The Pokémon Day announcements disappointed me. In case you missed it, you can view the entire presentation here.
But before I get into it, this week, I'm trying something new: I'm going to be going live on my YouTube channel to review this week's newsletter, answer questions, and hang out with anyone who drops by.
I'll be going live tomorrow, March 4th, at 7:30 pm EST. If you'd like to attend you can find the stream and set a reminder at the link below:
As a TCG fan, I was looking forward to a lot of news and details about the upcoming Celebration Collection set: a set that PokéBeach had already leaked back in November of last year!
At least we did get a formal announcement of this set... but the details were vague and did not reveal anything firm about what it was. As someone who hoped for a lot more details, this let me down.
But, the truth is: none of this matters. The Pokémon Presents included more than enough news to keep me extremely bullish on Pokémon.
I loved Pokémon Day.
Why?
Because as long as The Pokémon Company keeps making fun Pokémon games, the franchise has a bright future.
And the new Gen 10 games announced during the presentation, Pokémon Winds and Waves, look fantastic.
No one reading this needs me to remind them of the disastrous Scarlet & Violet launch: gamebreaking bugs, awful visual glitches, and graphics that, at best, looked at least 10 years old. It was not a good look for the franchise.
With the reveal of Pokémon Winds and Waves, it looks like The Pokémon Company and Game Freak, the developer of all the mainline Pokémon games, have learned their lesson: they can no longer afford to rush these games.
Not only are Winds and Waves a Switch 2 exclusive, guaranteeing the hardware limitations of the Switch 1 don't impact the gameplay, I was also surprised to learn that the new games wouldn't release until 2027.
Assuming that means around November of 2027, when nearly all major Pokémon games release, the Gen 10 Pokémon games will follow an unprecedented 5 year development cycle: the longest between any mainline Pokémon games, ever.
This is exactly what we needed to see.
And, there's even more to be excited about!
A major feature of this year's announcements was more information about Pokopia: the new Animal Crossing meets Minecraft meets Pokémon game dropping later this week.
This game has been a strange-looking spin-off title from the moment it was announced and, to be honest, it has been easy to overlook. I expected it to be something like a Detective Pikachu title: cute, and will surely find its fans... but nothing that moves markets.
And yet, current reviews have made Pokopia the highest-reviewed Pokémon game of all time on Metacritic.
There are so many things I want to gush about with Pokémon Pokopia.
Pokémon Pokopia is entirely brilliant.
There’s no one reason why Pokémon Pokopia is so special; this game is a sum of its parts, without a single weak link in the chain.
What!?
Review summary for Pokémon Pokopia showing it’s one of the highest-rated Pokémon video games of all time.
Like I said: as long as The Pokémon Company keeps making fun Pokémon games, the franchise has a bright future.
This year's announcements show that The Pokémon Company is continuing to push their capabilities and bring new, fun gameplay experiences to the market.
As TCG collectors and investors that's all we need to get excited.
Besides, I think this Celebration Collection set is going to be incredible anyway... It's just a hunch... but I have faith...
More on that in the future 😉
As usual,
Thanks so much for reading the TCG Buyers Club newsletter. My name's Grey, I buy cardboard, and I'm on a mission to make collecting and investing in Pokémon simple.
Cheers 🍻
P.S. Don't forget about the livestream! I'm excited to try something new and I hope you get value from it if you're able to make it. Remember: I'll be live tomorrow, March 4th, at 7:30 pm EST. Here's the link: