talking about GameStop. We. Somebody has to keep them in business. Our words. No, no, no one has to keep them in business. The article is GameStop's collection business just keeps on booming with Pokemon PSA. So that is the bonus segment this week. But again, if you're. If you're a Patreon Patreon supporter or the Apple Podcast premium feed, you get the bonus stuff and then you get no ads. So that's our episode for you guys today, I guess. Let's jump right into things with the Pokemon TCG news, which will involve a little bit of GameStop, maybe a lot of GameStop, which is the 30th celebration product showcase. This is off Pokemon.com. this is the worldwide thing, right? This is supposed to be worldwide for everyone. Yes. Yep. I thought it was coming out in October, but These dates say September 16th. Well, yeah, it starts coming out in September. Even though they said it was October. No, they said it was coming out in September. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Remind. It was always. There's so much here. There's a lot. Yeah. We can't go through all of this. No. Well, we can just kind of hit on some of the, like, the release dates. Because there are a few release dates. Right. Not all the products are being released at the same time. They're going to be released in waves similar to how we've seen special sets and previous anniversary sets. Okay, I'll read the intro here, and then you pick something you want to talk about, Bobby. Okay. Pokemon Trading Card game is celebrating 30 years with an expansion sure to excite fans across the world. 30th celebration, you'll in no doubt want to see the exciting new illustration rare cards, the cards of yesteryear in the classic collection, and all of those adorable Pikachu. Each 30th Celebration Booster Pack is set to include five foil cards, including one of 30 unique illustrations of Pikachu and one foil basic energy. But how do you find the booster packs for this expansion? That's a great question, Pikachu. I wish I knew. I'm still going to be asking that in September. Read on to learn more about the product sets to release when this expansion launches on September 16, as well as those coming later in the year. Okay, let's just start off with one thing. Do you Both remember the 25th anniversary? Yes, I do. Only five years ago, right? So it. Yeah. So in the 25th anniversary, each pack had four cards, not five. And the one of the four cards, it was typically the one in like the third slot was. Could be part of the classic collection, which was 25 cards that were reprinted from sets in the past. Right. Like Base at Charizard and the, the, the Tapu Lele that was like impossible to get back in the sun and Moon era. Those, those cards. Right. But when you ever. You bought one of these collections or like an ETB or whatever it may be, it came with like the, the 25th anniversary, like four card pack. But then it also came with regular booster packs. I don't know if you remember that. I don't remember that. Get like some of the 20th anniversary packs. But then you'd also get like Chilling Rain and like Evolving Sky. Like there was like other regular packs within there, right. So it didn't feel like you were getting like ripped off because like the ETB still cost like 50 or $60, but you were getting four card packs and it's like, oh, that's not as fair. But then you were getting regular packs to kind of like, you know, balance that out. This year they're not doing that. All the, the packages, all the box collections and everything, they just have the five card packs. There's no, like, there's nothing else. So like you're getting half the cards that you would get in like a regular pack for the same price as, as the regular as the regular stuff. Like an ETB is still 60, $50 or $60. And it comes with nine packs of cards, but each pack has five cards in it, not 10. That's odd, right? Like, that's a premium set for you, I guess, but that seems, that seems. Yeah, I don't know. I don't love that. The only place where this is different is the Ultra Premium collection, because the Ultra Premium collection, which there are two of now for this set, not one, there are two. They come with like 29 packs of these 30th anniversary cards. And then one pack of like the classic collection cards. So you get like three classic collection cards in a pack for the ultra premium. Can we detour real quick? Didn't, didn't like, people get pitch black three weeks early? Are they already getting it? Yes. Okay. From my understanding, a lot there was and I could, I didn't look too much into this. I was, when I brought this up, I was hoping that you knew more than me. You've really foiled my plan here. I can do some quick research here while you talk. From my understanding, the, the rip and shippers, you know, the people on TikTok where you buy, you buy a booster pack for three times the price, they'll open it for you. Sometimes they'll pretend that you didn't get a good card and they eventually mail it to you. I don't know the logistics of that. I don't know how fast they're mailing. I don't, I don't know who, who's, who's, who's paying for that anyways. The rip and shippers, from my understanding, developed a good enough relationship with the distributor that they have cut out the middleman. So now they're getting cards directly from the distributor, which, if you are skipping the middleman, that means you're getting cards three to four weeks before the cards come out with the set embargo date of, hey, do not sell before this date. You know, when I worked at GameStop, that was like a very common thing. You know, we'd get copies of like Halo 3 early. We'd have Halo 3 in the back for like two weeks on the CD and then. Or the disc, which is not going to exist anymore according to Sony. In 2028, we'd have a big box of Halo 3 in the back and it would have a big sticker saying, like, do not open, do not sell before X date. But, you know, we all knew that Halo 3 was in that box. Obviously card shops get cards early. Yep. And somehow some rip and shippers have bypassed that and developed a relationship to then get the cards early, to then just go on tick tock and start selling pitch black three weeks early. Okay, so they're breaking all the rules, but no one, absolutely no one is stopping them. Yeah, I was going to say, like, I don't know who would get in trouble there? Like, would the distributor get in trouble from the Pokemon company? I don't know. Yeah. At this point, the Pokemon company is the distributor since they start owning all the factory. Yeah, they're the ones distributing it. Yeah. Well, there's still, like, there is still. There are still factories. Those rip and shippers are not getting them directly from Pokemon, the Pokemon company. Like, they're getting them from someone else. So. Yeah. Too long. Didn't read. The Pokemon card thing has not gotten any better. Absolutely. No, it is. It is. It is terrible. It is still terrible. Apparently, they are also taking the vending. They're in the process of removing the vending machines from the, like, the Pokemon vending card vending machines that are in stores there. You'll still see them out there, but they are actually in process of, like, removing them. Do you think. Yeah. Do you think they're removing them because. I don't. This is my answer or my guess. I'll just skip to what my guess is. I think they're removing them because the stores are complaining. Probably. Right. And be surprised. I don't think they're removing them because it's like, people can't find cards and they're disappointed. No, I think they're removing them because, like, the store employees are like, this is a nightmare. Yes. Yeah. Like, no one's. No one's fighting in front of the Mountain Dew vending machine, but they're. They're fighting in front of the Pokemon. Should be. I don't know if they bring back Mountain Dew Black Label. I'm there. Hold on. Wait. Is that a good thumbnail for the podcast is having? Like. Like, that wouldn't work. A Mountain Dew vending machine. A Pokemon vending machine. The Mountain Dew vending machine. No line. Pokemon vending machine. Yeah, big line. Okay, I'll try. I'll. I'll. I'll ask my Trans King to get that. To get that illustrated up for me. Yeah. No, I think the TCG is in an awful spot collecting wise. And I think that the 30th anniversary is not gonna help by any means. Like, I don't know. And the Pokemon company, like, they know what they're doing. Like, the fact that this. This fact that this 30th anniversary has two ultra premium collections and one is based around Umbreon and one is based around Espeon. Yeah. Is wild to me. Like, Okay, I agree that they know what they're doing in which Pokemon move and sell. Yeah. But remember, they did overprint the Charizard Ultra Premium collection, but that was the last Ultra Premium collection they overprinted. Yeah. Everything else has been impossible, but, like, Target was desperate to get rid of them. They were. They were on the shelves for months. And the last time I saw that many Pokemon cards On a shelf was like, battle styles. Yeah. But you know what's wild? You know what's wild is the promo cards from that ultra