Farfetch'd Way to Stop Pokémon Card Scalping

Foreign. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the 723rd episode of this nightmare show. I am your host, Steve, with me as Bobby. Hello. So I have been playing Forza Horizon 6 now for a few days, and it is. It is actually really, really fun. Great to drive through Japan. It is wonderful. I don't know what I said last time. And I'll be in Japan starting tomorrow. You could just have a camera in the back of a car and pretend like you're playing Forza Horizon. Great for our listeners. This the second time recording this intro because I blew a fuse and we lost every. Well, we didn't lose everything. We just decided to start over. Yeah, it'd be easier to start on over. Yeah, Austin. It wouldn't be easier to start over when you accidentally spoil the Survivor finale while it's happening. Last episode, I hadn't watched it. This episode, it's out. I won't spoil it. But there was a mishap during the live show where they did the order wrong. And Jeff reveals something that happened before it happened on screen. So that was a mess. But I think they took it in stride. They tried to make a joke out of it. The person that was involved with it didn't seem to care too much. So it was all good. But it was a bummer that it got spoiled. I was locked in. How awkward. How awkward that must have been, though, in the moment. Yeah. They're like, what happened? What was that all about? But that's what seemed like a production problem. We also had our own production problems. Why is it like, every time we're trying to record, like, bulk episodes? Because I'm trying. The episodes don't go smoothly. It just can't be easy. Yeah. Hit record. Talk. Pause. All right. I think it's funnier to us than it is the listeners that we've had to record this intro twice. Yeah. Okay, here's the show for you guys. Today we are recording this on May 21, I leave for Japan in less than 20 hours. In between us recording this and then this coming out, the 90 minute Pokemon champions Extravaganza episode would have been out where What I said last time, I'll say again. I don't think we were super negative about Champions. I think the interview we focused on. Well, not so true. I was very. I was negative about the battle pass. I do think the battle pass is bad. It's bad. Dr. Pikachu. Dr. Pikachu, please fix. Needs resuscitation. Doctor, please. I thought the interview with Hoshino was very Funny, though. So hopefully you guys thought that was more funny than negative. I just thought it was a funny interview. I don't know what that man's doing. No, I don't know. But again, if Hoshino wants to come on this show, we will interview him as well. Genuine. A genuine interview. We will have actual good questions. Yeah. If you would like to be on the show. Speaking of this show, we have. First segment is merch. We've seen the Pokemon fossil merch, and there's a new human mage drop, which actually, as we're recording, I think it's dropping tomorrow. But in the past, for you guys, Dragonite delivery got the English version, so we'll talk about that. Hundred Thieves is partnering with Pokemon Go and they will have something at Go Fest. So this episode should come out right before Chicago Go Festival, not Japan Go Fest, just Chicago and then Copa. Did we talk about how Copenhagen is getting, like a Lego thing? No. For our third segment, Japan has a way to deal with scalpers now. And then TCG Pocket is getting Paradox Drive, which they just announced like an hour before we started recording this today, which is great. And then for our bonus segment, we're going to talk about Pokemon Go to. I'm not being sarcastic. That is. That was the title of the article. So. So if you're on Patreon, that is our bonus segment. For anyone who sticks around longer or if you want to sign up for Patreon, you can. You can hear our thoughts on that. So that's today's show. Hopefully these shows don't feel too weird because a lot of them are recorded early and. Or maybe out of order. But let's start with the Fossil Museum. That'll be. That'll be the first bit, which I think the Fossil Museum opens for us recording on the 21st. I know this is getting published June 1st. It will open on May 22nd in Chicago, so it will be already open by the time we talk about this. But last night, there were some creators and some press that got early access, so we kind of know what's going on. But in celebration of the Pokemon Fossil Museum opening, they put Pokemon Fossil Museum merch on Pokemon center, which is not all the merch at the museum. Some of the merch. But I think this was a very good play. Yeah. Because I think it's to discourage scalping. That's my only thought process of why they did this. Well, and they like money, but I think it's to discourage scaling. Scalping. Yeah, Scalping and just having an incident because of Scalpers having an incident like they had in Amsterdam with like the Van Gogh Museum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You would think that if you were going to scalp it, you would probably snag these because they were available first. You'll be able to get rid of them first and then that would leave the people who aren't able to go to the in person one with the fomo. So, yeah, I feel like this is a good thing overall for scalper or not. This ain't a good thing for scalpers. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm not defending. Hold on. It's good because that means there will be stuff probably left over because they went somewhere else to get it. Yes. Boo. Scalpers. Tomato. I hope people driving in their cars are also thumbs down going, boo. Sometimes Spotify sends me an email saying, you have like 14 new comments on the episode and I can't bring myself to read them. I hope they're positive, but sometimes I like hit my quota of, okay, I read all the YouTube comments today. I gotta go through Instagram comments. But every time I get the Spotify email of like 12 new comments, I just like, maybe they're all just like, boo. No, no. If you're listening on Spotify, maybe say something nice, please. So I went to the Pokemon fossil museum in Japan. It's funny because I have a bunch of footage from that that I never did anything with because I didn't know what to do with that footage. But now that the. And then I thought like, oh, the, the Chicago museum is coming, maybe I should post the footage. But then I would. And then I kind of thought, well, don't people want to see the museum unspoiled? And maybe now I think it's almost like. So I didn't like rush to put that out, so. But I think I will probably put the fossil Japanese museum on Patreon maybe when I get back from Japan. Because then once people see the Chicago museum, that would be like, oh, let me see what the Japanese one look like. Yeah. And I think that would kind of be cool to see the before and after. Difference wise, though, I'm looking at this Pikachu plush and it is very different than the Japanese Pikachu plush. They're both excavators. Yeah. Yes. But the, the Japanese Pikachu plush excavator. Pikachu does not have an open mouth. And the little pickaxe and the little omanite fossil on its hat are like felt. And these look. The, the American one looks better. Which is kind of crazy. Is usually The Japanese plushes are better quality. Yeah. I'm. I'm looking at both of them. And the English one does look much better. It looks higher quality. It does, it does. Well, they could have like taken the Japanese one and then improved on it. Right. Like, usually these things come out around the same time, but in this case they've had like maybe. Yeah, they had some time and they're like, let's improve on it a little bit. There was, there was like a lot of neat stuff on the, the Pokemon Fossil or on Pokemon center to be just disclosure. I have partnered with Pokemon center for the year. If you would like to support this show that you can use the Pokemon center link in the show notes. It doesn't give me any money. It's just tracking purposes. For Papa Pikachu. It doesn't cost you anything. But if you want to bookmark the Pokemon center link, that would help this show out. Just. There's your. There's your disclosure. But if you do want to buy things, it will cost you something. Yes. It won't cost you anything extra. And I don't know what you would be buying. I, I think Papa Pikachu, whether you use my link or not, Papa Pikachu definitely knows what you're buying and definitely knows where you are. So at least if you use a link, they'll know you listen to the show. So that's probably good. Yeah. Yeah. Probably good for future opportunities for us. So there's your. There's your disclosure. The thing that I thought I saw teased a couple months ago was the, the smaller fossil Pikachu plush with the keyring. They did these for like the Dittos and the Pikachu's and they're. It's almost like the Labubu effect because like I feel like Labubu did make that popular where everyone wanted a small plush on their bag. Yeah. And that was not on the Pokemon center website. But I did see a video last night of people who went early and that is in person at the museum. So if you did see some tiktoks of that. Everything on Pokemon Center.com is not the same. It looks like there are some in store exclusives. Yeah. At the Fossil Museum. And I did see. Don't know if this will change by the time this recording goes up. I did see that you were limited 5 items total in the museum, which I think is why the online store also exists. