Satoshi Tajiri was born on the 28th of August 1965 in Machida, a suburb of Tokyo, where he spent his childhood collecting insects and small creatures in the ponds and fields that surrounded his town. This boyhood passion became the foundation for a global phenomenon when he realized that the video game industry was destroying the very nature he loved. As Japan underwent its economic miracle, Machida was significantly expanded, and the natural habitats where Tajiri played were largely destroyed. He remembered the feeling of loss when he discovered that the world he knew was gone forever, replaced by concrete and technology. This sense of loss inspired him to create a game that would allow children to experience the joy of catching creatures again, effectively regaining the world he had lost. Tajiri's vision was to create a virtual recreation of his boyhood experiences, where players could capture, train, and exchange creatures with others. He named the project Capsule Monsters, which was later shortened to Pocket Monsters, and eventually became known simply as Pokémon. The game was designed to be played on the Game Boy, a handheld console that allowed players to connect their devices and exchange creatures. This feature was inspired by the Game Link Cable, which allowed two Game Boys to be linked together. Tajiri's idea was to create a game that would allow players to socialize and trade creatures, much like he did with his insect collection. The game was developed by Game Freak, a company founded by Tajiri in 1989. The game was released on the 27th of February 1996, and became a sleeper hit. The game was followed by manga series, a trading card game, and anime series and films. From 1998 to 2000, Pokémon was exported to the rest of the world, creating an unprecedented global phenomenon dubbed Pokémania. By 2002, the craze had ended, after which Pokémon became a fixture in popular culture, with new products releasing to this day. In the summer of 2016, the franchise spawned a second craze with the release of Pokémon Go, an augmented reality game developed by Niantic. Unlike most IPs, which are owned by one company, Pokémon is jointly owned by three: Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures. Game Freak develops the core series RPGs, which are published by Nintendo exclusively for their consoles, while Creatures manages the trading card game and related merchandise, occasionally developing spin-off titles. The three companies established The Pokémon Company (TPC) in 1998 to manage the Pokémon property within Asia. The Pokémon anime series and films are co-owned by Shogakukan. Since 2009, The Pokémon Company International (TPCi), a subsidiary of TPC, has managed the franchise in all regions outside Asia.
The Trifecta of Ownership
The ownership structure of Pokémon is unique in the world of intellectual property. Unlike most franchises, which are owned by a single company, Pokémon is jointly owned by three entities: Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures. This arrangement was established to ensure that the franchise remained true to its original vision while also allowing for the necessary resources and expertise to manage its global expansion. Game Freak, founded by Satoshi Tajiri, is responsible for developing the core series role-playing games. Nintendo, the publisher, provides the hardware and distribution channels for these games. Creatures, Inc., founded by Tsunekazu Ishihara, manages the trading card game and related merchandise, and occasionally develops spin-off titles. The three companies established The Pokémon Company (TPC) in 1998 to manage the Pokémon property within Asia. The Pokémon anime series and films are co-owned by Shogakukan. Since 2009, The Pokémon Company International (TPCi), a subsidiary of TPC, has managed the franchise in all regions outside Asia. This structure was a result of the collaborative efforts of Tajiri, Ishihara, and Nintendo. Tajiri and Ishihara did consider merging Game Freak and Creatures at one point. However, Tajiri decided against it because he feared it would erase what he had built up since he was a teenager. He felt threatened by the idea of changing how Game Freak was operating, and starting back over with Mr. Ishihara. It was an identity problem. If Game Freak ceased to exist, then so would he. Tajiri noted that, since Game Freak and Creatures both focus on Pokémon, it sometimes felt more like different departments than different companies. The ownership structure of Pokémon is uncommon. Kenji Hatakeyama noted that Pokémon is probably the only property in the world today for which the original rights are not concentrated in a single company, like The Walt Disney Company does with their IPs. This unique structure has allowed Pokémon to maintain its creative integrity while also achieving global success. The three companies have worked together to ensure that the franchise remains true to its original vision while also adapting to the changing needs of the market. This has resulted in a franchise that has remained relevant and popular for over two decades.
On the 16th of December 1997, the Pokémon franchise was hit by a crisis related to the broadcast of the anime's 38th episode, Dennō Senshi Porygon. The episode was watched by approximately 4.6 million households. In the episode, the cast is transported into a virtual world, accompanied by a Porygon, an artificially-made Pokémon. While flying through cyberspace, they are attacked by an anti-virus program which mistakes them for viruses, shooting vaccine missiles at them resulting in explosions of bright, rapidly swapping red and blue flashes. The intense stimuli brought about by the episode triggered a variety of adverse health effects in more than 10,000 viewers, primarily irritated eyes, headaches, dizziness, and nausea. A small part suffered a photosensitive epileptic seizure, manifested in loss of conscious and/or convulsions. Hundreds of children were brought to hospitals, although some had recovered enough upon arrival and did not need to be hospitalized. No one died. Broadcasting of Pokémon was halted, and new guidelines were implemented to help prevent similar events from happening. With the show on hiatus, ShoPro and OLM worked on a feature Pokémon film. By the time the incident occurred, its script was already written and storyboards were being made. In mid-January, the staff resumed creating new episodes. The anime series returned on the 16th of April 1998. The film, titled Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back, premiered on the 18th of July 1998, becoming the fourth highest grossing film of the year in Japan. Ultimately, the incident did not damage the Pokémon franchise. It in fact grew further during and after the anime's hiatus. While video rental tapes were removed from shelves, all other Pokémon products continued to be sold as usual, and customer demand for them remained high. Helping matters was a general understanding among businesses that the anime was not canceled, but rather suspended, and many executives correctly expected the show to be resumed after precautions had been taken. Supermarkets and other distribution outlets responded calmly to the crisis, and did not remove Pokémon products from their sales floors. The incident highlighted the importance of safety and responsibility in the production of children's media. It also demonstrated the resilience of the Pokémon franchise, which was able to recover from the crisis and continue to grow. The incident led to the implementation of new guidelines to prevent similar events from happening in the future. These guidelines included restrictions on the use of flashing lights and other visual effects that could trigger seizures. The incident also led to the creation of the Pokémon Center, a joint venture by Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak, which was established to manage the Pokémon property within Asia. The Pokémon Center was initially formed for the management of specialized merchandise stores called Pokémon Centers, of which the first location opened in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, on the 18th of July 1998. The Pokémon Center has since become a symbol of the franchise's commitment to safety and responsibility.
The American Gamble
Possibly the first official to show interest in a North American launch of Pokémon was Minoru Arakawa, founder and then-president of Nintendo of America. Arakawa visited Japan to participate in Shoshinkai 1996, held from the 22nd to the 24th of November. It was around this time when he first played one of the three Pokémon titles released at the time. He thought the games were promising, but Nintendo of Japan had no plans at the time to release them elsewhere. He returned to America with a few cartridges and tested the game on his employees. They did not believe it would work in the US. At the time, role-playing games were not very popular outside Japan, and Nintendo of America executives believed that American children did not have the attention span for such a complex title. Americans were said to be more interested in sport- and action-oriented games, preferably with realistic graphics. Japanese people, by contrast, were alleged to care more about characters and plot. Up to that point, few Japanese properties had been successfully mainstreamed in the US, and if they were, it was alleged to be on account of having been properly Americanized. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was considered a prime example of this. Visually, Pokémon was believed to be too kawaii, or cute. It was assumed that Pokémon could not succeed on cute alone. It must also be cool. In an effort to enhance the franchise's coolness, Nintendo of America considered a graphical redesign and contracted a few external artists to create some test designs for the American market. The mockups they proposed included graffiti style drawings, beefed-up and more muscular looking Pokémon, and a new Pikachu that looked like a tiger with huge breasts. Arakawa concluded that it didn't work, and by that time, the anime had begun its production in Japan, leading Nintendo of America to conclude it was too late for a graphical revamp anyway. Of pivotal importance to Pokémon's global expansion was Alfred R. Kahn, CEO of US-based 4Kids Entertainment, Nintendo of America's licensing agent since 1987. Convinced of the franchise's potential, Kahn agreed to invest an undisclosed sum in return for both the anime and licensing rights. Pokémon became one of the first Japanese media franchises in which both the localization of the anime and the licensing of merchandise was handled by a single company, as well as a non-Japanese company. Kahn suggested to use the short version of the name, Pokémon, adding an acute accent over the e to assist with pronunciation and give it a little flair. Nintendo of Japan president Hiroshi Yamauchi officially approved the project in late November, and subsequently announced it at Space World 1997. However, three weeks later, the Dennō Senshi Porygon incident happened, which Kubo felt made even more people resistant to the idea of an overseas introduction. Market research turned back negative. American kids reportedly did not like Pokémon. Arakawa ignored the study and, convinced of the franchise's potential, allocated an enormous budget to Pokémon's launch. The exact amount was not disclosed, but was reportedly equal to or more than $50 million, approximately the same amount as the launch budget of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. Arakawa admitted that it was quite a bit of money, but Nintendo of America had been doing well for several years, so they had a lot of money to spare. He opined that if Pokémon would be as successful in the US as it had been in Japan, an investment of 1 would turn into 100. Nintendo of America and 4Kids proceeded to plan an all-out effort to repeat the phenomenon in the Western world. The localization of the Pokémon anime was done by 4Kids, and directed by Norman J. Grossfeld. Grossfeld strongly believed that the anime should be Americanized. At NATPE 1998, he asked ShoPro for a kind of carte blanche, to let him change the show as he thought would work for this market, to which ShoPro agreed. However, no national TV station was interested in buying the anime or financing its localization. Kahn then decided to self-finance Pokémon's production costs, despite realizing this could very well bring down 4Kids if the show would fail. According to Kahn, they spend a fortune on the localization. To have it broadcast in syndication, 4Kids offered the show for free to local TV stations across the country, in exchange for a portion of the advertising revenue. Nintendo of America assisted, persuading dozens of stations to carry the series by offering to buy some of their advertisement space, spending a total of $5 million. Despite all this, most broadcasters were still reluctant to carry Pokémon, with Grossfeld experiencing difficulties getting through their preconceived notions or their snobbery for Western-produced animation over something from Asia. At the time, anime had not yet found mainstream popularity in the West. Contemporary news reports cited Sailor Moon as an example of an anime that had failed to catch on with American youth. Still, with Nintendo of America's help, 4Kids ultimately succeeded in contracting 112 broadcasters for Pokémon, reaching about 85 to 90 percent of television households. However, many broadcasters gave it off-peak time slots, with starting times like 06:00 or 06:30. Prior to the late 1990s, this was the case for many anime in the US. Grossfeld came up with the advertising slogan Gotta catch 'em all! as the English equivalent to the Japanese phrase. The phrase miraculously managed to gain approval by the Federal Communications Commission, which normally prohibits the use of injunctions in ads directed at children. While the tagline may sound commanding, the FCC reasoned that the act of catching is at the core of Pokémon's play. Therefore, the phrase was allowed. The series' theme song was written by John Loeffler and John Siegler, and performed by Jason Paige. The Pokémon anime was first broadcast on the 7th of September 1998. Pokémon Red Version and Blue Version were released three weeks later, on the 28th of September 1998. To localize the card game, Nintendo contracted Wizards of the Coast, the creator of Magic: The Gathering. The Pokémon Trading Card Game was officially launched nationwide on the 9th of January 1999, although pre-sold in select stores in December. Coinciding with the North American launch of Pokémon was the release of the Game Boy Color on the 23rd of November 1998.