premium collection that sat on shelves for months. Those promo cards are just. The three promo cards are worth more than the ultra premium collections are these days. Like, double the price of those ultra premium collections. It's just the promo cards. Is it just because it's Charizard? Because there's more of them out there. Like, they were. Was that gold Pikachu? And then it was. No, that was Charizard. Okay. The, the 25th anniversary was gold. Was like, gold Pikachu, Gold Pokeball. Okay. I, I don't want to get into numbers. I have, I have a lot of sealed Pokemon product. Yeah. Pretty much against my own will. Okay, sure. Like, I, I would, I would go into targets when Pokemon cards were ready, readily available, and then I would buy stuff. Because at the time when I was streaming, I'd be like, oh, cool, let's open, like, five packs. Like, we did something. Let's open five packs. And then I would always buy. I would always buy one ETB one. What are these things called? The celebration boxes or Celebration Pokemon Ex Box, Sylveon Ex, Greninja Ex. So it'd be like one jumbo card, one promo card, four booster packs. I would buy whatever those are. Yeah. I'd buy one of each. I'd buy one of each tin, and then Pokemon would send me stuff. So I, I, I can't sell or, or just get rid of the Pokemon stuff, because the agreement when they send you something is you have to do something with it. Right. You have to, like, open it. You have to show it off. Like, it's marketing. They want you to show it off. So then, so I would, I would open, like, I would open, you know, the battle styles that they sent me, but then I had my own battle styles that I would just, like, buy the, I wouldn't get to it. And then the next set came out. So why would I be opening battle styles when the next set came out and I bought that next set? And then Pokemon would send me that next set, and it's impossible to stop buying the stuff at Target, of course. Okay, I did stop buying the stuff. I did stop buying because I have nothing. I think I went up to whatever had, like, iron treads on it. That was kind of like the last I bought. Yeah, it's like Paradox, Rift or something somewhere around there. Yeah, I think I have an unopened box of what's the one with okie doggy on it. Oh, shouted Fable. Yeah, I got an etv. A Shrouded Fable. No one wants that either. There's a good houndoom in that one. There is. There is a good houndoom. So at this point, I think I'm ready to unload. I'm, like, legit about this. I have so much sealed product that I think I just want to get rid of it. What. What else am I. At what point, Bobby, answer this to me. Am I gonna sit down and be like, you know what? Let's open some Shrouded Fable together? What point would I do that? You could pull the houndoom. There could be something getting there. If I went live on Twitch and I said, opening Shrouded Fable, I would have the least amount of viewers. People, like, I don't want to see that Shrouded. You go with you open Prismatic Evolutions. That would be the one set I think I wouldn't sell for myself. But even at that point, like, what if I just opened it and weighed all the packs and be like, none of these packs. Wait, and then you're scared of it at that point. Are you admitting to scamming people on this podcast right now? No, I'm admitting to being like, well, none of these are God packs, so what's the point of opening them? Sure. Yeah, I, I don't know. I, like, oh, okay. A ton of sealed Pokemon. I know. I honestly, I just open them. I, I have. I, I found even. I have. I have, like, five booster packs of Dragons Exalted. Jeez. I have. I have sealed booster packs of Next Destinies or Next Destiny, whatever the one has the Mewtwo on the COVID Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta open those. But, but, but what am I? What am I? I don't even know what I'm looking for anymore. I'm so. I'm so, like, I'm so disconnected from the Pokemon TCG in a sense. Like, I love the Pokemon tcg, right? Like, I bought all these cards because I loved collecting cards. There's cards I have. There's cards I want to go through. Like, if I was to ever find this Giratina, I would probably just hand it to Bobby and say, like, please take care of this Giratina at this point, because I, I am not responsible enough to take care of this Giratina. I'll take that. But I, I, I, I've said this. At the start of the year, I still feel this way. I think this is the best time to just get rid of your Pokemon cards if you were thinking of getting rid of them. Yeah, yeah. Because people want them. Because people want them now. And I think. I think this bubble will eventually burst. I don't think it's going to burst this year. It'll burst. I think it's going to burst next year, though. But at a certain point, like, sure, some cards will always like, Moonbrian is never going to get cheaper. You know, whatever. Right. Like the Latios Latias. Are they brother? Are they sister? Are they in a relationship? That heart card. Unsure still. That card's never gonna get cheaper. Yeah, it is never gonna get cheaper. It's. That card is wildly expensive. Never getting cheaper. But do I care about those two cards I just named? No, I don't. Like, I don't ever need to feel fulfillment having the Latios Latias brotherly sister love card. I don't. Somebody out there probably does. Not me. But there are cards I do care about. Like, if I didn't have the Cramorant postcard, the Cramorant stamp card. Yeah. That. That was a Chase card for me. And I have two of them now, and I'm super happy with them. Do I know where they are? No. But I'm very happy to own those cards. Yeah. I don't know what to do. If anything, they're taking up so much space in my closet. I just. I like. Like, I just need to get rid of them. I can't continue to listen to you talk about. You have too much sealed Pokemon cards. I do. It's a problem. A very good problem. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Like, I think there will be a. A bit of a turning point after the 30th anniversary, but. Okay. For multiple reasons. But I think that there will be a dip. Here's the relatable problem. I think the. The relatable problem isn't that everyone else is sitting on a bunch of sealed products. Okay. I think the Relatable Pro. The thing that people can relate with me is it's been so frustrating to get Pokemon cards that you don't even want to try anymore. Right. That is true. That is 100 true. I think for a lot of people and I don't know. Go ahead. I think for me, I've been actively. Because I've actually felt the opposite. I've been getting more into TCG lately. This is a bad time to get into ccg. I know it is. But here's the thing, though. I've not. I got you. Hold On. Yeah. I'm not like, looking for, like the Charizards, the Moon Brian. I just want, like these little common cards to fill out, like this artist collection or I'm looking for all the Ampharos Mareep cards. So I'm like, not looking for the big hits, but I have collections that are. I'm working on. I think that's an awesome way to collect. I think I'm having so much more fun because it's like, oh, there's no packs in the store. That's fine. I'll go to a card shop or a card, you know, and maybe they'll have this common card I'm looking for. Yeah. Like, when I see TikToks or Instagram Reels of. We ain't. No, we ain't watching YouTube shorts at this point, but we might actually. TikTok's gotten really bad. But when I see TikToks of somebody who opens a binder that is like all dedenne, that's so cool. So I saw. I saw somebody that they had a binder of all Kabu, the guy from Galar, the gym leader. And one. I didn't know there were that many different Kabu cards, but they just had a whole binder of Kabu. And I was like, this is so cool. Also, this is like a $3 card. Yeah. And you have like seven pages of the same $3 card. That's sick. I don't know why that's cool, but that's so cool to me. And again, I. I have been collecting PSA 10s, which I don't really. I will probably never send cards into grade, but when I walk into Mr. Tom Brady's card shop, me and Tom Brady, we're so close now. I visit him once a week. But if I walk into Tom Brady's card shop and I see like a $30 PSA 10 of a Pokemon, I like, I'm gonna grab it because it costs more to grade that card. And I just think it's funny to have a PSA 10 crustle. I just think it's funny. Yeah. So that. That's been fun to collect. And I. There's so many things from the 30th anniversary that seems so cool. And just in the back of my head, I'm like, where am I. Where am I going to find this? