Pokémon TCG Pocket’s Space-Time Smackdown will shift to 2000s nostalgia with 140+ new cards

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Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket’s next pack expansion is launching on January 30th, 2025, set to add a new batch of Pokémon, new Trainer cards, and the first new Immersive Cards since the game’s release.

Titled Space-Time Smackdown, the expansion will feature Pokémon from the Sinnoh region of Generation 4, set to enter TCG Pocket just as revenue has hit a record low.

Sinnoh surprise

A popular era of Pokémon history that debuted on the Nintendo DS in 2006, Sinnoh has returned to the spotlight over recent years in Nintendo Switch games Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl and Legends: Arceus.

Flagship Legendary Pokémon Palkia and Dialga will serve as the faces of two distinct booster packs in Pocket’s Space-Time Smackdown expansion, being deities of space and time respectively. Their packs will contain a range of new cards including Sinnoh starters Turtwig, Chimchar and Piplup.

Sinnoh Pokémon have also been prevalent in various Pokémon Go events like Timeless Travels and the aptly named Pokémon Go Tour: Sinnoh.

Furthermore, Pocket developer DeNA celebrated the fifth anniversary of its other mobile Pokémon game, Pokémon Masters, by making a rare and powerful new iteration of Sinnoh Champion Cynthia available in its gacha.

This all suggests that The Pokémon Company and DeNA realise the revenue potential of Sinnoh, and as such have jumped straight to Generation 4 despite Pocket’s first two expansions, Genetic Apex and Mythical Island, both having focused on Generation 1.

While Generation 1 is often Pokémon’s go-to for nostalgia-driven revenue, Pocket already features all 151 original Pokémon, and many of the cards featured in Mythical Island are the same creatures with different artwork.

By shifting focus to Generation 4, Pocket will next target a slightly different faction of the Pokémon audience with more nostalgia for the mid-2000s, plus newcomers experiencing Sinnoh for the first time on Switch throughout the 2020s.

Spending surge incoming?

Pokémon Pocket’s next expansion has been revealed during the game’s worst-performing month since its global launch, with just $57.3 million in gross player spending so far this January, according to AppMagic figures.

That comes to an average of $2.6 million per day, with a peak of almost $3.9 million on January 4th and a low of less than $1.6 million on January 22nd.

By comparison, Pocket generated $168 million in the full month of December, with an average of $5.4 million per day. The month peaked at $8.7 million on December 21st, currently its best-performing day.

This record was hit four days after the Mythical Island expansion debuted on December 17th, though only featuring 86 new cards, the pack has evidently failed to sustain player spending more than a few weeks on.

Space-Time Smackdown will feature more than 140 new cards, almost double Mythical Island but still fewer than launch set Genetic Apex’s 286.

Already the second-biggest mobile Pokémon game, Pokémon TCG Pocket has made $438 million to date, $400 million of which was earned in its first 10 weeks.