Pokemon Company Announces Price Increases for Pokemon TCG in Japan

[Frost]

the 2020 Pokémon Bubble has popped. Big stores like Target are struggling to sale any Pokémon products and they want to raise prices hahahaha

where tho

The secondary market is worse than it's ever been right now with buyouts and price hiking, especially on alt art cards which get set at $100-200+ with the release of new sets and just sit there unchanging for months. Evolving Skies is now one of the most terrifying sets to complete of all time and they are still printing it. None of this implies a bubble has popped in the slightest.

I live in New York and my Target is still cleaned out within a couple days anytime there's restocks of anything. Any set, any product. Even garbage shelf warmers like the Family Box.

 

[Chris_the_hammer]

where tho

The secondary market is worse than it's ever been right now with buyouts and price hiking, especially on alt art cards which get set at $100-200+ with the release of new sets and just sit there unchanging for months. Evolving Skies is now one of the most terrifying sets to complete of all time and they are still printing it. None of this implies a bubble has popped in the slightest.

I live in New York and my Target is still cleaned out within a couple days anytime there's restocks of anything. Any set, any product. Even garbage shelf warmers like the Family Box.

Stop acting like your area is the indicator for the entire country or world. Booster box prices have not been gouged for multiple sets now and most stores have packs on a regular basis. If your area still has trouble keeping them in stock then simply buy online. The bubble popped, it’s a fact, end of story

 

[Nirvanna21]

It's a mixed back here in NZ, as long as you avoid the likes of EB Games or well... any big brand store, you can find loads of products at MSRP for newer stuff. Even the zard UPC had a nice bulk available once allocations came through, noticed quite a few pre-orders for actual allocations open for over a week in some cases with some continuing to be available. TLDR, avoid big brand stores.

 

[Frost]

If the bubble is over I sure wish the secondary market would catch up because I'm tired of the nightmare timeline that TCGPlayer has become. ?

 

[Flygonite]

Doesnt matter. People will buy everything anyway

There's a massive difference regarding TCG culture in Japan than in the West. There's dozens of niche TCGs that can live in Japan (Weiss Schwarz for example) thanks to the accumulation of people living in Tokyo. If the playerbase thinks the game is getting too expensive, they will drop it.

 

[FittBoy]

stuff like this just highlights how much more affordable and better value the japanese tcg is locally compared to the international product. even at the new price of 180y per 5 card pack that works out to around $2.50 USD for 2 packs - already cheaper for the same amount of cards - and the JP packs have a holo minimum in about 1 in every 2 packs. for a little more than the cost of one sealed US booster you could buy 3 japanese ones and hit 3 full art or better guaranteed, with about 12 Vs and 6 VSTAR/VMAX on top where an english box would be lucky to have half of that. not to mention that print quality and consistency still manages to be much better, japan's minimum wage is the exact same as the US, so while buying japanese cards currently is probably not as great value because of shipping, the japanese market proves we can get the same if not better content without the level of markup international buyers are subject to

I understand your frustration with the quality of the cards produced by the international company. It's unfortunate that the cards are not as high quality as they were in the past, and I can understand why you would be unhappy about this. I also wondering for 1999 Charizard pokemon card and checking it's prices on different sites.

However, it's also important to keep in mind that companies may have different priorities and challenges that impact their operations. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on many businesses and industries, including the production and distribution of trading cards. It's possible that the company has had to make changes to their operations due to the pandemic, which may have led to some of the quality issues you are encountering.