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Because, yeah, I'm looking at these like, it's not necessarily that I want. It would be nice if I find this, but I'm more so like, oh, does this artist have a card in the set, is there an Ambrose in this set, etc. And that's what I'll be mostly keeping an eye out for later. Yeah. So let's, let's go through this real quick. So there are going to be three. There are three release dates right there. I think there are three waves of releases. So there's going to be September 16th. That's going to be your first chance to be getting any of these 30th anniversary cards if you can find them. They're going to be releasing just like smaller, like little three pack sets, like two pack set, just the smaller stuff at that point as well as the Elite Trainer box. So the Elite Trainer box will be available on September 16th in stores. And then after that there's going to be. The next wave is going to start October 2nd, so two weeks later then they'll. It's again, it'll just be some more. There's like a binder collection, there's booster bundles will be coming out October 2nd. The mini tins as well as a couple deck boxes. Oh no, sorry, that's it. The Minuten's there. The third wave is October 30th. So the end of October you'll get a couple deck boxes. So like celebration battle decks that come with a little promo card, like an illustration, rare promo card. So there's those on October 30th and then on November 6th. So sorry, there are actually four waves. On November 6th you get a bigger, like bigger. It's a ditto premium collection. It comes with like eight packs and then the big one, the ultra premium collection day and night. So the day version obviously is themed around Espeon, the night version themed around Umbreon and that one comes with like 29 packs as well as a really cool Umbreon or Espeon promo card and then a couple Pikachu promo cards as well. And then, sorry, there's also, on November 6th there's also the Mew and Mewtwo figure collections. So there's a box with a bunch of packs and a MEW figure and then a box with a bunch of packs and a Mewtwo figure. These figures look terrible. Yeah, they're not the best. They're not the best looking figures. It's cool to have figures in a box collection again though. Yeah, I don't mind the Mewtwo one. MEW kind of looks sick. Yeah. The flowers on the MEW one also looks kind of bad. Not good. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of products coming out over the next three months. Well, starting in September. So September, October, November. But again, I don't know that you will be able to find any of this stuff in the stores. Now, what you could do, and this is what Steve, you were alluding to earlier, is you could go down to your GameStop right now and you could throw in a pre order for this 30th Celebration Ultra Premium collection. You could lock it in right now. Now, the MSRP for this Ultra Premium collection at a normal store that is not trying to scalp everything is $179.99. I just called Gamestop about 15 minutes ago, before we started recording to check what the price of. Of an Ultra Premium collection is when it comes out on November 6th. $600? Yeah. I can pay GameStop $600 for a $180 product, but I will get. I will get it on November 6th. And the only thing I have to do is I have to give them a down payment of $300 right now, and then I pay them the other 300 when I go pick up the product on November 6th. Austin and I heard the phone call. She was ready to take your money. Yeah, she was ready for it. She was ready to lock you in. Yep, she really was. That is wild. That it is. 3 times MSRP from GameStop to get an Ultra Premium collection, and that goes across all their products. Right. So, like, I also heard that $60 ETB is actually $130@ Gamestop, so more. Power to the players, Bobby. Power to the players. Do not shop at GameStop. Do not get your. They will sell out. Inevitably, they will sell out of all of it. Yeah. So it, you know, but it is awful that they've now gotten to this point where they're selling things for three times MSRP. Well, we'll get more. Well, we'll talk more about GameStop in our. In our bonus segment. Don't you worry. Yes. Great. Speaking of more segments, let's take a break, and then when we come back, where's my notes? I don't. What's. What's our second segment? I don't remember. Oh, eggs. Yeah. More. This is a big drama episode here. Wait till we get to the Legoland Drama. You won't believe what's happening over there. All right, we'll be right back with the Pokemon Go Egg Ban. This podcast is brought to you by Mint Mobile. There are some things in life that you don't want to be transparent, like your swimsuit or your search history, but when it comes to your wireless Bill Transparency is everything. That's why Mint Mobile's wireless plans have no gimmicks and no gotchas. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with Premium Wireless for 15 bucks a month. Choose from 3, 6 or 12 month plans and say goodbye to your monthly bill. I've been using Mint Mobile the last couple months to stream from Minneapolis to Chicago to New York to It all works great and you want it to work with Pokemon Go. It does both. It does it all. Pokemon Sleep, Pokemon Unite. That's the important thing. Yes, it makes calls, but it also plays the games you want. To get your new wireless Plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com pkmncast that's mintmobile.com pkmnCast Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com pkmnCAST that's it. There's no catch. Upfront payment of 45 dollars for 3 months, 90 for 6 months or 180 for 12 months. Plan required 15 dollars per month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term Only greater than 50 gigs may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20 gig hotspot capable device required Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mint mobile.com. Pokemon Go Incubators Reportedly removed in Brazil following Loot box ruling this is off pokemon go hub.net this was on July 4th. So this was literally yesterday. We're recording this on July 5th. I know this isn't coming out until July 13th, but we couldn't get to this last week and we're recording two podcasts this weekend, so this news might be slightly different by the time this comes up. But again, this was breaking news yesterday. Pokemon Go players in Brazil are reporting that egg incubators, some item boxes and certain paid passes are no longer available or usable in the game following a recent Brazilian court ruling against loot box mechanics in games accessible to minors. This change seems to be connected with Brazil's wider crackdown on gambling, like mechanics in video games. After a children's court in federal district ordered several major technology and gaming companies to pay a combined 298 million. I don't know what the currency in Brazil is called. There's an R here. The real oh is that. Or that sounds right, but it's roughly $59 million USD in collective damages. That's actually. That doesn't actually seem like that much to be fair. $59 million USD in collective damages over loot boxes. The companies named in the report include Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo Electronic Arts, Riot, Ubisoft, Ubisoft, Ubisoft, that's my gaming company. Ubisoft, Valve, Konami and Tencent. The ruling found that loot boxes can expose children and teenagers to gambling like mechanics through random rewards and repeat spending. Sounds right. Yeah, sounds good to me. The ruling ordered companies to pay collective damages and implement stronger protections, including clear warnings, probability disclosure, age verification and refund systems for purchases made by minors without parental consent. The money from the collective damages is expected to go to a public fund for rights of children and adolescents. Individual children and teenagers who purchased or accessed accessed loot boxes may also be able to pursue separate compensation later. For Pokemon, they're saying this is Pokemon Go. Hub.net they're saying for Pokemon Go, the most likely next step is either a regional shop adjustment or a compliance update that separates incubators and randomized rewards from paid product accessibles to miners. And then there has been no word from Scopely Slash Niantic slash Pokemon from this ruling. But again, Brazilian. I'm not, I'm not in the Brazil shop. I can't confirm this firsthand, but various Brazilian players have reported they can no longer buy incubators. They can still use the free incubator, but if there was like, you know, three incubators and three raid passes and five nan berries that is unable to be purchased. Right, right. Does this, does this problem go away if they just do. Because they already have a system in place where people under 13 don't see ads and don't see like the, the stuff that's the. The market. Right. They don't see. I don't know if it's. They don't see the pokestops that are sponsored or they don't see something with relation to that. Does this go away if they just have that system for people who are just 18 and older also like they just throw in like an age verification system which would be not. I don't agree with that and I like, I would be a big lift as well, but I feel like that would. That's might be a solution for them. Brazil is also like an emerging market, so it's like pretty important to them. Yeah, I don't think this is like a Pokemon TCG Pocket situation where like TCG Pocket isn't available in like what, like Norway or Sweden or something. Something like that. They just consider it gambling altogether, which. Right. I don't think is wrong. Yeah, I kind of get it. I think there's enough money there to do what you just said, Bobby, is to you