The Peak of Pokémania
In North America, the debuting Pokémon franchise quickly rose to success. By December 1998, the Pokémon anime had become the highest-rated syndicated children's show during the weekdays. This attracted the attention of two media companies: Warner Bros., co-owner of The WB channel; and Saban Entertainment/Fox Family Worldwide, owners of the Fox Kids channel. A bidding war ensued between the parties, which was won by Warner Bros. On the 13th of February 1999, Pokémon launched on the Kids' WB national television block. The debut episode became the most watched premiere in Kids' WB's history. By April 1999, there was a general consensus in the US that Pokémon had become a phenomenon and the newest children's fad. By some, the fad was referred to as Pokémania, including journalists of Time and USA Today. In the US, severe scarcity occurred of Pokémon goods, especially Pokémon cards, causing companies to miss profits. A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, published on the 3rd of August 1999, cited a Toys R Us manager as saying that a supply of 600 booster packs would last 24 hours. The CEO of one card distributor stated that they were thousands of boxes behind on orders. In the same article, a Wizards spokeswoman stated that more employees and printers had been hired to increase card production. However, near the end of the month, a different Wizards spokeswoman told The Washington Post that they had exhausted most of the card-printing capacity of the United States. Similarly, USA Today reported in November 1999 that factories making Hasbro's Pokémon toys had expanded production by 20 times, but demand still exceeded supply. In part due to the Pokémon craze, Nintendo saw a 250% increase in profits in 1999 compared to the previous year, reaching a six-year high. The Pokémon franchise accounted for over 30% of Nintendo's revenue that year. Pokémon's popularity also caused a sharp increase in sales of the Game Boy line. The financial windfalls came at a time when Nintendo lost dominance in the home console market, with the Nintendo 64 being outsold by Sony's PlayStation. The global success of Pokémon compensated this loss somewhat. Scholars David Buckingham and Julian Sefton-Green went even further, writing in 2004: while Nintendo is now among Japan's most profitable corporations, it could be argued that the company would have struggled to survive without Pokémon. 4Kids, initially a little-known firm, expanded thirty times in revenues, and was named the fastest-growing company in America in the 4th of September 2000, issue of Fortune magazine. Many businesses that timely obtained a Pokémon license reaped considerable profits. In the summer of 1999, a massive run on stocks of publicly traded Pokémon licensees caused their value to increase dramatically. However, by November, most investors were shorting their shares. Realizing that Pokémon was a fad that would peak and fall at some point, investors were bearish about its prospects. Pokémon: The First Movie premiered in North America on the 12th of November 1999, and in Europe the following year. Despite being negatively received by many Western critics, it became one of the most successful Japanese animated films of all time. In the United States, November 1999 was estimated to have been the peak of Pokémania. Supporting the American release of The First Movie was a promotional action with Burger King, one of the largest in the history of the fast-food industry. The success of the promotion resulted in supply issues; restaurants often ran out of Pokémon toys to include with their meals. On the 27th of December, ProQuest. NB: this AP announcement cites Dec. 27 as the date on which the recall was issued. Burger King recalled its Poké Ball toy after a 13-month-old girl died suffocating on one. Pokémon Gold and Silver, the successors to Red/Green/Blue, were released in North America on the 15th of October 2000. In Europe, they were released on the 6th of April 2001. The Pokémon Company and Pokémon USA established Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo, a large Pokémon merchandise shop in Sunshine City, Ikebukuro. On the 23rd of April 1998, Pokémon Center Co. Ltd. was founded as a joint venture by Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak. It was initially formed for the management of specialized merchandise stores called Pokémon Centers, of which the first location opened in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, on the 18th of July 1998. See this phone card. Throughout the years, multiple Japanese Pokémon Centers would open and close. , a total of 23 Pokémon merchandise shops exist in Japan. An American Pokémon Center also existed in New York City from 2001 to 2005. It was then remodelled into Nintendo World, later renamed Nintendo New York. After the release of Gold and Silver, Tsunekazu Ishihara began setting out a number of long-term goals for the Pokémon franchise, which included releasing a movie every year. As part of Ishihara's plan, the Pokémon Center Co. Ltd. was reformatted into The Pokémon Company, and officially renamed in October 2000. The goal of TPC is to centralize and streamline the global management of Pokémon. In February 2001, Pokémon USA was established, an affiliated firm of The Pokémon Company.
