Vol. 3, Issue 11 - Sarah's Pokémon Center New York Memories
The memories of a Pokémon fan called Sarah, highlighting her visits to the Pokémon Center New York store. Plus, a recap of the latest Pokémon news, and another community spotlight
Welcome to another issue of Johto Times! In Vol. 3, issue 11, we are sharing the memories of a Pokémon fan called Sarah. She looks back to her time visiting the Pokémon Center New York store. Plus, we have a recap of the latest Pokémon news and another Community Spotlight!
News
Niantic has confirmed the sale of their games business to video-game developer and publisher Scopely, which includes Pokémon GO. The deal, which is valued at $3.5 billion, also includes Pikmin Bloom, Monster Hunter Now, and social companion apps Campfire and Wayfarer. The development teams of these applications are also part of the acquisition.
Ed Wu, the person who leads the Pokémon Go team at Niantic, wrote a statement on Niantic’s website yesterday confirming the news. He expressed his fond memories of working on the game since 2016, and states that he believes the partnership with Scopely "will be a positive step" for players and the game's future. He went on to confirm that he and the entire Pokémon GO team will be staying together through the partnership.
In a blog post by Scopely, Tim O'Brien, Chief Revenue Officer and Board Member of the company, stated that "few games in the world have delivered the scale and longevity of Pokémon GO" and that Scopely "look forward to a bright future ahead". The blog post goes on to confirm that Niantic will "spin off" its technology platform into Niantic Spatial Inc, a geospatial AI Company, powered by "a next generation map, enabling devices and machines to understand and interact with the physical world".
Back in November, Niantic released a statement confirming it was building a large geospatial model to achieve spatial intelligence.
Source: Pokémon GO, Scopely
Back in January this year, we reported that the Pokémon Center store in Hiroshima was closing this month and reopening on the second floor of Ekie, near the north exit of Hiroshima Station. It has now been announced that the store will reopen on April 11th, 2025, featuring a Pokémon TCG area inside and a special Gyarados Plaza outside. The store will also feature a range of exclusive merchandise, including a jacket and plush featuring Shiny Gyarados and Pikachu.
Source: Pokémon, Toy-people
Niantic has detailed their Pokémon GO Fest 2025 event, which is taking place between March 29th, 2025 to June 1st, 2025 in Osaka, June 6th, 2025 to June 8th, 2025 in Jersey City, and June 13th,2025 to June 15th, 2025 in Paris. A global event will take place on June 28th, 2025 and June 29th, 2025. This event will introduce Volcanion into the game. People who purchase their tickets for the event via the Pokémon GO Web Store will receive some battle passes, rare candies, and max revives. Interested players can find full details on the event on the official Pokémon GO website.
Source: Pokémon GO
Feature: Sarah's Pokémon Center New York Memories
The Pokémon Center New York store is a location we are huge fans of here at Johto Times, so it’s always great to hear more about the experiences that fans had visiting it. In this feature, we are sharing the memories of a Pokémon fan called Sarah and what she remembers from visiting the store, as well as a special item from the store that means a lot to her.
I was smack-dab in the target audience for Pokémon when Pokémania hit the world, yet somehow I avoided getting into it during its apex of pop culture dominance. I think I had a Pikachu plush, but that was the extent of it. Then Hoenn came along, and I saw a bookmark being offered at the school library that had Kyogre on it. Finding out there was an orca Pokémon won me over near-immediately.
Sapphire was my first game, naturally, and I devoured a lot of Pokémon media including games and the anime. I perused a lot of the Pokémon fan sites that have been chronicled here, such as The Cave of Dragonflies and TRsRockin. My favourite was The Secret Pikachu Hangout [previously a website, no longer online], whose admin was my closest friend for many years (we still talk every once in a while).
Perhaps of the most interest to Pokémon history in my life was having regular access to the Pokémon Center. As a lifelong New Jerseyan, New York City is a hop and a skip away rather than an elusive Xanadu, which isn’t a geographical privilege to take for granted. I loved buying Pokémon plushies there (along with nagging my mother to buy ones from eBay), and I remember my first plushies as a Pokémon addict were a set of eight from the Pokémon Center that included Pikachu and Psyduck.
Alas, I do not have many of my old Pokémon plushies anymore, nor do I have any pictures of the Center itself, but I do have my most cherished memento. I already had a Kyogre plush which my mother bought from a defunct Hawaiian store, but my parents bought me a second Kyogre as a surprise gift. This was a PokéDoll from the Pokémon Center, and due to his chibi proportions I nicknamed the new plush “Baby Kyogre” or “BK”. I even liked to portray him as his own character of sorts, basically a wunderkind, and he completely stole the thunder from my first Kyogre plush (which I no longer have).
I have other Pokémon Center memories, including obtaining special event Pokémon such as Deoxys, it being where I got Super Smash Bros. Melee (I only had interest due to the Pokémon and it kick-started my interest in other Nintendo franchises) and my dad waited in line to get FireRed and LeafGreen for me a few weeks ahead of its full statewide launch. The coolest memory was attending a trivia contest. [The way it worked was] all the participants were in a line, and everyone answered one question at a time. If you got it wrong, you were eliminated.
The last question I was given, I got wrong – it was about what Jessie valued the most, and I guessed her Arbok, but the correct answer was her hair. Luckily, everyone else was eliminated already, so I was still declared the winner. The grand prize was Pokémon Box, serendipitously one of the few Pokémon games I didn’t have.
I’ve been consistently on the Pokémon train ever since, [save for] a brief span where I forced myself to lose interest due to bullying. I still really wanted Diamond/Pearl deep down, and thankfully, Pokémon’s gravity on me won out in the end. Admittedly, the more recent games haven’t really held my interest, but I’ll always cherish the characters and the sprite era of games. I still visit the former Pokémon Center (now Nintendo New York) every once in a while, and in late 2024 I bought plushies of Pichu and a Statue of Liberty Pikachu, while my girlfriend bought a Charizard.
Special thanks to Sarah for providing her memories of Pokémon and sharing those great photographs of her Kyogre plush! We hope those cherished memories will continue to be of great comfort to her in the years ahead!
Community Spotlight: PocketMonsters.net
This week, we are recommending another great Pokémon fansite called PocketMonsters.net, which dates back to 2005. This database-driven site features a huge resource of information about Pokémon and covers news about the Pokémon anime, TCG, and more. One of its founders, Sunain, has been supporting the editing of Johto Times since January 2025. But even before then I have used it to keep up-to-date with the latest Pokémon news and have always appreciated its attention to detail and accuracy. Johto Times did an interview with the site last year, if you’d like to learn more about it for yourself. It's highly recommended, and I hope you’ll consider checking it out!
Visit: PocketMonsters.net
That’s all for this week’s issue! If you enjoy what Johto Times provides, be sure to share our newsletter with your friends and loved ones to help us reach even more Pokémon fans. For Discord users, you’re welcome to join our server for the latest notifications from our project. We are still open to sharing your mailbag entries, so if you have anything you would like to share with us, drop us a line by visiting this link to contact us directly!
Kyogre is a great Pokémon!
It was so cool hearing about Sarah's memories from the old store, and I love seeing such a loved Kyogre plush!