know, Pokemon Go already asks for your age, Right. And once you lock in your age, you can't change it, right? Correct. So if there is something where the game's asking for your age, and if they know you're under 18, you just can't buy incubators. Yeah. Now, here's. Here's. Here's the real truth. I'm gonna. I've maybe said this before on the show. You might say, well, Steve, the easy solution here is Niantic should just publish the egg rate. They should just tell you what it is. And I'm gonna say, dear listener, who is it actually in charge of this game? And I'm gonna tell you that it is the Pokemon company. And you're gonna be like, well, Niantic should still do this. I'm gonna tell you. They tried. They tried to do this. And who told them no? Because who is actually in charge of this game? Papa Pikachu is. I know firsthand that people at Niantic who maybe don't work at Niantic anymore, and maybe who told me this off the clock, I didn't sign any NDAs, said that they wanted to publish the egg rates years ago, and they were told no. Now you might say, like, why would the Pokemon company say no to this? Let's just. Let's just talk about shiny rates. Not even about Pokemon Go, just the main series games. Dear listener, why has this company for 30 years just decided never to tell us what the shiny rates are ever in any of their games? They don't even tell you how to shiny hunt in the games, besides being very, like, generalized on, like, pokemon.com. and even when they did publish it, no one believed it because they believe Serebi and said. And Serebi was wrong for, like, five years about that. But this company, the Pokemon company, does not like saying numbers. So even if I didn't have this information, even if, like, ex Niantic employee didn't say, like, hey, I worked on this, and they told me no. And, like, our compromise was we did the little dot system. Where is it? Like, what, 1.2.3? Like, that was the compromise. Yeah. Because the Pokemon company did not want egg rights published. And you can go, what? Whatever reason you want in your head of why they don't want egg rights published. But this is not a Niantic issue. This is a Pokemon company issue. Yeah. And this is again, the same company that will not tell us what the shiny rates are. They. They just had there. There's one NPC in the entire franchise of the game. It's like a team skull grunt that says, like, oh, I think the shiny rates are like 1 in 4,000 in 30 years. There's one NPC that kind of mentioned shiny rates, but we, we don't know the shiny rates in Go. We only know that from crowdfunding of, like, people saying, hey, I did crowdsourcing. Sorry, you can crowdfund this podcast. Patreon.com PK we know that from crowdsourcing, but, like, we, we, we. We don't even know. We don't even know rates. Here's a really silly example, but it's true. When you walk into viridian forest, they don't tell you how rare Pikachu is. We know how rare Pikachu is because you can go to sarabi.com and it says Pikachu is a 1% invariant forest and Pidgey is 60% and Caterpie is 39%. Right. Like, we know that because we looked at the game code. Yeah. But if you just think about the structure of Pokemon games, they don't tell you route percentages. They don't tell you how many steps you need to do for like, maybe people don't know this, but it takes more steps to hatch a Dratini egg in crystal than it does a Miltank egg than it does a Cyndaqu Quell egg. Right, Right. There's nowhere in the game it tells you that. Yeah, pretty sure. I mean, I don't, I don't know why I don't have like, the factual, like, reason why, but I do know that they don't want Pokemon look like they want them to feel like real creatures and not just numbers. Right. So they don't want those statistics. But also if you have the odds, it does make it seem more like gambling. Right. If you have percent. Like think about if you go walk into a casino. If you walk into a casino and you know casino games at all, you know all the odds. You know your odds for playing a hand of blackjack. You know your odds for the way you play roll the dice on craps. Like, you know all those odds. If you take that and you put it into a game and you say you have a 1 in 4,000 chance of getting this. Or you know, if you're hatching eggs, you have a 5% chance of it being this. That feels a lot more like gambling than if you don't have any of those numbers and you don't and you just are thinking it's random. It's random chance that I'M going to get this or it's random chance that I'm going to get that. That does not feel like gambling in the same way that having odds for all those things feels like gambling. And by them not putting those numbers in, it takes it out of that feeling and makes it feel more like random. Except that we have all this information from other sources that give us those numbers. But if we didn't, it would just feel random. It would all just feel random. And that's not. Doesn't feel as much like gambling as it does when you know the odds. Game freak slash. The Pokemon company, whoever you want to blame for this, whatever ethos they have. There was a point where you didn't even know what the IVs of a Pokemon were like in X and Y. You had to go to a random dude post game, post Elite 4. And when you talk to him, he would be like, oh, your Pokemon stats are really good. Or oh, your Pokemon stats are awesome. And now we just know that it's. We like, now we don't have to go to a random guy to say that. But, but even in like Scarlet and Violet, it doesn't say it's 32. It doesn't say it's 31. It says it's like excellent or it says it's whatever. Yeah. Yep. They don't like numbers. They as Pokemon. Pokemon doesn't like attaching numbers. And they have definitely been more lenient with TCG Pocket because they had to be. Yeah. And they definitely were more lenient with champions, but I think they had to be. They had to be in the sense of we want more people to play this competitive game and we need to show these numbers. But again, think about the commentators for the vgc. They're not allowed to say like, they're not even allowed to say the word EV training or IVs. If you listen to the commentators, they'll say, oh, I think this Incineroar was trained to, to survive a hydro pump. I think this Zacian was trained to be really fast. Yeah. I guess the takeaway here is I'm, I'm literally telling you that this is not Niantic's. It's Niantic's problem. Yes. But the fact that we don't know the percentages in eggs was not their choice. The fact that when you do the Gimme Ghoul event, this, if you did the 10 year anniversary gimme Ghoul event, we don't know what the shiny Gimme Ghoul is. We don't I. We don't know if it's 1 in 20, 1 in 60, 1 in 100, 1 in 500. We. We will probably by the time this podcast comes up, we will know because of crowd sourcing, not crowdfunding. But Niantic doesn't tell us because they don't want to. They can't because the Pokemon company told them. Do you don't tell people shiny odds? Yeah, because we don't want people to know. And they also don't want people to know the eggs. Now, if it gets to a point where this is affecting their money, then maybe they start telling. I don't even think that will help in this scenario. I don't think people knowing the egg, like, what they're, like what the percentages are of, like, what they could get, helps this, because that's still gambling. Yeah. If I know that I have a 5% chance of hatching a toga P or a 10 chance of hatching a pichu, I'm still gambling. Still gambling. Yeah, it's still gambling. So let me tell you, if they gave me the percentages of it, I still would buy incubators. Like, if they. If they flat out said, like, hey, larvesta's 5%, great, still not gonna buy it. I'll wait till our besta Community day. Yeah, exactly. We were talking about community day and how they were maybe able to do. How that works. They could do something similar with eggs, but I don't know how they would do it differently where it's not gambling still. Unless you knew exactly. Oh, this egg only gets me. But even then, you're still gambling for the IV or. Sorry, the. The cp, the shiny look, the background, maybe. I think you have to put a step in between. Well, one thing is the age thing, right? They could just verify age somehow. And if you're over 18, then you know you can buy them. But I think there. If there's a step, maybe if there's a step between where you're not directly buying incubators, if you're. If something else gets you the incubators, but then they figure out a way to. You earn them, but you spend money in some way to earn, like, to earn a thing that then gets them quicker, you know, something along those lines where they put an indirect step in there. But even we were talking about how they removed the boxes that included them also. So it's like you're not buying the incubator, but you're buying. So it's like if they were to be in, like, A battle pass. I'm still buying the battle pass, which has an incubator in it. Yeah, that's true. I don't know. I don't know how they would I get. Maybe they just have to do an age thing or take them away. Hey, taking computers out of the game altogether. I'm okay, honestly. Get