The Backlash and Fade
In North America, Pokémania peaked in 1999, slowing down throughout the next year. On the 29th of April 2000, the anime was bumped off Kids' WB's No. 1 spot after holding it for 54 weeks. Around the same time, Pokémon was surpassed at Fox Kids by its rival Digimon. In Europe, the craze peaked in 2000. On the 20th of January 2001, The New York Times reported that Pokémon's trading card market had collapsed in the US. A June 2001 survey in the United Kingdom confirmed that Pokémon's popularity was waning there. Joseph Tobin wrote: By the summer of 2001, Pokémon's shelf space in Japanese and U.S. toy stores was but a fraction of what it enjoyed in the fall of 1999. By the end of 2001, Pokémania was fading globally, and by 2002, the fad was largely over. From 2000 to 2002, Game Freak developed Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, the successors to Gold and Silver, for the newly released Game Boy Advance. Masuda, who was appointed to assistant director during Gold and Silver, was promoted to director for Ruby and Sapphire, with Tajiri making himself executive director. In October 2001, 4Kids Entertainment signed a new contract with Pokémon USA, continuing to serve as Pokémon's exclusive licensing agent and anime localizer. On the 23rd of December 2005, it was announced that the agreement would not be renewed and would expire on the 31st of December, with Pokémon USA moving all licensing in-house. The localization of the anime would be done by Pokémon USA in cooperation with TAJ Productions. Pokémon USA proceeded to replace almost all of the original English voice actors, who were still under contract with 4Kids. This decision raised the ire of fans and the actors themselves. According to Stuart Zagnit, who voiced Professor Oak, the recasting was done to cut back on costs. In March 2003, Pokémon UK was established in London as a British representative of The Pokémon Company. In 1999 and 2000, Pokémon was an unprecedented, ubiquitous fad in the Western world. Time magazine described it as a multimedia and interactive barrage like no other before it. The franchise, primarily aimed at children, elicited mixed responses from parents and teachers, some of them critical. In a 2004 essay, anthropologist Christine R. Yano even claimed that the reactions at one point constituted a moral panic. The bulk of the criticism on Pokémon was directed at the trading cards, in particular the booster packs, sealed packages of 11 randomly inserted cards that were sold separately from the main sets. The cards are of varying scarcity, the most valuable being the holofoil cards, in which the illustrations of the Pokémon have a shiny overlay effect. The rare cards can only be found in booster packs, and the rarest ones are very infrequently included. Joseph Tobin noted that rarity in this case is artificially created, and effectively a form of gambling in which children need to repeatedly purchase booster packs to get more rare cards. described a cynicism among adults that corporations could apparently, out of thin air, ascribe value to cards which they saw as valueless, thereby deceiving vulnerable young consumers and garnering excessive profits. As the franchise's popularity grew, children began taking their Pokémon cards to school for trading and playing. Soon, the cards were alleged to be disrupting learning, poisoning playground friendships and causing such distraction that some children forget their homework, tune out in class and even miss school buses as they scramble to acquire one more card. The cards were turning the playground into a black market, with card swaps sometimes inciting conflicts. Certain children engaged in aggressive trading, tricking other often younger kids into unfair deals, forcing teachers to arbitrate. Some parents expressed their concerns about the craze, but feared that their children would be ostracized if they were to deny them Pokémon products. In the US, the Pokémon cards ended up almost universally banned from school grounds. Similar bans occurred in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and European countries. In September 1999, US-based law firm Milberg filed a class-action lawsuit, claiming that the booster packs