The fantastically adorable Pokémon Concierge is getting new episodes this September. During today’s Pokémon Presents, The Pokémon Company announced that the second season of the stop-motion show about a lady and her Psyduck running a more wholesome, pokémon-ified version of The White Lotus hotel is coming later this year on Netflix. Also, if you haven’t seen the first season, you can catch the first four episodes for free on YouTube right now.
Last year, the Toyota Engineering Society showed off a snazzy bike inspired by Pokémon Violet’s futuristic motorcycle dragon legendary Miraidon. And now — seemingly timed to this year’s Pokémon Day — Honda is teasing its own a similar concept vehicle styled after Koraidon, Pokémon Scarlet’s more prehistoric dragon whose wheel-looking appendages are actually flotation devices. The Koraidon bike already looks sick as hell, and if its “wheels” actually spin, it’s going to be a huge improvement over Nintendo’s original design.
The annual Pokémon Presents showcase is happening at 9AM ET this morning, and with games like Legends: Z-A in the works, not to mention a brand-new Switch on the way, we’re expecting a good showing.
As I write this, it’s hunting a Mankey outside of Viridian City in Pokémon Red. It’s using the new Claude 3.7 Sonnet “hybrid reasoning model” and shows its thinking in a side window.
The stream is less interesting and slower-paced than the original Twitch Plays Pokémon. But it’s fun to see Claude’s thinking process, especially when some of it has mirrored my own while playing Pokémon games.
Update: Claude is playing Pokémon Red; I initially missed that in the Twitch description.
Though this year’s Pokémon Day will be full of announcements about the franchise’s upcoming games, it will also feature the debut of Dragonite and the Postal Worker, a new animated short produced by CoMix Wave Films — the studio behind director Makoto Shinkai‘s Suzume, Weathering With You, and Your Name.
A new trailer for the short — out on YouTube February 27th 12 AM JST — makes it look like it’s going to be a gorgeous reminder that there’s more to the Pokémon world than battling.
February 27th is Pokémon Day, which means it’s time to tease us with upcoming pocket monster updates. The Pokémon Presents event scheduled for 9AM ET next Thursday may herald more information about the next major game, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which was teased without gameplay last year for a 2025 release. Here’s hoping we at least find out if it’ll be launching on Nintendo’s Switch 2 console.
According to Bloomberg, reporting on talks between Niantic (which may be more into AI and robotics than mobile games to make use of that scanning data you provided) and Scopely Inc. If you’re not familiar with Scopely Inc. and its parent company Savvy Games, try this 2023 report.
It has more information on how Savvy is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and why the country is aiming to become a gaming “powerhouse,” according to Savvy CEO Brian Ward.
Niantic and Major League Baseball are bringing Pokémon Go to ballparks across North America for three whole seasons. Beginning on Opening Day, March 27th, each team’s home park will get themed in-game PokéStops, gyms, and routes.
The New York Mets, Baltimore Orioles, and 11 other teams will even have scheduled Pokémon Go Theme Nights, with wearable in-game home team baseball caps, timed missions, and more.
The Pokémon Company said earlier this month that it was wanted to hear feedback about Pokémon TCG Pocket’s long-awaited trade feature. And now that everyone has had a chance to experience / balk at how terrible Pocket’s trading actually is in practice, the company says it is “actively investigating ways to improve the feature.”
Though the excellent Pokétoon web series has just wrapped for the season, Netflix is getting ready to drop the next chapter of its (very different, but still very good) mainline Pokémon anime that will follow as Liko (Alejandra Reynoso), Roy (Anjali Kunapaneni), and Dot (Faye Mata) set out to find the legendary land of Laqua. The new episodes are scheduled to debut on February 7th.
Though the Charcadet line has one of the most frustrating shiny forms in the Pokémon franchise, the latest Pokétoon web short does a wonderful job poking fun at how hard it is to spot the rare monsters.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s upcoming Black Rayquaza Tera Raid Event running from December 19th to January 5th is technically an anime tie-in. But the release of a shiny legendary two years after the games’ debut feels like a sign of there being a new generation right around the corner.
Following its soft launch in New Zealand last month, Pokémon TCG Pocket is available worldwide to download for Android and iOS. The game’s slow to start, but Creatures and DeNa have front loaded it with plenty of easy ways to rack up packs for free (because that’s how you get people hooked).
The app, which measures your sleep with the help of Snorlax and friends, can now help you track your nightly habits with your Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch, Pixel Watch, or Fitbit.
This should allow for more accurate sleep tracking, as the app previously had you place your phone under or beside your pillow to monitor your sleep and snoring.
Casual fans of the Pokémon Trading Card Game are getting a new (virtual) way to play on October 30th when Pokémon TCG Pocket finally hits the iOS and Google Play stores.
I’m sure a lot more people would pay attention to in-flight safety videos if they featured Pokémon — like this one from Japanese airline ANA.
She played both Ash’s companion and Team Rocket’s female lead from 1997 to 2015 across TV, film, and commercials. She also voiced some Pokémon like Jigglypuff and Goldeen, including in the Smash Bros. games.
Her sister Laurie Orr and her “Ash” co-star Veronica Taylor both confirmed the news. Here’s her IMDB page with other roles, including Your Lie in April and Hunter x Hunter.
Correction: Lillis was 55, not 46.
Ahead of a new batch of Pokémon Horizons episodes debuting on August 9th, Netflix has dropped a new trailer for San Diego Comic-Con teasing just how much more intense the series’ battles are about to get.
Le Creuset and Pokémon will release Pokémon-themed cookware in two drops starting in July. Le Creuset’s Pokémon Collection includes dishes that resemble Poké Balls, as well as colorful mugs, plates, rice bowls, and even a Cocotte cooking pot featuring characters like Pikachu.
Thankfully, there don’t appear to be pokémon in the pots.
The point of Pokémon Sleep is getting people to go to bed with the promise of waking up to little monsters who live in your phone. But for those looking to get more out of the game than better sleeping habits, the Grand Hyatt hotel in Toyko is offering a range of luxury vacation packages meant to “recreate the world of Pokémon Sleep.”
Sadly, the Pokémon Sleep World Champions Tournament is just an April Fools gag tied to the sleep tracker Pokémon Sleep, which sucks because I’ve been training my whole life for this.
Given how litigious Nintendo is, the company’s reluctance to go after Palworld has raised a lot of questions about what might actually spur The Pokémon Company to claim of IP infringement.
Sales numbers and visual similarities are obviously part of the equation. But according to TPC’s former Chief Legal Officer Don McGowan, one of other big factors that plays into how fanmade projects wind up on Nintendo’s radar entertainment press coverage.
While everyone was getting worked up about the announcement of the next Pokémon game, the Toyota Engineering Society was busy working on a special project to create a life-sized Miraidon, the motorcycle-like legendary dragon mascot from Pokémon Violet.
Even though we’ll probably never get a chance to see the thing actually zooming around, it’s still cool as hell seeing it come together in this video about the collaboration.
Pokémon Horizons brings a refreshing new energy to the anime franchise by amping up the action and making the larger Pokémon world feel like a more cohesive place.