rid of them, Put these spawns in the wild and call it a day. No, I think walking and hatching Pokemon are. Is. Is a good system. No, I. Well, I mean, that just feels like such like a Pokemon thing. They've all. For the longest time they've had. Yeah. Eggs in the game. That feels like such a big part of what Pokemon is. Look, I. I know plenty of people who spend way too much money on incubators. Chris, go cast the spot this at this segment, brought to you by Chris over at Gocast. I know a lot of people who spend money on incubators. The only time I buy incubators is. Is usually an event where I know I'm walking a lot. Like a Go Fest or a Kalos Tour. And there are things that are only in the incubators. Like a shiny hawlucha. Yeah. And there's still parts of me that's. That is like, oh, I'm. I'm. I'm gambling. I'm spending $50 on incubators to hope I get shiny hawlucha. And I hope I get it before this weekend is over because those eggs are gone. And I don't plan on going to Mexico any time soon to find a shiny hall with Lucha in the wild. Right. You could just come to South San Diego. They do hatch on this side of the border as well. So if I lived in. I think I live in a pretty walkable city, but if I lived in like Boston or New York where I don't need a car. Or Tokyo. Right. Like I don't need a car. I'm just taking public transportation. I'm just hopping on a scooter. I'm hopping on a bike. I don't even think I would buy incubators there, but I know I would hatch a lot more eggs off the free incubator. Sure. So just like there are probably people who were doing 20 plus raids a day. And then Niantic was like, hey, you're only. I don't even. You're able to do 10 raid remote raids a day. 10 remote. Now. Yeah. I am sure there are people who are just non stop buying incubators. And I'm sure they're more likely in those bigger cities. So I. I think eggs are making them a lot of money. Undoubtedly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't want to take. They don't want to take incubators out of the game. I have a pitch. The next Go plus plus includes an incubator inside it. So you send an egg to the plus plus plus plus not making money from that. A Pokemon company makes money from that. Sucks for Niantic. But then Pokemon still doesn't have to disclose anything. And you're not buying incubators in game. But if you pay for the plus plus plus plus, aren't you still gambling technically? Because you're paying for the item that gets you an incubator. Kind of like a battle pass that would have an incubator. Yeah, but it's not in the app. True. And then it's not a software thing anymore. Yeah. It's a hardware thing. All right. Go plus plus plus plus Coming out, incubator included. Aren't the. Don't. Don't the egg. Are there percentages for Eggs and Masters? I haven't played masters in a while. I know there are eggs and masters, but I don't know if there's a percentage of eggs and Masters. I'm not certain. I don't know. Hey, Masters talk. There you go. There's your. But Masters is a gotcha game, so they have to disclose rates. Right? Well, you'd think that that in itself would be also be banned, right? In this situation, in this scenario? Well, let's be honest here. No one's banning. Masters is barely making any money. Pokemon Sleep makes more money than masters. That's true. That's true. It does. And Pokemon sleepers, I don't even think. I don't think Pokemon Sleep is like predatory in the sense of gambling. Although you could argue that, like, I mean, if you get the anniversary bundle, it's like one plus little incense, one mine and incense. You're definitely getting a plus on mining. Yeah, it's definitely working as intended. Right. The question is, are they going to be hungry? Right? Are they? Yeah. Or good once you do catch them? Yeah, but I don't think they. I think that's levels away from like considering something gambling. Like you are getting the thing that you are purchasing. Right. So like, good or not is kind of irrelevant in that sense. You could argue that raids are gambling because you're gambling for the shiny, but you are getting exactly what you pay for. If you buy a $1 raid pass and you do a restram raid and you're successful you get a reshrame at the end. Mm. And even if you failed to catch it, you could argue that's, like, a skill thing. Just like. Yeah. I think you're. You're paying for the opportunity to catch a reshiram. Right. You're not paying for the reshiram in that case. You're paying for the opportunity to catch one. But it is the Pokemon that they. But you're paying for the opportunity to hatch a Larvesta. No, you're not. You're paying for the opportunity to hatch a grouping of Pokemon, one of which could be a Larvesta at a percentage. But you're raiding. And you're. You're playing for the opportunity to 100%, like, get the Russian. Have the opportunity to catch a specific Pokemon. You're not, like, raiding and then randomly maybe getting a Russian, maybe eating a Zekrom, maybe getting a Kirum. Like, it's going to be a. Oh, Kirums. The one that. What. How do you pronounce that? Anyways? It's like it. You're 100% going to get. Gonna get that Pokemon. So the. The main issue is not knowing what you're getting from the egg. It could be 1 of 5, 1 of however many is in the egg. Yeah, I guess if you knew, like, hey, I got this egg, and I know it's going to be a Togepi, I'm going to use an incubator on it to hatch that Togepi. That would probably be so. Oh, that would get around that because. So they just rework the egg pool, make it one per egg, and give us 7,000 different types of eggs. Yeah, I guess that's true. And then you get to choose what Pokemon you want to have. Like, if you have a Togepi egg, you can hatch the Togepi egg. If you don't have one, that sucks. But maybe that would work. And then you could. Then you could buy a Togepi egg. Here's what you do. You study law, Brazilian law. You go to Brazil, Austin, and you fight this case for. For them. I don't know. I don't care that much. I don't know how Sarabi has Kieran pronounced. It's all caps K y 00 of 00 K y o o r hyphen rem kiyorum, kyurem, kyurem, Kyurem. I don't. I don't know. I don't know the phonetics of that. Cayurum. Cairam. I think it's just Kyurem. Kier. Kir. I don't know. I. I've only. I've seen the Kira movie. I'm pretty sure they just say Kyurem. I think so. That's an awful movie. That movie's good. What are you talking about? The worst one. Kieran was in the right. He did Kira Missing the right, but did nothing wrong. I'm not rooting for. No, we're not doing this. I've heard his. I've heard its name pronounced Kyrium. That's definitely not it. And I was like, whoa. Like I've never heard it. Like I've never heard that before. But I've heard I have. When I heard that, I was like, surprised. Tornado. Anyways, for the record, I hear people say Cobalian. Wrong. Cobalian? Yeah, Cobalian. Like Cobalt. I think I always call it Cobalian. No, Cobalian. Well, if it's Cobalt, it's Cobalion. No, Cobalt. Bay. Bay. Turak. Ian. Verizian. Rye. Like rye bread. I don't know. Welcome to this segment. This is like the sixth week in a row we have just got sidetracked to say Pokemon names correctly. Tornadoes. By the way, I heard that Camphoros a handful of times earlier. Ampharos. I've. I've heard tornadoes. I've heard Tornadus. Where do they have tornadoes down in Oklahoma? What do you mean? I'm a tornado. The roundabouts caused the tornadoes. That's why they don't build them anymore. Okay, less roundabouts, less tornadoes. What were we talking about? Oh, gambling. Or not gambling. Eggs. I think. I think eggs are more gambling than raids. Yes, yes, but you could. You. I think you could make. I think you can make an argument that raids are gambling. If you're specifically going for the shiny. I think you can make an argument that anytime you spend money in Pokemon Go, it is gambling in some way or another. That's true. I think a lot of Pokemon is gambling. It's all luck based. I think you could make an argument where you spend money on a star piece and then you turn it on and then all of a sudden you get distracted and then you just wasted 30 minutes of a star piece. Not that I've. I've. I've done that twice this weekend and it was very frustrating. Uh, yeah, but that was my bad. But yeah, I agree with you, Austin. I think that is also why the odds and the numbers have never been important to the Pokemon company, because it does. Again, if we had no stats from the code or from all these websites that Give you that stuff, it would just feel like, oh, I randomly found a shiny that feels a lot different than, oh, I have a 1 in 8,192 chance of finding a shiny. There's a very big difference there between those two things. Right. And I think the Pokemon company, for multiple reasons, wants to not feel like their Pokemon are statistics. They want it to feel like you are immersed in this game. You are out, you're catching these Pokemon and you're training them up to be able to battle, and you're doing all these things, like, and the numbers completely take you out of that. So shinies are 50. 50. You either get them or you don't. Yeah, just a coin flip. Yeah, coin flip. When you do that, Zekam raid. 50% chance it's shiny, 50% chance it's not. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. Sure. All right, let's. Maybe by the time this podcast goes up, Brazil will have more info sorted their problems or sorted. I. I sincerely think that this conversation is going to apply to more countries within the next year. It's. Yep. It. That's been. That's been happening. Right. Just not in the. Not in this sense, but in, like, what Apple and Google have had to do in their app stores and more countries there. One country starts it, right? They're like, oh, this country does it, and then now another country does it and then another country does it. And, you know, they're like only changing it per country, right? Because they're like, no, we don't want to lose it here and there and there until they get sued, and then they're changing it for those countries and that same thing's going to happen here. Brazil just did it for this. And I bet another country will do it in a few months and another country will do it, and then they'll have to turn these things off per country, as it happens, more and more. Yeah. All right, let's take a break. And then when we come back, we are going to be talking about Legoland, which will have the new Pokemon stuff. I don't know what that entails fully. I will tell you, though, because it starts on August 1st, and then there are some new poke lids happening in Japan. So we will be right back. We are back from our break. Pokemon Company International and LEGO are expanding their collaboration, bringing not only new Pokemon Lego sets to customers coming this August 1st, but also setting up a Pokemon Play zone in Legoland Florida Resort. Oh, not your. Not your LEGO Land. Oh, yeah. That's not even the right one. As Part of their LEGO Festival. This festival runs from July 20 to August 16 and will feature Pokemon activities, previews of the upcoming Pokemon Smart Brick sets, and plenty of other experiences. As announced earlier this summer, LEGO is rolling out their next set of Pokemon building sets on August 1st. Pre order on LEGO's website. 12 new sets featuring the LEGO Smart Playtech. We already talked about the dates. Nothing for the California Legoland, it says here. But I'm assuming it will probably just move to California after it's done. Done in Florida. Right? It's probably how it works. Maybe it just depends on what? Like, I, I've never been to Legoland Florida, so I don't know like how much bigger it is than the California one. So, you know, you think about something like, you know, Disneyland in Anaheim and then you have Disney World in Orlando, and the Disney World is just so much more massive that there are things there that would never come to Anaheim. So it might be similar for Legoland. I don't know how much bigger it is or, or smaller than California. I saw that the, like the Mewtwo set and the Gengar set and all that stuff was sold out on Pokemon Center.com when, like the first like 24 hours it was posted. But now they're back in stock. I guess I didn't know that none of them shipped yet. Oh, so they're just doing waves of pre orders, essentially? I think so, yeah. Okay, but we've talked about this before. Lego prints to demand, right? Yeah, they will definitely. Yeah. Even the Mewtwo one is, is in stock here. Oh, it does say pre order. So, yeah. All of these ship on. I'm dying here. August 1st. That's cool. The Mewtwo one's cool. I like how it's. It's like in its. What is it called? The glass. I mean, it's not glass, but tube. The tube. The tube, yeah, it's in. It's in the tube. That's cool. The Jigglypuff one sold out again. It was not sold out yesterday. It sold out again today. The faces on these Pokemon continue to, like, weird me out a little bit. Like the Jigglypuff one, it just looks a little off. Like, looks. It looks almost like someone like, tried to draw Jigglypuff from memory. I think the Mewtwo one looks pretty good, though. The Mewtwo one looks pretty good. The Mewtwo one and maybe the Pikachu one. Just because Pikachu are the only two ones that I'd maybe be interested in. Although Squirtle has a car? I don't. Why does Squirtle have a car? I don't know, but it's got a car. I don't know. Why does the car have lasers on it? They're water. So why. Why is Squirtle in a car cooking a hamburger? What do you do in your car? What do you mean? Where's the hamburger? It's next to the car with two little flames next to it. That's definitely. Oh, yeah. That is a hamburger. Are you sure that. I mean, what else would it be? I thought it was like a tool, like a torch light, but I guess maybe it is a hamburger. Cheeseburger. Yeah, I think you're right. Kind of into a car. Squirtle with a cheese. See, it's good. Why does he have this? It doesn't matter why he has it. He has. Because it's cool. Because the name. The title of this LEGO set is Trainer's Buggy Adventure with Squirtle. So is he. Did he. Did Squirtle get a car to then drive to buy a hamburger? No, I think he's only. I think he's cooking the hamburger. Are we sure that's a hamburger? It's a million percent. Well, it's a cheese, but there's definitely cheese on it. Well, yeah. Yeah. What's the gray thing, though, in the middle? That's probably onion. What do you mean, gray thing? No, no, we have bun, lettuce. Yeah. Pokeball and tasty veggie burger cooking on a grill surrounded by flames. It's in the description. Veggie burger. No, I think the gray underneath the burger is the grill part because you can see the flame come through and then. Well, yeah, that's why I was confused because the flame part looks like it lit up. So I thought it was, like, some, like, alert light, but no, that is a cheeseburger. No, it's like a veggie burger. Burger. A veggie burger. No, Miltanks were right. Wait, does it specifically say it's a veggie burger? It specifies veggie burger in the description. Yes. Oh, that. Well, that. Does that mean that. I mean, Squirtle is not a carnivore. Right? It's a turtle. The vehicle has two water stud shooters. Turtles eat a lot of lettuce from what I've seen. There has to. Okay, just in the last segment where, like, Pokemon definitely told Niantic, like, do not publish. We don't want. We don't want numbers. When they were working With Lego, they were like, you make sure that this is a veggie burger. Squirtle does not eat meat. Put that in the notes. That is a hundred percent true. That absolutely came directly from Bogumong company. A million percent. I. The more I look at the Lego stuff, I. I know we talked about the, like, the Blastoise Venusaur Charizard, and I think they. I still think those look bad. But, like, when I look at the little fuecoco sprigatito quaxly, when I look at the Bulbasaur, B Doof. When I look at the Mewtwo, I actually do think they look pretty good. Some of them do. I just like the Bulbasaur Bidoof look really good. No, the bulbasaur's face is too flat, so it has a giant forehead because its head isn't like, rounded the way a bulbasaur would typically have a rounded head, so its eyes sit too low and makes its forehead look huge. Why. Why does Mew. Why is Mew driving the vehicle from a Halo 2? I kind of like that one too. He already bust Mewtwo out of the tube. He already knows how to fly. What is it called? Drone search for mythical Mew. Oh, so you're using the drone to find Mew? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. It's just called the drone. Is it called. Is it called the ghost? Is that what it's called in Halo 2? There's an image here of the drone swooping toward Mew, and Mew looks horrified. Oh, yeah, here it is. Mew looks so scared. Like, this drone is coming, flying at Mew. I'm so. Wait, you've never played Halo? No, I've never played Halo. Who do you think I am? None of them. What do you mean? Who do you. That's like. That was like somebody coming out the show being like, I've never played Zelda. Well, of course I played Zelda. Okay. Just not Halo. I was not the girl. I was never a fan of, like, FPS games, so Halo never interested me. Call of Duty, you know, play Call of Duty, then. No, you play a perfect Dark. You play Turok? No, Turok Dinosaur Hunter. I don't know why. Turok was my, like, my sleeper hit over here. No, but I like games like Far Cry. But that's not, like, a PvP shooter game. Yeah, but Far Cry is a shooter for sure. Yeah. Wait, have you played, like, Fallout? Yeah. You like third person? Like, do you like. I don't think it matters what person it is. I think. I don't like competitive games. Although I guess Halo has a story mode, though, so I don't know. Yeah, like, people, I think most well. But also, growing up, I only had, like, Nintendo and maybe a PlayStation every once in a while. Okay, well, I never had the chance to play Halo even if I wanted to play Partner Dark. Mm. Mm. That's. Well, no, I played like Jak and Daxter Tak, Crash, Spyro, and then I like the Nintendo, obviously, like Mario Zelda. Okay, for a second, if I can bring us back to this Lego. Oh, sure. Fine. Umbreon is looking not like Umbreon. You know, it's a little wide. Yeah, the Garchomp's not bad, though. I think the Garchomp. Garchomp is not bad. The Garchomp's