Ahead of The Pokémon Trading Card Game’s Jan. 17 release date for Scarlet and Violet—Prismatic Evolutions, The Pokémon Company is addressing a product shortage that’s already happening. Though the set hasn’t been released yet, preorders sell out almost immediately, and it’s been hard for even the most dedicated Pokémon collectors to get their hands on the new packs. A report from Pokémon Trading Card Game site PokéBeach suggested U.S. stores are receiving “less than 10% to 15%” of what they’ve requested.
“We’re aware that some fans may experience difficulties purchasing certain Pokémon Trading Card Game: Scarlet & Violet—Prismatic Evolutions products at launch due to high demand impacting availability,“ Pokémon TCG posted to X. ”We understand this inconvenience can be disappointing to fans, and we are actively working to print more of the impacted Pokémon TCG products as quicky as possible and at maximum capacity to acknowledge this.”
This isn’t a new problem for The Pokémon Company; it’s been hard to get Pokémon cards for years now, following a major resurgence in interest in 2020. The Pokémon Company has been ramping up production dramatically over the past several years. It had produced 1 to 2 billion cards per year, but ramped that up to 3.7 billion in 2020. From 2021 to 2022, it more than doubled that number, printing more than 9 billion cards, per data from the company. The next year, the number of printed cards increased once again, to nearly 10 billion. It should be no surprise the trend continued into 2024, where 12 billion cards were printed, bringing the total number of cards printed since the trading card game was first published to 64.8 billion.
To put these monumental numbers into scope, as Pokémon expert and creator of website Serebii Joe Merrick wrote on X, that means that 18% of all Pokémon cards ever printed were released in the 2023-2024 fiscal year. The Pokémon Company continues to break its own printing records year after year, and there’s still a shortage: Pokémon cards are still as valuable and in-demand as ever. Part of this is the idea the Pokémon cards can make you rich, and part of this is a huge number of fans and trading card game players. But The Pokémon Company doesn’t appear to care about creating scarcity; it’s inclined to flood the market so that everyone who wants the cards can have them. Back in 2022, Pokémon card grader Charlie Hurlocker told Polygon that the printing boost was working.
It has made a difference over the years, but The Pokémon Company still seems keen to print those problems away.
Source：https://www.polygon.com/pokemon/509269/scarlet-violet-pokemon-prismatic-evolutions-tcg-shortage
