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Triple Beat arrives in the US and Pokémon is hiring for the metaverse

The latest Pokémon news, updates, and trending stories

Sup Pokéfans,

We got our first shipments of Scarlet & Violet Triple Beat and we might be getting a little high on our own supply. We've got a great bundle for those looking to rip and ship. You might be too once you check the raw prices 👀.

BTW this week the Pokémon Company opened a role in their innovation department focused on NFTs and the metaverse. We've got some thoughts, but we also encourage anyone to apply. The role sits only 2 steps away from president Ishihara. Dang. Go get that money!

Happy collecting from your friends at Mystery Poke Slabs.

The Pokémon Company is hiring for a division focused on NFTs and the metaverse

TPC is hiring for the not insignificant role of Corporate Development Principal (see: LinkedIn). One of the key requirements is "Deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3, including blockchain technologies and NFT, and/or metaverse". A few thoughts (it's complicated).

By all accounts, we are in a deep trough in the hype cycle of all things "web3" and metaverse. The headlines are bad bad. Meta is famously burning through billions—not to mention tens of thousands of laid off employees—trying to make it a thing. But it's worth noting that Facebook was starting from zero. Pokémon already has a universe to work with, and more importantly a mobile game in which people touch ACTUAL grass trying to track down a digital character. From a collector's standpoint, this doesn't pose any existential risk. The cards aren't going anywhere, and TPC made that very clear with the announcement Pokémon Classic during Pokémon Presents. If there's anything that makes us squeamish it's that Pokémon is an IP very much geared to kids, and historically NFTs have very much lost a lot of people a lot of money. But we have faith in the integrity of TPC, so we're taking a wait-and-see approach. If the job seems right for you, send in that application. We'd love to have a member of the community two steps away from the president 😉.

Scarlet & Violet Triple Beat are hitting the marketplaces and #@ly $H!#!!!

Scarlet & Violet Triple(t) Beat released in the US a week ago. People are ripping and so are the prices. We knew the trainers were gonna pop but damn. The sales volume hasn't been enough yet for the averages to hit Pricecharting, but poke.metro on Instagram has put together a list that tracks with what dealers are reporting. The art rares don't typically command crazy prices early but even the Magikarp (swoon 🤤) is holding its weight. All in all, the Paldea starter set is beautiful. Our readers know we've been obsessed with the art. It's time to start chasing.

Moment of WTF: ok, so you've had a minute to digest the prices. Now consider that Triple Beat has been here for a week. Grading takes SEVERAL weeks on average (only 2 if you grade with us 😉). So yeah, these are the raw cards.

🔌 Scroll down ⬇️ for a booster box and grading bundle we're running while we can have 'em in stock.

How it started vs how it's going Penn Badgley edition (spoiler: it's going better)

Penn Badgley, ex-Gossip Girl current-You star recently revealed on the Capital Breakfast podcast that his not-so-big break in a promotional Trainer Video from 1999. In this straight-to-VHS classic, Penn educated a room full of grown-ups how to play Pokémon. It's definitely more nostalgic then cringe. And let's be honest, at this age I was probably thinking my baking soda and vinegar volcano was gonna impress the babes.

As Penn puts it, even back then TPC was a little concerned that people were only collecting and not playing.

I think in America at least [the Pokémon Company] realized that nobody was learning how to play the game and they were only trading. That probably had something to do with, let’s be honest, they wanted more money. We need people to play the game and not just trade the cards arbitrarily. And so this was a training video that was probably on VHS.

Penn Badgley on Capital Breakfast

Take a trip down memory lane. No VCR needed.

ChatGPT 4 is (rather) successfully able to convert Pokémon Emerald into a text-based game 🤯

Yes, we know, there's enough ChatGPT news out there. WE KNOW. But, what if we told you this one was cool. With nothing more than an initial prompt of "Can you simulate what Pokemon Emerald would be like if it could be played via command-line interface?", Twitter user @DanDangond was able to start a journey towards generating a chat-based version of the game. Sure it's not perfect but this thing was released 3 days ago. Follow Dan's thread if you want the specifics.

Most excitingly, this opens up a very near future of incredible possibilities. To draw a metaphor from D&D, you kinda don't need a Dungeon Master anymore. That friend can join the other side of the adventure. Perhaps even more exciting is that this opens the possibility for asynchronous gaming amongst friends. As we've gotten older (and busier) getting together to play games, even online, can be a bit difficult. But when the game is entirely on-demand, you can get to it when you're able and not lose your place. The future is cool.

BUNDLE IT BABY

Rip it and ship it. Protect your pristine cards and turn them into slabs

Now that it's settled in that those Triple Beat prices are raw cards, just imagine the CGC 10s. Hell, imagine a 9. A card is never more valuable than when it's hardly touched. Consider the bundle. An SW

Video of the Week

It's apparently a good week for revisiting VHS in the attack

Until next time 👋