good. Why are they surrounded by a Pokemon Champions trophy? The Champion of Champions. Well, obviously, Umbreon won widest Umbreon from the Guinness Book of World Records. Yeah. I think it just has to do with, like, how the face works. So, like, with Garchomp, it's two pieces, right? It's like the mouth and then the top. And that kind of works because of how Garchomp's face is, like, shaped. But when they just try to put the face on the flat part of the front there, it just feels. It feels like it just flattens their faces too much. I think it works for Bidoof. Hey, Geodude's not that bad. I think Geodude's pretty good too. Geodude's fine. Yeah. Geodude, wait. Let's go back to the hamburger. Squirtle, I think, looks great. Squirtle does look great, because his face proportionately, like, works for how it's shaped. Yeah. How his head is shaped. Bulbasaur, not so much. Those eyes. This Squirtle one is, I think, my favorite one now. Yeah. Because I got the veggie burger. The burger. I do appreciate the car. Can Pokemon just make a deal with Nintendo and just put any Pokemon in Mario Kart? Just like, just Pikachu. I know Pikachu, right? It'd be Pikachu. Yeah, just. Just put Pikachu in it. Yeah. Like, I don't even like Gengar, but, like, the. The Crypto Bros Love Gengar. Just put Gengar in Mario Kart. What? Like Pikachu? I mean, their Pokemon are in Smash, no problem. So why don't they put them in Mario Kart? I don't know. I mean, what, it took Mario Kart eight, like, five years to get dlc? Yeah, true. I mean, Mario Kart World did add two more Knockout. I've only done Knockout Tour in Mario Kart World. That's all I care about. The fun mode. Yeah, I don't. I don't want anything else. Just Knockout Tour. Well, if we're admitting games we haven't played, I still haven't played the newest Mario Kart. Do you have it? Yeah, I have it. I bought it. It came with the switch. It came with the switch is crazy. I mean. Yeah, you're right. It did come with the switch. Yeah. I think Mario Kart's died. I think Mario Kart would be cooler if they added a Pokemon. They added what? Right here? Squirtle in the car. We have it. Yeah. Yeah. That's why they're already. They're already teasing it. Put this and. And a Mario Kart. You get the burgers. That's true. I think we just discovered something. You heard it here first. I bet if you. I bet if you turn the car over and you look at the bottom of it, it probably says Gen 5 next year. There's probably, like, a specific LEGO brick that's. Hold on. Adding it to my car. If enough people buy Squirtle in a car, we will put this in Mario Kart and we will race a Unova track. That. Would that be fun? I do think a Pokemon Mario Kart with all different tracks would be really good. Make the deal. Reggie would have made that deal. Yeah, she would have been all over it. Okay, hold on. How do we say Ampharos? Ampharos. Ampharos. Yeah. Sarah B. Johto. Pronounce. I don't know how to say. I don't know how to spell the word. Pronounce. Pronounce. Ampharos was one of the ones that, like, Pokemon came out and did, like. Yeah, the pronunciation. Amph. Ross. Ampharos. Amphoros. Ampharos. Not amp. Amph. Amphoros. Why double F here? Ampharos. Ampharos. Okay. Ampharos has five new pokey lids, which will be. Where's this going? We're on the next bit of news. We're talking about Ampharos now. Bulbagarden.net the Pokemon Local Axe program have announced five new Poke Lids installed throughout the summer in Nagasaki Prefecture. The poke lids are donations from the Pokemon company to prefectures and along with events and merchandise hosted by the Pokemon. Local acts are intended to encourage tourism to various areas of Japan. Ampharos was appointed the ambassador Pokemon to Nagasaki Prefecture in part of the bright light on its tail reminiscence of the area's many lighthouses. The new poke lids feature scenes of Ampharos and other Pokemon in specific locations of Nagasaki. And for example, the lid to be installed in Ishihar Ish. Ish. Ishahaya City features Ampharos and Metagross. Metagross to some specific bridge. It's called the Spectacles bridge in English. And a lid to be installed in Gotho City picturing Ampharos and its pre evolutions in a national park. Ampharos is also celebrating the two year. This is what I mean when like Pokemon wants their Pokemon wants their Pokemon to be treated like almost like humans. Yeah, they do. Ampharos is also celebrating the two year anniversary of being appointed as the ambassador Pokemon to Nagasaki Prefecture. Today the Pokemon appeared at the anniversary event at Nagasaki Prefecture's office for a meet and greetings. The reveal to design the reveal of the new pokey lids. When these lids are installed, There will be 15 in this prefecture and 450 lids throughout Japan. Wow. They've really come a long way with those lids. So yeah, 450. I want to say thank you to everybody that tagged me in this sent me this. They're so good. I'm. I'm so bummed because there was one of these lids. It was like the Ampharos and Graveler. I know Graveler's not an exciting Pokemon, but they, they. I was in Nagasaki when that lid was getting debuted. But because it was Japanese only news and because there was like some confusion, I wasn't sure how that worked. Like I wasn't sure the day, I wasn't sure the time. And like by the time I figured it all out, it already happened. But I wonder how cool a like I don't know what it is. They just put the lid down and cut the ribbon and like everyone claps. It's probably not that cool. It seems very cool. That's just. That seems like, I don't know, official like city business. Yeah. It was also fun to be there. It was also like an hour away. So it was like, ah, do I want to go an hour and then like mess it up and it not actually be today? Yeah, sure. So there's Ampharasa Metagross that'll be mid July. Install Ampharos Flaffy Mareep early July by Ampharos Lipard and Breloom. That sounds like you're kind of. It's good. That's early August. Ampharos Pincer and Scizor in early July and then Ampharos Kilowatt and West Sea Gastrodon. It. Is there like. Is that a silhouette of Groudon in the background? I was gonna say Br. I don't know why Groudon's back there. There is an ampharos and Kyogre lid. Okay. Okay. So maybe that's. I don't know. But no, I was stoked for the ampharos and Breloom 1, 2 my two favorites. If only Liepard was Ladian, we'd be great. But Liepard's pretty good. I've never noticed how similar Breloom and Ampharos faces look like each other. Maybe that's why they're my top two. Yeah, it's like they kind of just look a little similar. One's just grass. I can't. One just looks like a. Like a regional form of the other one. I still can't get over how the like the per. The 5 foot 2 girl inside the Ampharos costume. Like that Ampharos costume has no neck. And I still think that's like the funniest thing ever. That is true. I did not notice they could make it taller. Yeah, good. But then they would need a taller girl to stand in. I guess that's true. I think the best lid of these five that has been presented is the one with like the whole line like the Ampharos, Flaffy and Maria. I just think it's a really cute. Either that one or the kilowattro one. Yeah, the kilowattro one's pretty good too. Favorites. Yeah, good. They've been doing the poke lid stuff since 2020 and it's 400 over 450 now through from 2020. That's pretty wild. Especially. Do you think all 450 of them have had like ribbon cutting events? Probably. They're very like. Yeah, yeah. They usually do like five or six at a time. Right? That's true. They're so cool. It's such a cool like concept. Just like. Yeah, they're just like. They're. They do. They are to encourage tourism, but they're just not close together. It took. It took me eight hours to see three of them in Nagasaki. And the first one to get to which was known in Unzen. Unzen, which was the Torko 12 hour bus ride to get there. And everyone on the bus but me was like just like slept through it. And I'm like in fear as we go up this giant mountain because we have to get to the top of the mountain where the hot springs are. I'm like, we're just gonna Fall off the edge. This is going to be the last trip I ever take is to see a torkoal lid on the top of a mountain. Yeah, it was cool though. But like, I know people that they would go, like, several years ago, they were trying to see as many poke lids as they want. They would, like, take pictures and they would document it. And then now that these poke lids are in pogo and they count as stamps in pogo. Right. They want to collect them again. And before they were fully rolled out in pogo, they were already in Pokemon home. So that's like another way to collect them. So, like, I went to the ones in Tokyo. I'm air quoting Tokyo, which it's like Squirtle, bulbasaur, Charmander, pidgey, ratata, Poliwag, I think are the six. It's in, like, a park where what's his name grew up. The guides. Satoshi. Satoshi. Yeah, sure. It's in the park where he like, literally grew up. Okay. And that's considered Tokyo. And it's like an hour away from Tokyo. Like, if you're in Shibuya Station, it's gonna take you an hour to get there. Okay. So I went