constitute a form of lottery and promote gambling in kids. The suit is believed to have been settled. The Pokémon anime series was criticized by some as cheap Japanese animation that is violent. Parents should not have their kids ... have anything whatsoever to do with Pokémon, because the message is violence. and has little educational value. Michelle Orecklin of Time dismissed the TV series as less a cartoon than a half-hour exercise in Pokémon product placement. Anne Allison wrote that even those within Pokémon's US marketing team agreed that the anime's visuals were not especially sophisticated compared to Disney cartoons. Pokémon: The First Movie premiered in the United States on the 12th of November 1999, and in European countries in February 2000. While a huge box-office success, the film was received negatively by several Western film critics. The Guardian decried it as a contemptuously cheap animated cash-in on the monster kids' craze. The American adult animated series South Park satirized Pokémon in the episode Chinpokomon, aired on the 3rd of November 1999. In the episode, the titular media franchise is portrayed as a low-quality line of products that is part of an evil plan by the Japanese government to invade the US. South Park co-creator Matt Stone commented that, at the time, Pokémon was scary huge. Author Chris Kohler wrote that Pokémon was considered ruthlessly commercial, and that it program[med] children to be consumers of anything and everything Pokémon. CNN quoted child psychiatrist John Lochridge as worrying that Pokémon's creators and marketers deliberately set out to create a fantasy world so compelling that children would quickly become obsessed. He believed that kids were being brainwashed, and said: I have had parents tell me that they cannot get their kids to do anything except Pokémon, so this stuff seems to really capture their minds, in a way. These concerns were countered by psychologist William Damon, who told Newsweek that obsessing is in fact a normal part of a child's neurological development. It should concern parents only when the obsession gets dangerous or excessive. An op-ed in the New Zealander newspaper The Dominion Post claimed that the anti-Pokémon sentiment was particularly American: The backlash, which seems largely confined to the United States, may be no more than the sound of the world's leading cultural imperialist gagging on a taste of its own medicine. As Pokémania built, Western media started reporting on several crimes associated with Pokémon. These included violence including two reported stabbings, burglaries, robberies some at knifepoint, and shoplifting. Almost all these incidents were connected to the Pokémon cards, and the individuals involved were almost always underage. In the US, the incidents peaked in November 1999. In England, Pokémon-related delinquency reached a head in April 2000. High prices on the grey market were a motive behind some of the crimes, posing a great temptation for older kids and bullies to take advantage of weaker children. At specialty shops and online auctions, a rare Pokémon card could be bought and sold for $50 or more. But there may be one rare card in a packet, a Kabutops or a Japanese Mew, that in the secondary market could go for as much as $50. Aside from the negative reactions, many media also cited alleged beneficial effects of Pokémon. It was noted that the video games and the cards require children to read, memorize, calculate, and plan out a strategy. Both encourage socialization, and trading Pokémon requires negotiating skills. Stephanie Strom wrote in The New York Times that the Pokémon anime taught children traditional Japanese values responsibility, empathy, cooperation, obedience, respect for elders, humility. Anne Allison interviewed various American parents during Pokémania. She found that while most of them were utterly mystified about Pokémon, few were overly worried about it, instead meeting the craze with befuddled acceptance. Allison also notes that the Columbine High School massacre occurred during Pokémania on the 20th of April 1999, causing violent television, music, and games to be scrutinized. Compared to these media, she notes, Pokémon is in fact rather tame.
