{"id":197371,"date":"2026-02-28T01:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T01:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/197371\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T01:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T01:38:10","slug":"pokemon-day-draws-crowds-to-nintendo-store-in-san-francisco-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/197371\/","title":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon Day draws crowds to Nintendo Store in San Francisco \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking back, 1996 was a momentous time for video games. It\u2019s the year \u201cResident Evil\u201d launched<\/a> and \u201cSuper Mario 64\u201d won Game of the Year in several publications. Lara Croft\u2019s first adventure impressed everyone on PlayStation, and the first \u201cPok\u00e9mon\u201d<\/a> game launched on the Game Boy.<\/p>\n

The series focused on pocket monsters has easily surpassed all of them when it comes to the highest-grossing media franchise across games, merchandise and more, according to experts. Today, on its 30th anniversary, The Pok\u00e9mon Company had several announcements highlighted by the latest upcoming entries to the main series games \u2013 \u201cPok\u00e9mon Winds\u201d and \u201cPok\u00e9mon Waves.\u201d <\/p>\n

Coming in 2027, the two titles feature three new starters, Browt, Pombon and Gecqua, and it\u2019s also only coming to the Nintendo Switch 2. That means fans will have to upgrade to play a game that looks more impressive and hopefully runs smoothly on the new console.
\"A<\/a>The Game Music Collection: Game Boy Jukebox features the music from the original game and sold for $69.99. (Gieson Cacho\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0
\nCROWDS AT THE NINTENDO STORE
At the Nintendo Store in San Francisco<\/a>, fans had lined up around the block to check out the new gear for the 30th anniversary. It includes hats, ornaments, tumblers, lanyards and shirts, but by far, the most sought-after item was the Game Music Collection: Game Boy Jukebox that featured a small replica of the iconic hand-held along with 45 cartridges that play music from the iconic original. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re from San Jose, and we got a hotel room so we can be here at the crack of dawn,\u201d said Rhees Crouse, of San Jose. He said he has been playing since the original and couldn\u2019t resist an opportunity to spend the day at the store.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re Pok\u00e9mon superfans,\u201d he said. \u201cI told my boss, \u2018I\u2019m taking the day off, and there\u2019s no way you can tell me no.’\u201d <\/p>\n

He picked up the Jukebox and was in line for some of the other events, which included a photo-op where fans could take photos behind a map of their favorite region. Elsewhere, Pok\u00e9mon fans lined up for posters that featured 1,025 pocket monsters discovered so far. <\/p>\n

Jorge Apanco, from Mexico, used to play competitively but said, \u201cI stopped playing years ago\u201d as he grew older. That didn\u2019t stop him from visiting the Nintendo Store to check out the merchandise and partake in the festivities.
\"The<\/a>The Nintendo Store in San Francisco released some of its 30th anniversary Pokemon merchandise. (Gieson Cacho\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0
\nOTHER POKEMON TITLES
Beyond the festivities in the store, Nintendo also released \u201cPok\u00e9mon FireRed Version\u201d and \u201cPok\u00e9mon LeafGreen\u201d version oon the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. The games are 2004 Game Boy Advance ports of the original titles. Even Stern Pinball got into the act and developed a Pok\u00e9mon pinball machine. It\u2019s a beautiful machine that captures the spirit of the games. <\/a>
The festivities will continue further next week with the release of \u201cPok\u00e9mon Pokopia\u201d on March 5. It\u2019s a cozy-style game, in which players take on the role of a Ditto that builds a Pok\u00e9mon village from the groundup. It\u2019s reported to be a blend on \u201cMinecraft,\u201d \u201cAnimal Crossing\u201d and \u201cViva Pinata.\u201d <\/p>\n

When it comes to \u201cPok\u00e9mon Go,\u201d the popular mobile game will be bringing back MewTwo as part of the 30th anniversary along with Pok\u00e9mon from the Kanto region, running from March 3 to March 9. It\u2019s been a long time since Mewtwo was available in the game. Even bigger than that, from March 7 to March 9, the game will be holding an All Out event, which will feature most Pok\u00e9mon that has appeared in the game. That\u2019s a lot. It doesn\u2019t include Mythicals, Ultra Beasts and certain species that require special requirements to capture. The Ultra Beasts and some legendaries will be in Five-Star Raids. <\/p>\n

Looking ahead, San Francisco will be home to the 2026 Pok\u00e9mon World Championships and the inaugural Pok\u00e9monXP fan experience, which will be held Aug. 28 to Aug. 30. Fans can register their interest in picking up tickets for the event from April 2 to April 23. That will put them on a list for a chance to purchase a multi-day pass to PokemonXP and the World Championships. Those who don\u2019t get a multi-day pass can still have a chance to attend via a single-day interest list coming in the summer. More details are here. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Looking back, 1996 was a momentous time for video games. It\u2019s the year \u201cResident Evil\u201d launched and \u201cSuper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[967,181,101,103,102,104,106,105,420,16158],"class_list":{"0":"post-197371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news","16":"tag-things-to-do","17":"tag-video-games"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}