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. That's fair. The Japanese store, museum store was a little similar there. Was it one. It was a way smaller store. Like, I saw the. The store kind of looked like a mini warehouse for America. Okay. I'm not sure where in the museum it is, but, like, obviously the Field Museum is huge, and. But the. The gift shop in. Where did I. I think. I think I went to Gunma. Maybe I'm saying that city wrong. I'm sorry if I am. So I. I had to take a hour and a half. Bullet train. No, it was. It was an. It was an hour bullet train, and then I had to take, like, an hour rickety old train. And then when it. When it got to the station, I had to walk a half hour up a mountain to get to the museum. Like, I was like, oh, my gosh. In sweat. That was, like, the only way to get there. But unless I had a car. But I didn't have a car. So bullet train. I went with, like, Zoe two dots. I went with some. I went with a bunch of other people because it was. It was after Yokohama. They gave you one ticket per. Also, I bought everyone's ticket to that. What? It was only, like. It was only, like, $9, but there was, like, six of us. And I was like, ah, I don't. I'll just buy it all. Because, like, this is complicated. I just. Now I'm having flashbacks of walking up a mountain and then just being like, I'll just pay. It's fine. We're here. They gave everyone, like, a little ticket, and then that ticket was for you to get the Pikachu plush. Okay. And for some reason, I don't know why I went. The person I was with looks to be. Sometimes people think they're a child. Okay. Just, like, visually, they look a lot younger. And so the. The old Japanese lady handing out the tickets thought I was their father. So they only gave us one ticket because, like, the kids didn't. Kids didn't get a ticket. Sure. It was like, oh, only the parent. So then we had to, like, try to Google Translate once we got into the gift shop. Oh, so the gift. Oh, so the gift shop was very small. But I'm, like, trying to Google Translate with the employee here being like, I am not this person's father. They are a legal adult themselves. Right. And we both want a Pikachu. Oh, no. Like, we're not scalpers. They want their own Pikachu plush. I want my Pikachu plush. No one is anyone's parent here. That is really. That's really funny. But it looks like, as of right now, you can only get five pieces total. the American center, which I think is also probably good. Yeah, yeah. I'm. I'm just wondering, are there more than five exclusive items that you can only get at the museum? Because that would make it tough for people to choose, I think. Yeah, yeah. Because I was, I was looking at this stuff and I'm like, well, if I'm planning on being at the fossil museum, should I just get some of it now so I don't got to worry about it when I'm there? And if there is the limit of five items and there is possibility of being five exclusive items, that's probably the way to do it. Because most of the time I think you'd want the exclusive stuff because this you could just order wherever. Yeah. I was going to not get the plush because I already have the plush from Japan, but now that they're different, this one's better. This one does seem better, but I think I just want the little keychain to be fair. And that's fair. Yeah. Because it's the same plush, it's just smaller and I could put it on my bag. Yeah, I'm kind of into the keychain plushes. Yeah. He dressed up like Alan Grant from Jurassic Park. Yes. I kind of love it. I don't think Alan Grant had a pickaxe. There was for sure a scene where he had the pickaxe at the start. She comes on in and she's like, we got a problem. We got to go look at these dinosaurs. And he like gets so excited spoiling the intro of Jurassic park over here like a 33 year old movie. Speaking of merch that you will definitely not be able to get. Human Made and Pokemon are collaborating again for a second release. On Saturday, May 23rd, Human Made will release a second round of items in collaboration with Pokemon at Human Made stores and via Human Made online. The first release was in autumn of 2025. The collection marks the return of Pikachu and Farfetch'd joined by Magikarp. This they say this season 15 pieces made with the spirit of Human Made. There is a padded blouson and utility jacket. Both feature Farfetch'd and equipped with a caring leak, a denim jacket with Pikachu. Is this. Is this just bad? Google Translate emblazoned on the back in an open collar. Rayon shirt with Magikarp. I didn't see this. Magikarp here. Entry to Human Made stores on Saturday, May 23rd and 24th will be decided through a lottery through the official Human Made app. Why is I. I Saw a very boomer take of why does everything have to be app related? And why do you need an app for everything? But I kind of agree with it. No, I also agree. Well, wait, what else are you using? Just website. Yeah. Yeah, just. But I guess the app is probably better at controlling bots. I don't even think that's true though, because. No, I just think the apps are. The apps are cleaner. It's just a cleaner, like even if they use it as like a web app, you know, and it just isn't a web app within the app. But I don't know, they want on your home screen. Right. We talked about this, right? Yeah, yeah. Out of me a year. Oh, I see the Magikarp. Oh, I see. I see the Magikarp. Now there is a. There is a human made shop in Shibuya underneath the Pokemon center there. But that's the Pokemon center with Mewtwo. Yeah, there is a human made shop there. It's about the size of a closet. I was in Japan shortly after the first human made drop. They had nothing. This stuff, Human made is. Is like a premium luxury brand for those that. But it's like a streetwear. It's a streetwear brand though, right? It's like, it's probably comparable to like Supreme. Supreme. Yeah, yeah. It's like street wear. But also you're paying the price of luxury or like 100 thieves, right? Yeah, 100 thieves. Yeah. It'd be probably similar to 100 thieves. Yeah. This is funny because we talk about how certain Pokemon never get merch and then this merch has been featured around Farfetch'd. And the bomber jacket is also like 700. No, I think the bomber jacket's 500 because it's like 6. 70,000 yen. Jeez. And then this canvas military looking jacket is closer to 700. Yeah, it's. It's like. Oh, sweet. Finally got some merch. Oh, wait, I'm not paying that much money for them and I couldn't get it if I wanted to. Right, right. It's going to sell out immediately. The little like leak holder on the back of the one jacket is so cool though. So bomber jacket holds the leak in the front. There's two little straps. Yeah, I see. Yeah. And it holds the leak in the. It's not pictured on this website. That's cool. Okay. I see the spots for it. Okay. Yeah, yeah. A lot of this stuff looks real good. It's so neat. Oh, okay. So 70,000 yen is $440. Jeez. Wow. What's the most you've ever paid for a piece of clothing? Like a singular piece of clothing. Piece of clothing. Well, for. I bought like expensive shoes. Yeah, that would count. But even then, probably not more than 200. Yeah, I'm thinking about 200. I. I bought a suit that was like close to 300, but that was like a whole suit. Oh. And I don't think that's much for a suit. Yeah, I bought a suit and it was probably in the range of 3 to 400 or something like that. Yeah, I think maybe like a jacket. Maybe 160. I don't know, 440 for a jacket. Seems. It does seem a bit much. It seems like a lot. But it has a Farfetch'd on the back. I know. Like the. Yeah. I actually saw a comment on Instagram of somebody being like, why do they pick bad Pokemon? Wow. And I was like, what do you. Farfetch never gets merch. What do you mean? No, I want them to pick more bad Pokemon. Yeah. Put Barbarical on something. Come on. I wouldn't buy it, but I'm sure it makes somebody happy. So it looks like the. The farfetched jacket that's the one with. That has the leak on the back is $720 USD. USD. The. Yeah, the utility jacket. But okay, even. Even if Pokemon wasn't on this human made stuff, the human made stuff does just sell out like collabs with other people. So I don't. Yeah, I see some Air Force ones that they have here and now I'm like even more interested. But I probably can't get these either. So it doesn't make a difference. Yeah, I feel like this is a thing you do scalp because I feel like the person who would want this doesn't care about the price. Right. For sure. So if I got in line and I was able to put $500 up front to get the jacket, I know I will be able to sell it. Because the person who. No matter what, like, yeah, 500 does matter. I just want this jacket. They can also probably afford. They just want it. Yep. No, I totally agree. But also, I don't know if Human made is like other luxury brands. I bet, I bet they are, but I don't know too much about them. I wonder if they have a client list where they're inviting specific big spenders and so maybe it actually doesn't get scalped because the people who want it already are on their client list. Maybe. I guess it just depends on how many pieces they make. Right. For each. But I'm sure there will still be some that will end up on ebay. Oh, somewhere. I mean, even things not getting scalped like the Pokemon sun and Moon Deluxe edition. Yeah, okay, but I mean, here's the question, Bobby. You're in Japan. Somehow you managed to get on a flight, you're in Japan, you're walking down Shibuya. This is in the window of a store in stock, maybe a little overpriced. Are you impulse buying it? It's like a human made. No, no, it's like a. A second hand shop in stock. A little bit higher than 440. Maybe it's. Maybe it's like 550. Oh. Because like my stomach can't tell. My stomach is like 440 online. I don't know if I can do this, but if I saw it in person and it was like the right size. Yeah. If I'm on vacation, if I'm in Japan like on a trip and I'm already spending money on things left and right, then yeah, I probably am buying. And that's fair. And that's fair. Yeah. Bobby, I'm in Japan. I see this. It's in your size. Oh, are you telling me to buy it for you? Probably not. No. You know why I'm not? Because I have not had a resolution with the AirPods Max that were stolen from me. So I'm already out. The price of this jacket. It. Okay, the stars align. Mars is in retrograde. You get your AirPod Max refund. Seconds later, I text you that I'm in front of a large. I think you wear a large jacket. I'm in front of a large human made farfetched bomber jacket. Yeah, I'm probably. If. If those things happened within like hours of each other, I'm like, well, I already thought the 600 was gone. That's the answer. You're already assuming that money was gone. So you're. Well, it's pretty a sweet jacket out of it. Okay, well, if Bobby and I roll up with farfetch human made jackets at worlds, Mars was definitely in retrograde is what we're saying. I don't know what that means. It spins the other way. It just goes the other way. Oh, okay, perfect. That might be wrong. It might be. That is absolutely wrong. If a planet just decided to start spinning the wrong direction, everything would get obliterated. I feel like on that planet. Yeah, no, yeah. It says, yeah, retrograde to move or go backwards, but a planet can't. Okay, you know what? We're gonna get hit by the astrology. People were already upset that we didn't understand flutes and trumpets last week. It means from the Earth's perspective, it appears to be moving backwards in the sky. Oh, okay. From the Earth's perspective, it appears to be moving backwards. So, yeah, the planet is not actually. It is not going to. Planets cannot stop and start spinning the other direction with that attitude, Bobby. Tides are rising. High moon. All right. Anything can happen. Let's take a break. And when we come back, what is our second segment? I don't know. Oh, we're going to talk about the Dragonite delivery and the hunt. More merch. Hundred thieves. We will be right back. I'm here on the job site with Dale, who's a framing contractor. Hey, good morning. Dale traded up to Geico Commercial Auto Insurance for all his business vehicles. We're here where he needs us most. Yep, they sure are. We make it easy for him to save on all his insurance needs all in one place with coverage that fits his business and bottom line. Oh, I shouldn't have looked down. It's all right. We're sorry. Far up here. Look at me. Take a deep breath. Oh, I'm good. So good. Get a commercial auto insurance quote today@geico.com and see how much you could save. It feels good to Geico. And we are back from our break. All right, let's get the rest of the merch out of the way. This is off pokemon go dot com. I. I can't believe after 10 years it used to be pokemon go live dot com now it's just they've niantic finally ponied up. They must have sold enough raid passes to finally be able to buy Pokemon go dot com. Yeah, that's good for them. Good for them. Pokemon Go Fest 2026 and 100 Thieves are teaming up to. How popular is 100 Thieves outside, like, chronically online Internet people like myself? I don't know, because that. I don't know. That was started by streamers. It was started by what, Nadeshot? And then Valkyrie owns it. Yeah, I don't know. I. I feel like it's still like a streetwear brand. I feel like people still, yeah. Like it for that, but. Yeah, I don't know. I. Whatever. I always, like, compare it. Not compare it, but I think of it in the same, like, universe as supreme, but not on that same level as supreme, you know, like a little. A couple tiers down, but in that same, like, universe. Trainers, get ready to level up your look at Pokemon Go Fest Trainers In Chicago can gear up with a limited edition collection inspired by Mega Mewtwo X and Mega Mewtwo Y. We're excited to announce the exclusive capsule creation created in collaboration with 100 Thieves, the premium streetwear and lifestyle brand. Available. Available only in Chicago during Go Fest. This limited time collection brings together Pokemon go style and 100 Thieves design in a bold new way. 100 Thieves design is always not bold. Yeah. And not new. It's just a Pokemon picture with their logo behind it. Yeah. The capsule collection includes a hat, shirt, hoodie, and each will be available in two versions. So like six items altogether. One featuring Mega Mewtwo X and the other featuring Mega Mewtwo Y. Whether you want to channel the powerful X energy or striking Y style, there is a look for every trainer. That's not true. Here's only two designs that can't cover possibly everyone. Trainers who shop at the collection exclusively at the two Chicago locations. The boutique shop at New City and the Pokemon pop up store at Grant Park. Oh, okay. So you can get them both. I don't know what New City is. There's more to discover. With every hoodie purchase, trainers can receive a voucher code to redeem a matching in game avatar. That's cool. This exclusive collaboration is only when supplies last. Be sure to pick your side. Mega Mewtwo X or Mega Mewtwo Y. Mega Mewtwo Y is more popular. Right. We're all in agreement that the GameCube Mewtwo is much better. Yes. But I will say, like the poses on these pieces of clothing, like the pose that Mega Mewtwo X is doing, I think looks cooler than Mega Mewtwo Y. But Mega Mewtwo Y, design wise, I think is like a better looking Pokemon. He has a little handle on his head. Good handle. Good handle. It's a great handle. I'm assuming the Mega Mewtwo Y only comes in this tan color and the Mega Mewtwo X comes in black. Yeah. It's the other thing that's a little frustrating. I'd much rather have the black shirt. Yeah, Yeah. I can't. I mean, I'm Y all day. There's not a. There's not a doubt I'm ever switching to X. But I can't do a tan hoodie that's not even gonna make it past dinner time. I think I. I would think I would end up going X simply because it's like I like both of them. I like both of the Mewtwos, but the black shirt, just the black. The color I would. Just because of the black color, the shirt. Yeah, I don't think I get either of them. I mean, how much thieves. I. I'm pretty sure their hoodies were a hundred dollars. Oh, I was gonna. Okay. I thought. I thought It'd be like, 50 for the shirt and, like, 150 for the hoodie. They still had their. Their Pokemon Merch Drop did not sell out last time. Some of the items did sell, but not all of them. They still have 125. What were the prices on that stuff? Okay, so their Pikachu hoodie, which is still in stock, small, medium, large, is $110. And it is pictured with Valkyrae wearing it. And then their Umbreon hoodie, still in stock, small and medium, is $110. They have the Brock vest. Do you guys remember that? Yes. Small, medium, Large, Extra Large, 2 XL165. Their T shirts are 44, which, like, I feel like if you were to, say two years ago, I'd be like, 44 is a lot for a T shirt. But now I feel like everything is expensive. So maybe I'm just blinded by current capitalism, but I'm like, oh, 44 for a premium shirt. That seems reasonable. They have a Pikachu varsity jacket. That's $998, though. Yeah, it's like a legit, like, really heavy varsity jacket, which, you know, when they showed the world's varsity jacket in Anaheim, I thought it was going to be higher quality and that that jacket ended up being, like, what, 129? Yeah. But honestly, I don't even think it was worth it at that price. I didn't end up. I didn't end up buying one. I bought it. And I rarely wear. Feels kind of cheap, but it is. It is not a real varsity jacket. Yeah. Yeah. No, I definitely thought it'd be higher quality, for sure. And just before anyone says anything, I bought it with my own money. It wasn't gifted. No, but I. I was gifted the baseball jersey. Mm. The p. The Anaheim baseball jersey. Yeah. And it is so nice. Yeah. Yep. And whatever. I don't remember what it cost. Was it 80 bucks or something? Yeah. I was not gifted that jersey. And I also think it was. It's. It's got a great. I mean, it really does feel like it feels like a real baseball. Like a real baseball jersey from, you know, like an MLB shop. Like, it is the same kind of quality. For sure. Like, I would. I would. I almost wish the Pokemon Anaheim varsity jacket was more money in return For a nicer quality. Right? Yeah. I would have got that baseball jacket if it was still in stock. The jersey. Yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, it wasn't in stock when you went in. Ouch. Yeah, that was a good. That was a good jersey. It was like seven. It was 70 or 80, I don't remember. But the one item I really, really wanted at Worlds was the Toad School one, so I'm glad that I snagged. Oh, the pullover. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was a color. I can't do that color right. It was. I was. Yep. I'm a. I'm a messy eater. I just, I. I know my weak. I know my weakness. I know my flaws. Listen, I. I'll change my shirt if I'm gonna eat barbecue sauce. My shirt is getting changed, I think. So you're saying that these like hoodies, Pikachu, umbreon, they were 110. I could see them going 120 from YouTube and during like Go Fest and it's an exclusive only at Go Fest situation, I could see the hoodies being like 120. And it looks like these T shirts on the site are about 38. I could see them going like 45 or 50 for the shirts. Maybe not 50. Maybe like 45. Yeah. I wonder how popular this would be. I mean, like Mewtwo itself sells, so I'm not surprised by that. But it's like a cool collab. Again, I'm curious what the Venn diagram of a hundred thieves slash Pokemon fans are. I think it's one of those things where, sure. You're gonna get that like, small group of people who know what they want and they're gonna go into this like, suite. I'm definitely getting this. I think you're also gonna get. You're gonna get some people who might buy it for the exclusivity of the in game avatar. Honestly, like having the clothing in game, I think, I think you're going to get like impulse buyers, right? You're going to get people that just get hyped up by the fact that there's something exclusive. They're at the event already. Why not, you know, pay an extra 40 bucks, 50 bucks for a shirt or, you know, someone maybe forgot a sweatshirt. They get Chicago, they're like, ooh, I'm gonna need a sweatshirt at night. And so they're like, I'll go get an exclusive one, you know. Yeah. Well, by the time this episode comes out, I think our merch should be in people's hands. And it was important to me to, like, feel what the things are getting printed on. So hopefully people think or feel like the stuff we made was premium, because I thought it was. I thought it was. And then I tried to keep the price as cheap as possible. I shouldn't say cheap. Affordable. I don't know. Here, let me buzzword affordable as possible. I just, you know, I don't want people paying $100 for a hoodie. For sure. The Dragon Knight delivery got surprise dropped. I kind of forgot this existed. Yeah, me too, because it came out initially on Pokemon day last year. 2025 was when the Japanese version dropped. So it's been a bit. Yeah. And for some reason, I thought the English version was already out. I kind of did too. Like, seeing this, like, be announced in English, I'm like, oh, okay. I didn't really feel much from it because. Yeah, I kind of thought. I thought I had watched it in English before. I must have watched it in Japanese and there must have just been an English, like, translation subtitles or something because I was like, I know the story and I wouldn't have known the story if I was just listening to it in Japanese. I wouldn't have, like, yeah, you could pick it up based on what's going on in the video. But like, yeah, I don't know. It must have been subtitles before. Did either of you two watch the. Well, you said you watched the Japanese, Austin. Did you see either of them? Yeah, I watched the Japanese one. I have not seen it in English, though. Oh, you should see this. The new. No, they didn't add anything new. I watched it for the first time last night and it was so good. Oh, yeah, it's great. It. I wish they did more of these specific types of videos. The animation is so pretty. Yeah, it's like. I think it's like 14 minutes long. Yep. It also. It almost made me mad because it was so good. It made me mad of, like, how Paldea is portrayed because it makes Paldea look so lively. Right, right. Like, when she is overlooking. I don't even remember the town names. When she is overlooking the cellar market where you. You can, like, bid for the, you know, friend ball or whatever. Yeah, yeah, it. And then all the Pokemon in the area are, like, the same Pokemon. And there's like, the lighthouse over there. And then you can see the people doing the auction. It just. Lavincia. Was it Lavencia? No, not Levens. Yeah, it was like. I think it starts with an M. Okay. Mesicoza. No, not Mesicoz. That's the main one. That's the main dance. But it was like, I wish this makes Paldea look so cool. And then when you play the game, it's just like an empty field with, like, a bunch of toros. Porto marinada. Yeah, Porto. There we go. Yeah. Gosh, it was. It was so great. And I think I also thought about this, and I also got, like, slightly annoyed because I feel like there's a subset of Pokemon fans that are. They'll say something along the lines of, I wish Pokemon would make a mature anime. Because obviously the. The current Pokemon anime, like Horizons or whatever they did with Ash for 27 years, is geared more towards children. Sure, sure. But, like, you can watch it as an adult and enjoy it. Just like, you can walk into Toy Story 3 and as an adult and be like, I get some references, right? Yeah, yeah. But, like, if you want them to make more of this stuff, even like, Pokemon Origins, which was the four episodes and stuff. Oh, yeah. You can't say, I wish they make more stuff for adults and then not watch the stuff they make. Yeah, exactly. Yep. They'll make more if you commit to the things they have. Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. Yeah. I don't. And maybe. Is it. Is it just because it's like a web series or. I guess this isn't even a series. This is just one. A one off video. But because I feel like there's. There's good. There's been good webs. There's been good web series from Pokemon as well. I mean, there was the Hisuian one that was that. Oh, you didn't like it? It was okay. No, Okay. I just. I liked it. Yeah. But I think. I think Dragon Knight Special Delivery, I think, is probably the best right now. I think it's number one. It's number one for me as well. No, it's. I think the Dragonite delivery is the best, for sure. I can't fully remember the name of it, but it took place in Galar and it was like the. The Sickly Kid. Oh, yeah. That one was very good too. I just can't remember the name of it. I think this one was better, but I do think that one was pretty good. That was pretty good as well. Yeah. This only has a quarter million views. Not a lot. Not enough. Not enough. Well, this came out yesterday. Still not enough. What's the Japanese one? Half. I'll look it up as I think I thought. I thought Origins were good. Mm. Thanks. Origins. I. I think, again, it's like, the story was really good. With this video. But also just like the art style and everything, it just. It looked really good. So I mean, honestly, like, if you were watching it in Japanese and couldn't even understand what was being said, for one, the story pushes through where you can kind of understand even without, like, they could have done it without, like, dialogue. And you can kind of get an idea of what's happening just from like, what the actions of what's going on in the story. But just the art style is beautiful with this video. 1.9 million. That's not enough. That is not enough for having been out for over a year. Yeah. There's no way that Horizons on Netflix just doesn't kill it. Right. That's why they keep doing it. Right. Yeah. I think the other thing I think about is when people are like, I want a. Even like a more mature Pokemon thing. They did such a good job in the 14 minutes of establishing what. What's her name? Hannah. Hana, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Like, she starts off as a child and then she's obviously a young adult because she's working a job as a mail carrier. Yeah. And then at this slight spoilers at the end, she's even older. Yeah. I have no problem with Ash. I have no problem with Liko. I have no problem with Tracy. I have no problem with Brock. I got. No problem with May. I got. But you don't need those characters. Sure. Like, the Pokemon universe is so good. And I was hooked on her for 14 minutes. I was like, she seems great. I would love to see more of her. But also, it doesn't have to be just her. They could just make more of this. Yeah. But then we need people to watch it. 2 million is not enough. No. Alpharad and Jaden Animations gets more views than that. And they're not huge production studios. That's not to say Alpharad and Jaden are bad. I think they're very not bad with them. Both are individual. And you take a giant corporation like the Pokemon company. Right. Like, there's more money to be spent on the Pokemon company's side and production value and things like that. Right? Yeah. And they. They have the marketing power to put this in front of people. Yeah. So 2.25 million views if you combined English and Japanese. And it's just. It's just not enough. Not enough. It's not. It really isn't. I really listen. If you're listening right now, when you finish this episode, go watch that video is. Is really, really watch it. Watch it on your tv. Put on the Big screen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I am the person that I cannot start eating my dinner unless something's on and I will probably spend longer finding something. Absolutely. I'm telling you right now, for dinner tonight, put on Dragonite. Eat your Taco Bell or your Panda Express or whatever you decided to get. It was awesome. Yeah. And I also think of Pokemon concierge. I liked it. It was fine. This is better. Oh, yeah, this is way better. I wish that they had a series that was in this art style and told stories like this. Even the story. Not even just the story of Hana, but what they're doing and what she's doing and what's happening in the episode. It's just really good. It's really touching. It's just. It's all really well done. I also think that the slight similarity is, I think people. Why? Why. You could argue that maybe this isn't specifically for adults. I guess I could. I could see that argument. But I think the reason why people liked concierge, like Hannah and Bobby both said they loved concierge, but I think why that resonated with adults is because we watched an adult have a job and that in itself was interesting. Whereas like Ash Co. Or Liko, they don't have a job. Right. They're just being a Pokemon. You could argue a Pokemon trainer is a job, but. Right. So like this opening up with her working at a post office. Mm. Is so interesting because people can relate to having a job and having a boss and like the frustrations of like, she wants a different position. Yeah. Yeah. Well. And to go on top of that, I think the reason that this could resonate with a lot of people as well is if you're a parent, there is also a part of the story that has to deal with like kids, but from a. If you look at it from like a parent point of view, you may have different feelings or things towards it than if you are a kid looking at it from maybe the kid's point of view. Right. Like so you. I think it can resonate with a lot of people all around. Just between. Yeah. People who work, people who are parents, people who are kids. They all have different perspectives on like those parts of that 15 minute video. Yeah. I think it's a very relatable story. Mm. Yeah. I'm about to jump on a Dragonite after this episode, so it'll be. No, I think this is one of the best things that Pokemon has put out this year. And I know it's not new, but because it's In English. It's like new to us. So. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's absolutely fantastic. For sure. I bet there were plenty of people who just like, oh, it's in Japanese. Skipped over it. Right? Yeah. And now it's, you know, hopefully chance to, to get a whole bunch more people watching it. Yeah. And it's, it's short too. It's not much of a commitment really either. Yeah. 15 minutes. Right. Again. While you're, while you're eating dinner. Perfect for dinner. Yes. All right, let's take another break and then when we come back, we have. I always lose my notes. Oh, we have Pokemon scalping finally. And then we have TCG Pocket news as well. So we will be right back. And we are back. Pokemon Japan to require government ID for select TCG purchases, limiting access to scalpers and oversee buyers. This is off Poke beach, by the way. Starting In August of 2026, customers will need to verify their identity using a government issued My number card in order to enter lotteries to purchase select TCG products from Pokemon center online. This requirement also applies registering for certain official events. The new system will effectively limit certain TCG purchases and lottery entries to Japanese resident only. As the My number card is issued primarily to Japanese citizens and long term foreign residents who have a residency record. Boy, that could mean a lot of different things. Permanent residency in Japan is so hard to get. Yeah, yeah. This means overseas collectors will generally be unable to purchase popular TCG items from this website. Verification will use smartphone NFC readers to scan the users via card via external government approved services. The link will link there. The link to the user will use their Pokemon Player club account. Pokemon will not collect or store any personal information. More details soon. Yeah, something it's I, I, I do it, it's interesting that it's coming out in August because we. The rumor. I think it is a rumor. I don't know that there's been like an official release date yet set, but like the 30th anniversary sets coming out. Bobby, we're on YouTube now. You got to say leak. That's whatever got it right, the leak. Well, I believe it's October that we're supposed to be seeing the 30th anniversary set. And I would guess that they are. They're talking about like certain, you know, select TCG products will be under this, you know, only Japanese citizen residents only. So I would imagine there's going to be a portion of the 30th anniversary stuff that's only going to be limited to like Japanese residents for The Japanese Pokemon Center. Yes, I would assume. Yeah. One of the commenters here on the Pokebitch article says we need this in Singapore too, which I'm assuming TCGs, the TCG scalping problem is also exists. Exist in Singapore. And then they say we have a national digital system that can be easily integrated called SingPass. Someone else here in the comment as well said we need this to happen in America. And my thought is like no, that wouldn't work because a lot of the scalping is happening from U.S. citizens. Yeah. So surprise. You know, it wouldn't stop. The overseas stuff is not. I don't think as I don't think there are people in Japan scalping English Pokemon cards. I think it's happening the other way around. And then I think Americans are scalping English Pokemon cards. Yeah. I'm going to give commenter benefit of the doubt. Maybe they just didn't think too much too long about this. But it seemed more of like a surface level, like oh, we need to stop scalping. This is going to stop scalping. It would help but like realistically that's not the case. There might be ways around that to help. And these the problem. Oh, does adding a digital system that you need to verify, does that reduce bots? Well, I guess it would reduce bots. Yeah, that. That is true. I didn't think about it from that point of view. You'd have. Because you'd have to have a link to being a citizen. Right. And so if you just have a bunch of bots that would work. This is maybe unrelated, but there's like. There's like a scan. The new scam. A scam. I don't know how long it's been happening, but certain stores now require an ID to return things. Okay, what's the scam? The scam is people will pretend to help homeless people, but in return it's. I say pretend. That's air quoted. But in return they want access to their ID so then they can take advantage of returning something under that person's ID instead of their own id so they cannot be traced. But what. Wait a second, hold on a second because I'm going to go on a limb here and say that a lot of homeless people don't have IDs. So what do you. Some do. Some do for sure. Right. So they won't help the people that don't have the IDs. They're not really helping them. Of course not. Yeah. This sounds awful. This sounds absolutely terrible. So like that's a thing to keep aware Yeah, I don't know. Like, if somebody is asking for your ID in any way, it's probably related. Well, it's definitely related to the scam, but usually this scam has to do with, like, I don't want to be traced. Sure. So I'm going to use somebody else's ID so it doesn't trace back to me. Sure, sure. But now you're like, steve, why did you get so off topic? But I'm assuming if there are ID checks, if IDs were to leak or somewhere get out or, like, my identity is there, that would then probably be sold. Those would be tied to the bots. Yeah, yeah, true. That's true. Yeah. I, I'm going to go out on. I'm just going to say PSA here. Never give your ID to anybody else you don't know. Funny you say that, Bobby. I got an email that I ignored that was asking me to upload my id. And then, then a company was like, hey, I need you to fill this out. And I was like, oh, that's what that email was for. Oh, no. And then I filled it out and I just, like, uploaded my id. Yeah. And I was like, this still feels sketchy. It still feels wrong. I just gave my ID to somebody. Here's the front. Here's the back. I'm never gonna be able to buy Pokemon cards again. You're officially a bot. I have become a bot. You've become a bot. It was. It was some Japanese stores and I think some Korean stores. When you would buy packs, they would cut. So first they would just take the cellophane off the packs. Yep. The box. They would take the cellophane off and they would open the box and they would hand it to you. But now I've seen some stores just cut the corners of the packs and then hand them to you. And that's how they're also trying to prevent scalping. I'm kind of into that one. Yeah. If you're a real customer, you're gonna open them anyways. Yeah, I've seen at card shows, I've seen people who will. Will give you. So, like, if, let's say the market price for something right now. Right. If you're like a business, Right. You're a card business. And the market price for a pack of, let's say evolving skies is $12 or something like that, you know, they're selling them for $12 a package. But if you go to the table and you open the pack right there at the table, they'll give it to you for like eight because they know like you're proving you're not gonna go like resell it and they're like trying to influence like the people to like not scalp. So they'll give you like more of like toward the MSRP price or like what. Maybe like what they bought it for or something. They'll give it more if you're like actually a collector and not just trying to scalp sealed product. If you open it in front of them and like sometimes it's also like recorded. Right. So it become content for them. If you like pull some big hit, it's always a scam. At the same time, it's like, yeah, there's, I mean there's always something to benefit. Right. Like it's not like 100%, but I do appreciate like the. Okay, cool. Like you're actually looking out and being like, hey, if you're actually going to open this and collect, like, here's a discount to get it closer to like msrp, which, you know. Yeah. I don't know. There's a weird spot that are. That our community is in the tcg. The whole TCG thing is just, it's a mess and it's always been a mess. Yeah. It's not. We've talked about this almost like every episode. It's not an American specific issue. No, right. Japan has an equal scalping problem. To the point. Remember when. Well, I was to say, remember when we went to Yokohama? Remember when we. We recorded the Yokohama podcast and I went in and they didn't have any Japanese TCG on the shelf. It was all American tcg. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they just didn't have any to stock because there was a, there was the scalping problem. And then of course Japan does the thing. Some shops in Japan do the thing where they will tell you they only have a certain amount of cards. But if you're. Or like we only have one booster box and it's dramatically over msrp. Oh, and you're interested in it and you're okay with paying it? Well, suddenly we, we, we now have two booster boxes. Yeah. Oh, you're okay with paying insane over MSRP for two booster packs? Well, hey, we just happened to find a third one in the back. Yeah. Yep, definitely. Like they are. They are lying to their customers about their inventory just to scout out can. Is the person in front of us willing to pay so much money that we can unload this inventory on somebody who is definitely okay with paying these prices? To clarify, this is the, the scalpers we're talking about not the Pokemon center not doing this. They are selling for msrp. Yeah. The Pokemon centers in Japan you can buy packs, but it's, it's literally, it's usually five packs per person. But at this point, well, I do I would trust buying from Pokemon center in Japan. I don't. I at zero point do I trust buying loose packs from anyone now. Because now there are God packs especially because God packs and they're gonna obviously weigh so much more. So. Yeah, that's. That's tough. You gotta kind of buy like a booster box or an etb. Or an etb. Yeah. I will say I've heard that the newest set in English, Chaos Rising has been easier to find as well as Perfect Order was a little bit easier to find. I guess it's like they kind of hit the battle styles moment. Like there just wasn't as sought after cards. So like there are people. So people weren't able to resell for. Have not been able to resell for as much. I love how it used to be Crimson Invasion and now we've just moved to battle styles as like the worst set ever. I like Battle Styles. I thought had some great like cards. That Tyranitar card doesn't. It has the Tyranitar in it. It's got the Urshifus in it. Yeah, the Urshifu is a great. It's got a few cool cards in it. But yeah, I mean, it's all right. Wait till Champions players discover Urshifu. Wait till they realize if they think rock slide is broken right now in Champions. Wait till Urshifu comes to Champions and they'll be like, he can punch through, Protect Wicked blow. Always crits. Oh, come on. And it's always going to crit through. What am I supposed to do? The question is, when will Urshifu come to champion? That's true. Yeah, that's true. 2029. We do know that it will never have clothes. It does not have the AO synergy allowed to put clothes on the Surfshifu. Oh my gosh. Somebody, somebody asked me the other day, I was streaming and somebody said, Steve, do you open Pokemon cards on stream? And I said, oh, I used to. And they, they said, oh, why don't you anymore? They were like, do you not have any cards? Let me be very clear. I have so much sealed product. And it's not that I'm like saving it or I'm like collecting it. I just, I used to buy a lot of cards. I like Pokemon cards. For the record. I Don't know if you know this really. I like Pokemon cards. And when cards were harder and harder to find, it almost felt like icky to open cards on stream. Right? Because it was like, I'm opening what? Like, you can't get this. Yeah. Opening it. Yeah. Like I said, I have so much unopened Prismatic Evolutions. But what. How would I open that? Right, Right. Hey, Chat, you know this set that's incredibly expensive and hard to get. Let's just crack some open today. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it. It just kind of feels gross. And that's kind of, that's. That's why stopped opening cards. Because it would be different if people could just walk into a store and just buy an ETB and be like, okay, I'm also opening cards too. What'd you get? Right, right. Well, people do like to open cards along with someone they're watching opening cards too. And so then you get that like, oh, well, can't go and do that. So I get that. Either that or you're. This is your excuse. And what you actually do is when people walk by your house, you're like, I got one box. And then when they're willing to buy, you're like, I got two boxes. The price keeps going up. Start selling them. The bags. Oh my gosh. Do you think I should take my Prismatic English to Japan and try to sell them there? You think they care? I pull it on them? Oh, you are an interest in Prismatic. I happen to have two ETV's. I mean, do you want like a high dollar sports car? Because you could make a trade. Oh, I didn't think about that. You could trade. Is a far fetched jacket coming out? Yeah. You might be able to. I'm not gonna lie. If I find that Garatina card, I would rather trade. What, what, what, what's. What's special about that? It's like this is a secret rare. Is it? It's at. What do they call them? Oh, the alt art. Yeah. From what set was that? Or Lost Origin. Lost Origins? Yeah. If I had Lost Origins Giratina, I would rather have the Farfetch'd jacket. If I could only pick one Far Fetch Jack. I think they're the same price. I think Lost origin Giratina is 500, isn't it? 750. Right now it's only going up. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's from Lost Origins because they named that after my office. I have no clue where it is in this 11 by 12 room. But he's in Here. He's in here somewhere. He hasn't left this office. The office of Lost Origin is here. And that's where the guerritin is. I could get rid of Lost Origins. Giratina. Get the Farfetch'd jacket and still have 200 to pocket. You would? Yeah. Take it to Japan, throw a felt hat Pikachu in there. You could get both of the far fetched jackets and still have a few hundred bucks left over. That thing's worth like 800 bucks. How much is Tom Brady offering? I know you play a mean game of ball, Tom Brady, but what do you want for this Pikachu? I was thinking about that. The mean game of ball. Like the other day, just randomly I started laughing. I thought that was like the funniest moment the show. And I feel like no one commented about it. I thought it was. I think about it often too. Why did I say that? I can't remember exactly why, but no clue. Speaking of TCG Pokemon TCG Pocket Paradox Drive. Not confused with Paradox Rift. Yes. Which was a setup for you a couple years ago. More supporter cards in the latest TCG Pocket expansion, Paradox Drive, which by the time this episode will go up, Paradox Drive will be out. It will feature the depths of Area 0 from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Video games. Oh, this raging bolt looks awesome. So good. Oh, it's so good. These Paradox Pokemon as well as a few familiar trainers are ushering in. Ushering in the ancient and future categories on the mind. You can show off these futuristic styles with a set of COVID backdrops featuring Miraidon that will be available on Saturday, May 31. There will be a battle for the Paradox Drive Emblem event in late May, early June and early June during Community Week. Lechonk will be spawning every now missions will be available when you share and trade cards. You will obtain trade hourglasses, special accessories and more. Mid to late June Complete Solo Battles to Earn B volumes volume 9 promo packs during the Cerulege Ex Drop and select Sableye and Floragato cards during the Wonder Pick event. When they explain these things, it makes it feel more exciting than those events end up being. Right. Like as I'm listening to those, I'm like, yeah, that's nice. They got like a. A nice list of events coming out for the next month. There's a lot to do and then you get in there and it just. It doesn't have that feeling and I don't know, it doesn't feel like any day or like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe if this was like your only game you were playing. It's like, nice that they do have, like, consistent things happening throughout the game, but they are so repetitive, you know, it just is. Which again, like, I still enjoy opening packs and I do like that. It feels like there's been more illustration rares that are back to like, original artwork and not. I'm very happy with that physical tcg. I will say the last set had. Or either it had very few trainer cards in it or I just had really bad luck at pulling. I think I did like a 10 pull and got like one trainer card in the entire temple. Like. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I. I came back because of the faster pack opening and stuff, but there's something about it that just seems like slightly off still. I mean, they did talk about how they were, like, losing players. Yeah. I went to trade. I went to start trading. I just. I just realized I tried to trade somebody like more than two days ago, which means that trade was canceled out because I haven't gone back in to verify the trade. Over more than half of my friends list has not logged in. In forever. Yeah, I know. I know. It's not just me. Yeah. I feel like it's almost the opposite of champions. I feel like the. The battles of champions is good and then everything around it is really weird. Yeah. And I feel like this app is good, but it's missing something. Yeah, there's just. I don't know. Aside from the new cards that get added, there's not really a reason to keep coming back and I. Even the new cards are starting to not feel as exciting. Maybe just because of the rest of the app feeling less, but just something's not hitting. Yeah, I wish there was more to do. Like, I wish again, like, I don't. I don't even know what I'm asking for here, but I just wish there was another way to use the cards in some. I don't know if there was a way to have some, like, co op mode where, like, we could together, like, do something and take down a bigger computer thing. Like, there's like, you know, because there's like raids in, like, the physical tcg. You can do like, raids where you're actually, like, grouped with like, a few people and you're against, like, one. I don't know. I don't exactly know how it works, but you can definitely co op and like, be together and battling. So I just wish there were other styles or something you could do or maybe just other missions somehow. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know what I want either. I don't think I want co op. But then I think I like Pokemon Sleep. And they're doing events like at least twice a month, if not three times a month. And I don't know if it's like because of our slack community. And when they announce an event and then everyone talks about what island they're going to and then everyone shows like if they got a good. What was the last Pokemon? It was tyrant. Tyrant. Like seeing people get good tyrants. And like we're all doing that that week together. Yeah, I know. It's just not that. But I do think that is helpful to the enjoyment of sleep. Yeah. And when I check my Sleep friend friends list, everyone is playing. Yeah. 50 people on the friends list. Everyone's playing like everyone's giving candy to each other every day. And then I, I looked at the TCG Pocket and it's like, oh, half of these people I came and trade with because they haven't logged in in like a month. I do think there's a world though where that is flipped for somebody where their TCG Pocket friends list is active but their Sleep is dead. Sure, that's I'm sure. Yeah. And then they're less likely to play Sleep because they have no right. So I, I wonder if it is like. But I don't know, I guess we do kind of talk to like, we see a lot of like the grand Pokemon community. So maybe that's just not the case. But it could be more community centric. We're just like, Sleep is the bigger it could be. It could honestly be. And it's funny, if you look at it from the outside, you think of like Pokemon Sleep and you think of TCG Pocket and if you're, if you're not, if you don't know either game and you just know Pokemon, you're. You're going to think TCG Pocket is the more strategic, the more like that there's way more strategy and stuff to it. And that's like, I'm not saying there isn't. Right. Obviously PvP, like you have their strategy to like what the meta is and like what decks you're building. For sure. Sleep just is secretly there's so much to like learn and there's so much strategy in sleep and it's not competitive. I think there's way more strategy in sleep than there and it's not competitive against other people. Right. Like, that's the thing that makes so interesting Is that it's really only against yourself, but it still keeps you so interested in like, what can I change? What can I gain? How can I get better at this or that? And it's not PvP in any way. You know, so it's. I don't know. They're just very different games. And speaking. Yeah. Speaking of Pokemon Sleep, though, I recently have been trying to fill out all my dishes and I understand the struggle of not having good ingredient farmers. I cannot get Slowpoke Tails. They take forever. They take forever. Usually the trick is unlocking Slowpoke Tails and then switching to like a Vaporeon. Okay. And then because Vaporeon skill is just random ingredients. Okay. They can usually get it faster. All right. I'll keep that in mind. Because my. The best slow poke line that I have is my Slow King. It only has tail in the first slot. Yeah. So it's like I can't do anything. And Slow King's not an ingredient. Yeah. It's just a skillmon. Yeah. For healing. So. Yep. I feel that. I know that struggle. So I'm. I get it now. Some updated slash not updated numbers for mobile games. Mobile Pokemon games. Some of these numbers haven't been unchanged because they stopped tracking them. Um, but the reason that this. Is this off Sarabi. The reason that this is updated is because TCG Pocket said they had 200,000 downloads. Million million. Sorry, only 200,000. So Pokemon Go has 1 billion downloads. But that was announced a couple of years ago. Yeah, that was a while ago. They haven't updated it. So 1 billion downloads for Pokemon Go, 200 million for TCG Pocket. 100 million for Unite. 60 million for Masters Ex. 40 million for Mr. Pokemon Duel. Such a underrated game. So good. Before they started charging money, 40 million people could not keep that game alive. It was so good. To be fair, not active players. Somebody could have just downloaded it, opened it, and then never played again. True. Pokemon Sleep 30 million. And we did find out that Pokemon Sleep was making more money than Unite. So unite again. 100 million downloads. Sleep. 30 million downloads. Sleep does. Does make more money than Unite. And more money than Masters Ex. Because Unite makes more money than Masters. Yeah. Sleep's got those whales. Shuffle Mobile, 15 million. Cafe Remix 12 million. Magikarp jump 10 million. And Pokemon Quest 7.5 million. Which is funny because the only game freak game on this list is Quest. And it is the is the worst downloaded one. That's such a good game. Quest is great. It's such a good game. When Serebii posted this I was gonna ask, but I didn't want to look silly, so I'll look silly here instead. Okay, perfect. Does this include, like the Switch downloads for Quest? And these are just mobile. Just mobile. Okay, so that could affect the Quest stuff because I was gonna say Quest seems very low, but I think most people played it on Switch and it came out months before on the Switch. And so the initial hype was probably like a lot of people probably downloaded it on Switch initially before it. Right. So there are a lot of switches out there. Right. 126 million switches and then another 19 million switch 2s. We know for the first global challenge there was 700,000 players. Yep. It's not a million. Champions is going to do very well on mobile, at least download wise. And they're gonna. They're gonna brag about their downloads on mobile for sure. Do we think that Champions passes TCG Pocket? It's not passing Go, right? Nothing is not passing nothing. The pockets now only 20% the way there's. Yeah. It's not Bowser and Pockets bleeding players. So they got their own problems here. I don't think it does. I don't think it does either. I think it falls in between Unite. I think it for sure passes Unite. Right? Yes. But I don't think I quite reach his Pocket. No. Solely for the fact that it came out on Switch also previous prior. I think Pocket has the advantage of having a mode that's not competitive. And I think because Champions is already out and because people already aware of it and they go, oh, that's competitive. I'm gonna skip that. Yeah. But I also think Pocket has the advantage of. People see TCG and know how popular collecting Pokemon cards is and then think about having the ability to do that digitally. But you either like battling or you don't. Right. And so, like, I don't. I think the gotcha in Champions is to get you to download and like do your daily Pokemon every day. Sure. But I don't think that's enough for just a casual person. After a while, I feel like you've seen it all. There's nothing really like, except, oh, maybe you find a shiny. But like, you could have found that shiny faster elsewhere. I think if you could move the shiny outer Champions and into home. Sure. I think. Sure. That would be. Check it every day for sure. Maybe that comes eventually. There's like the Venusaur event should be starting or should have maybe already ended by the time. I can't remember if it's starting or it's ended by the time this podcast comes out. Not Venusaur. Sorry. No, it is. Venusaur isn't Venus. No, it's Gallade. Sorry, It's Gallade. Yeah, right. Venusaur is. Already happened. Venusaur did happen. Gallade is coming in champions, but it's only for single player or not single player. Single. Not double battles. Single battles. Right. Okay. And I'm curious of what the player count will that for that be, because there's no way there's more single player, single battle players than double battle players. There's just no way. Yeah. Double battles is the. The format you play in. Right? Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, like, you might see more people who aren't as into competitive doing single battles because they're so used to it from, like, the main series. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, the people who do single battles, they. They. They'll never admit it, but they don't want to learn the complexity of double battles. And they'll say something. They'll. They'll say something of like, well, it's a single battles is all the way through the game. This is the real way to play Pokemon. I want 6v6. Like, just admit you want to play checkers instead of chess. That's fine. You can say you like checkers, but chess is the better game. It's. It is more. It's definitely more complex, the doubles or singles. That's 100% true. I mean, I don't think you can argue with the fact that that is true. Right. It is more complex. Right. Like straight up. Yeah. I wonder how many players that will get. And it's like. And part of me is like, well, I've gotten everything so far in championship. Do I want the gallade? But then part of me is like, I don't want to give them the data point that I'm playing singles because I don't care about singles. And I don't even want to be associated with checkers players. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't even want to. I don't want to suffer through three matches to get a delay that I wouldn't ever use, that I can't ever transfer out of. Yeah, that is the. That is the problem. Right. I mean, yeah, you just brought it up with the shinies, but the fact that you can't transfer these things out of champions when the whole basis of the game is using home. But then you can't move things, you know, because they're just visiting. Right. So you can't then move things out of champions. If, again, if you were Able to move things out of Champions. And they had a special. Not like a mark, but they had something to indicate that they were from Champions. I think you'd see a lot of people not even wanting to battle, but I bet you'd see like shiny hunters in their daily opening that app daily to be like rolling for shinies and stuff. Why not? You know, I feel like you'd see that. But for whatever reason, they don't want Pokemon moving out of Champions. I don't even know if that would be like in two years maybe you'd be able to do it kind of thing. I kind of think it's not going to happen ever. I think that this is kind of their. They've. They're staking the ground of like we don't want things leaving the game. What's your reasoning Hoshino? What's your reasoning there? The reasoning is, is that there is the energy in Champions is. Does not exist in Home. And so the Pokemon can't be there if they're in Champions. The habitat they have. They've grown up in in Champions is not habitable at home. So they just. Hoshino's like we only designed the. The ranch. We didn't design a road to the ranch. So they have no way of walking off of the ranch into po. Pokemon home. There's actually. Yeah. Road work. So actually there was a terrible flood and it cut off the access. The airport only accepts incoming Pokemon. The crops aren't growing well this year. We need everybody at the ranch. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry. The. The hit makers of Gale of Darkness and Coliseum are really killing it over there with the 12 million downloads of Cafe Remix. It is funny to see people like say like ah, they. They should make a. They should make a sequel to like Gale of Darkness. Oh no. That team's been working on a game. A game that called Cafe Remix. Hey, I will say if we're look. If we're looking at the games on this list and we're judging it off of let's say like art style. Cafe Remix top of the list. So good. Yeah, very high. I just. Art Style wish the game was more fun. Ye. The game is not fun enough to justify the notifications and pop ups that come up while you're playing the game. Like everything else about it is so good. Before Duel collapsed because I would say Duel was probably the most money grabbing game. At the very end they were. Yeah, they were like $18. They were asking subscriptions. They were like asking for your Social Security number and your Blood type before they, like closed down. Yeah. I think out of all the games on the list, Cafe Remix is the most money grabby that are still active. Yes, I agree. 100 Cafe remixes. So money grabby. And I think the game on the list you could probably play the most for free is probably Unite. I think it's pretty easy to pop into Unite and not spend a dollar. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Second, I would probably say Go. I would say TCG Pocket. It's hard to completely play for free because at a certain point you can't rip packs. Yeah. And then unless you're battling, you're kind of like, well, I gotta wait till tomorrow to play like Unite. You could sit there and play all day of Unite, no issue. Yeah, that's true. The only game I've not played on this list is Duel. Really? I've never. That was the one game where PvP. I loved playing that game. Like, I don't. I'm not a PvP player when it comes to pocket or like the PvP and Go or any of these else. Unite. I mean, I don't play. I don't play Unite. But Duel. I could sit there and just go round for round on Duel. I really did love playing that game. Didn't at one point. Maybe I'm thinking of something else. Did they make like real life little figurines of four Duel? Duel is based on. Interesting. The. The real life trading figure game. Because I think I had one of those. Yeah. And I was like, I don't know what to do with this. Do you remember. Do you remember the fake rumble? You amiibos that were before amiibos? Yeah, yeah, I have those. Yes. I walked into a GameStop one time and asked if they had some and they had like three. Oh, nice. Did you buy them? Can I get like a whole box? And they were like, yeah, we'll just have to order it for you. Oh, what? And they ordered me a whole box of the figures, which was, I think like 20 figures. Wow. And I just went in like two weeks later. It was like $89 for like 20 of them. Because the only way to get there were like two shinies. I think there was like a shiny. No, there was three, I think the shiny Pikachu, shiny Eevee and shiny Genesect. Yeah. Okay. But the only way to get the shiny was to have a whole box because it was only like. Oh, sure, sure, sure. I see you're saying. Yeah, but I wanted all the figures anyways. So I got a box where those Are now Lost Origin. Lost Origin. Oh, my gosh. No clue where they are right now. Wild. Absolutely wild. Yeah. No, no. Duel was a good game. I'm sorry you missed out on not being able to play it, Austin. That was. That was a good one for sure. Two of these games were made by Select Button Sleep and Magikarp Jump. We can only hope that Select Button is making another Pokemon game. Who cares about Genius? Sonority Genius, by the way, makes Cafe remakes, and they made Yellow Darkness and Colosseum. I would argue 0 for 3 on games they've made genius or select button 2 for 2. Yeah, they're doing a great job. They really are. They really are doing a great job. DNA. I would say DNA is probably two for two. That's Masters Ex in pocket. Oh, Masters Ex. Right. Okay. But. But I do say, well, I think sleep is pretty unique to, like, a player, but I would say Masters is pretty. Like. You kind of have to really be into that kind of gotcha game to, like, Masters. Yeah. I was thinking, like, I wonder how many people listening to this podcast are like, I can't believe these guys keep talking about how much they love sleep. That game's awful. Like, how many people don't like sleep or think it's just, like, a terrible game? I think. I think. I think sleep has a huge barrier to entry. Yeah. Even when I was helping my Twitch chat with sleep, somebody. Somebody was like, okay, I'm gonna start. And I was like, oh, you should probably, like, reset for, like, a Berry Finding Pikachu. Like a BFS Pikachu. I was like, you probably want it in, like, the 10 and 25, because it'll take you forever to get to 50. And I was like, you don't have to do this, but, like, you should, like, just reset. And they. They reset it a couple times. It's kind of a long reset. I think it's like six minutes of reset or something. Yeah. They were like, well, I got. I got a Pikachu with, like, a bunch of ingredients. It'll bring me a bunch of ingredients. And I was like, no, that's not how it works. But I'm sure a lot of people think that. Yeah. Because I definitely thought that, like, my first, like, three, four, or five months of the game is. I just found that out last night. Like, no, if it's a Berry Pokemon, you just want bfs. Right. And it's, like, really hard to. I'm saying it, but some people might have. They might even know that certain Pokemon are Berry Pokemon. Right? Isn't. Is Pikachu a berry Pokemon? Yeah, I thought Pikachu was a skills Pokemon for some reason. Okay. Yeah, I never use Pikachu. Okay, well, it's one of the best berries for electric. I, yeah, I, I thought it was Skills Pokemon for some reason. To be fair, even, even me, like, I only started like switching to berry Pokemon at night, you know, like a couple weeks ago. We like, change that strategy up. I was always ingredient. I'm an ingredient strategy person. Like, just give me all the ingredients all the time. Yeah, no, that's fine. Yeah. All right. Thank you for listening. Thanks for making to the end. If you're sticking around for our bonus segment, we are going to talk about Pokemon Go To. This is not clickbaity. It is an interview with Ed Wu, president of Games from Niantic, slash scopely, whatever you want to say. And they, they he, he talks about Pokemon Go to. And that will be our bonus segment. It will not be free this week, but the last two episodes are free on Patreon. The last two bonus episodes are free on Patreon. So if you. You can sign up for a seven day free trial. If you want to listen to this bonus segment. If you're already in the premium feed, stick around after the credits. Patreon.compkmncst There is a bunch of free content on Patreon, so I still encourage you to make a free Patreon account and hit the little follow button. You'll get updates of Pokemon news and the little graphics I make. And we try to do at least one free bonus segment a week for a month for free. You go back to the old bonus segments. If you want to upgrade, you already have an account made, so just encourage you to sign up for the the Patreon. Think of it like a website or like a newsletter, but in 2026. So an easy way to support the show completely for free. Or you could be one of those people that leave a Spotify comment and then I'm hesitant to click that button because I don't know if it's a good or bad scared. All right, thank you, Austin. Thank you, Bobby. Stick around after the credits. Fear on Premium. If you're not on Premium at least. Thank you for listening. Thank you for making it to the end. This has been another episode of the Pokemon podcast and we are super effective. Super boo Scalpers. Foreign. This podcast is brought to you by Patreon. If you'd like to be a producer of the show and get your name read at the end of every episode. You can head over to patreon.com pkmncast to support the show. A huge shout out to our producers of this episode, starting with Stuart, Courtney, Tone, Federico, Josh, Cappy, Christopher, Jared and Steven. Thank you so much for your support and we will see you all next week.