there four years ago, and then I. I did it. I took all pictures of them. I thought they were cool. And then last year, they rolled them out in Pokemon home. So I went there and I got them all in Pokemon home, but they weren't in Pokemon Go at the time. Yeah. So now, like, do I go back to this park to get them in pogo? Like, there's nothing else out there. It's just gonna have to. It's just have to park. You have to. There's. So it's like, I only have so much time when I visit Japan, right. So it's like my third time going to this park just to get five stamps. Yeah, there you go. Like, it. It took me three hours to get from, like, Nagasaki. Not Nagasaki, Nagoya. To see this cramorant lid. There was no Pokemon home. There was no Pokemon Go. There ain't nothing in Gifu. I'll tell you that. There's like one castle in Gifu, and there's a bunch of Japanese kids that'll stare at you of like, why are these white people in Gifu? That's it. That's all you're getting. You're getting stared at. And maybe if the castle is open, you could see the castle. There's nothing else in Gifu, Just three hours away. And once we got there, we had to wait exactly an hour for the train to get us out of there. Once an hour. I spun a lot of, A lot of cram stops. I think he did. Yeah. It's a cool thing though. It's very cool. But I would, I would, I would not make it a focus of your Japan trip. Sure. Yeah. I think like the goal is to not see all of them at once. Right. It's like, oh, every once in a while, oh, I'm going here. It's also probably not for people traveling across the world to see them. Right. But if you're in the area, it's like, oh, this is really cool. We have a couple of these here. But I see why people would want to travel for them. But it is to encourage you to travel to them. Right. Like when I saw the. When I went to Shizuoka, which I went there to go to a used gaming store. And when I got there, I didn't realize that there was a pokey lid there, which it was only like a 10 minute walk. And that pokey lid was in a park and it was like Ivysaur and Staraptor. And I didn't look into like why those two Pokemon were picked, but then I saw there was another poke lid that was only like a 20 minute bullet train right away. So it's like legitimately like 40 bucks to take this 20 minute bullet train. And if I didn't take the bullet train, it would have been like a two hour regular train for like $3. I was like, I don't got time. I gotta take the. I gotta get there quick. So I, I took that bullet train there. And then that pokey lid was. It was like meloetta and it was like electro or something. And I was like, this doesn't make sense. And then when I looked into like the city, the city was specifically known for music. And then the city was known for fried eel. And I was like, oh, that's why these two Pokemon are on this poke lid. So every poke lid, there's a reason why that Pokemon is on. That like the Torkoal one is because it's hot springs. That's why Torko is on. Right. The lit. Yeah. So when you look at these new Ampharos lids, it's like, okay, why did they put bread loom and liepard with Ampharos? I'm assuming there's maybe a lot of like stray cats or something to do with like mushrooms or whatever. I don't know. What was Brayloon? Braylon's like a Brayloom is A mushroom. Mushroom, yeah. So I'm assuming that city has something to do with mushrooms, right? Sure. So they're, they're, they're really clever and cool in why those Pokemon are on that poke lid. Yeah, like, very thoughtful. That is cool. That is like, it's an awesome way to do it. And I just, I'm still impressed with how many there are. Like the fact that there are over 450 is just wild to me. Especially in six years since they started doing this. Tsushima City is famous for its log grown shiitake mushrooms. There you go. But why is Liepard on it? There has to be a reason why Liepard's on it. I don't know what to look up for that. Something about cats. It has to be something with cats. Right? Like Ampharos is on it because it is the mascot. Sure. Right, right. That makes sense. Yeah. But then why there is a leopard cat there that is apparently only inhabited on that island. Oh, there you go. There you go. That is exactly. There you go. I should look up why Ivysaur and a star Raptor was in that park. I never looked. Yeah, it would, it would actually be really interesting to like. I'm kind of surprised there isn't a website that just has like each of these poke lids and then has like this. The history behind. That's a good website idea. Yeah. I think, I think as cool as I think the pokelet stuff is, I think it's still very niche. Sure. Yeah. But maybe there's like Japanese website stuff like super dedicated to that that we just don't know what to Google. I'm sure there is. Like, do you think you'll ever leave Japan? Jirachi.net Got it. What was your question, Austin? Like, do you think they'll ever put one in New York? Like the middle of downtown New York City. Here's a random Trubbish. I don't see why you were going to go with that Pokemon line. I'm just trying to think of something that's like, oh, here's like there is a lot of garbage. I don't know. Like, I think the common thing is like, oh, this would never work in America because people would like steal it or vandalize it. But like the Hollywood stars work. I mean they get. Certain ones get vandalized and often probably deserved. But. But I mean like you're. But who's gonna vandalize Trubbish's poke lid, right? They. They. I mean the poke lids in Japan are locked down like, you do need a specific, like, key to, to lock them. And they're all like, obviously. There are also people in Japan that like, they clean them like they're normal people that will go like. I was standing in front of the not very exciting Bronzor poke lid. I was standing in front of my. My Japanese friend Nami Nachen. And I don't know how we're friends because they speak zero English and I speak zero Japanese, but we were, we went to the bronze or lid. And then while we were there, some Japanese dude came up and like, just busted out a cleaning kit, cleaned the bronzer in. In like 60 seconds. Like, like this was like some like Indy 500 tire change. And then he got record. And then he, he got up and he walked away. And then Cochin looked at me and he was like, that guy is famous for cleaning poke lids. And I was like, what? But then he cleaned it and was like, oh, cool, we can take a picture with a clean lid. Yeah, but I think it'd be cool to have one in like, major cities. Not even just like in the US but like, put one in Paris, put one in Berlin, etc. That'd be cool. Well, Pokemon is donating these lids, so I don't know why they wouldn't want to work with the city to donate a lid and then turn into a Pokestop. And Yeah, you know, I feel like that's something people would be excited for maybe. But they also like a fair amount of exclusivity. That's true as well. Definitely. Like, this could definitely be like. And especially if they're trying to. If it's trying to promote tourism. They want to promote tourism outside of Japan. Yeah, promote tourism. Yeah, that's true. And then also, I don't think New York needs any promotion for tourists. Well, sure, sure. But I think like, oh, you know, there's a Worlds nearby. Let's just put one in Anaheim, for example. Run Appleton, Wisconsin. And maybe they'll. They could take it away if they really needed to. I don't know what Pokemon they would put in Appleton, Wisconsin, but they, they don't know what Pokemon they put. Don't know which Pokemon, Wisconsin. They're not known for apples. They're known for a bunch of entitled people that think their city is bigger than it actually is, when in reality no one cares about their city. That's what they're known for. So. Okay, I don't know which Pokemon that would be. I'll give them Squabbit. There's probably some squirrels out there. Sure. All right. If you would like to stick around for our bonus episode, we're going to talk about how literally one of the reasons GameStop is in business is because of PSA, which is crazy to say out loud. So that's our bonus episode. If you would like to listen to it, you could do a free trial on Apple Podcast or you can do a free trial over@patreon.com pkmncast thank you so much for listening and making it to the end. Hopefully this episode is fun and hopefully there wasn't any crazy breaking news because we recorded this episode a week early. So thank you for making it to the end. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you, Austin. This has been another episode of the Poke Lids Pokemon podcast and we are super effective. Super Squirtles Car. The veggie burger. Foreign. This podcast is brought to you by Patreon. A huge shout out to our producers on Patreon, starting with Stuart, Courtney, Tone, Stephen, Josh, Christopher and Jared. And a huge shout out to our executive producer of Benagorn. If you would like to support. It's super effective and get your name read at the end of the episode or get access to our Slack community community, you can head over to patreon.com pkmncast thank you for listening to this week's show and we will see you next week.