The Second Wave
In 2016, the Pokémon franchise spawned a second worldwide fad with the release of Pokémon Go, a mobile augmented reality game. The app originated as a Google April Fools' Day joke in 2014: the Google Maps Pokémon Challenge. The prank was conceived by Tsunekazu Ishihara and Satoru Iwata. On Ishihara's initiation, the hoax was turned into an actual video game developed by Niantic. Ishihara was a fan of Niantic's previous transreality game, Ingress, and saw the game's concept as a perfect match for Pokémon. Through in-game purchases, the game generated more than $100 million by the end of July 2016, with App Annie reporting that Pokémon Go had generated around $10 million in revenue every day that month. The same month, Sensor Tower reported that the game had passed more than $100 million in worldwide revenue, beating every existing record set by Clash of Clans and Candy Crush by a wide margin. The average daily usage of the app on Android devices in July 2016 exceeded that of Snapchat, Tinder, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. By the 2nd of September 2016, Pokémon Go had generated more than $440 million in worldwide revenue, according to Sensor Tower. By the 30th of September, it had received 100 million downloads and grossed $100 million in 80 days, according to market research firm Newzoo. Pokémon Go reached the milestone of $600 million in revenue after only 90 days on the market, becoming the fastest mobile game ever to do so. In 2019, Pokémon Sword and Shield were released for the Switch. Director Shigeru Ohmori stated that they designed the games based on what they believed of the biggest Pokémon theme of becoming/being the greatest or strongest, which was expressed in the games' Dynamax / Gigantamax Pokémon core mechanic and the games' increasingly powerful software and hardware capabilities. Ohmori further revealed that through developing the Let's Go games as research projects for the Switch, they were able to gain valuable experiences and knowledge to develop Sword and Shield. He noted that they took advantage of the Switch's high resolution and TV connectivity to implement the games' gigantic-size core Pokémon mechanic. They envisioned the games' setting to be a wide-open space that is different from the traditional route systems and is constantly changing where the player can meet and explore with other players. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. The resulting widespread ennui and excessive leisure time inspired a resurgence in popularity and interest of Pokémon cards, which was further popularized by various YouTubers and other influencers, such as Logan Paul. The craze resulted in severe supply shortages, and customers' inappropriate and obsessive behavior raised safety concerns in many retail outlets. Pokémon cards' values skyrocketed, prompting collectors to submit cards and overwhelm card grading agencies. The Pokémon Company responded by reprinting impacted products at maximum capacity to ensure price stabilization and general accessibility. Pokémon Legends: Arceus was released on the 28th of January 2022, for the Switch as a prequel to Diamond and Pearl. It is part of Generation VIII. The game represents a new approach for the Pokémon video game series as it transitions from traditional RPG mechanics to add real-time elements in their games. Unlike traditional Pokémon games, the player can catch Pokémon by throwing a Poké Ball in real-time rather than triggering a battle; however, they can still choose the latter to weaken it for capture. Many in-game aspects, particularly its landscape, heavily resemble those of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Generation IX was introduced with the release of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet for the Switch on the 18th of November 2022. The games are the first Pokémon games to feature an entirely open-world experience as opposed to the partially open-world experience in previous Pokémon games such as Sword and Shield, and it also departed from the traditional gym mechanics and the elite four battles to opt for unique road quests. The games' improved multiplayer experience allowed for up to four players to travel together. Their DLC, The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, consists of two parts, The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk; The Teal Mask was released on the 12th to the 13th of September 2023 and The Indigo Disk was released on the 14th of December 2023. An epilogue to The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero was released on the 11th of January 2024. Pokémon Legends: Z-A was released on the 16th of October 2025 for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. It is part of Generation IX. A successor to Legends: Arceus, this game returns to the Kalos region seen in X and Y. A DLC, Mega Dimension, released on the 10th of December 2025. The official logo for the 30th anniversary of the franchise was officially unveiled by the official social media accounts on the new year of 2026. In January 2026, Lego announced their first ever Pokémon sets available for preorder to be released the 27th of February 2026. According to Yahoo News, their massive $650 set sold out quickly and were already being resold on eBay before their official release.