10 million people sleep with Pokémon

And Paldea arrives in Pokémon GO

Author

Cooltrainer Ace
August 31, 2023 • Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes

We’re less than two weeks away from The Teal Mask DLC and approximately 634 days, 2 hours and 15 minutes away from Gen 10’s release. My uncle works at Nintendo, don’t question me. Until then, let’s get into the news!

Here’s this week’s rundown (estimated read time, 4 minutes):

  • Paldea Pokémon coming to the next season of GO.

  • An overview of Ultra Unlock: Paldea.

  • Pokémon Sleep hits 10 million downloads.

A Paldean Adventure in Pokémon GO

Move over Galar (and dozens of Pokémon, including the Galarian starters that have yet to debut in GO) — Paldea is here!

In a surprising announcement, the Paldea starters apparently leapfrogged poor Scorbunny, Sobble and Grookey to enter Pokémon GO. The upcoming season named Adventures Abound runs from September 1st at 10 a.m. through December 1st at 10 a.m. and features several Pokémon from the Paldea region.

Spoiler alert: ICYMI, Community Day Classic this weekend is going to be (insert sad horn sound effect here) Charmander. Yay.

The first batch will be available during the event “A Paldean Adventure” running from Tuesday, September 5, at 10 a.m. to Sunday, September 10, at 10 a.m. local time.

  • The Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly lines (available in 5 km eggs after the event)

  • Lechonk (shiny unlocked and available in 2 km eggs after the event) and its evolution, Oinkologne.

The following is a list of Pokémon available as Research Breakthrough encounters (all shiny unlocked). For a full list of seasonal rotations in different environments, go here.

  • Galarian Farfetch’d

  • Larvitar

  • Sableye

  • Bagon

  • Furfrou

  • Goomy

Other seasonal highlights

  • A free special research story with branching paths allowing you to chose one of the Paldean starters

  • A free Timed Investigation to earn another Master Ball (must be completed by Tuesday, November 21, at 8 p.m. local time

  • Sept. 2 Community Day Classic featuring… Charmander again.

  • Shadow Zapdos appearing in Shadow Raids

  • Kartana, Celesteela in 5-Star Raids (Sept. 1-16) and Mega Manectric in Mega Raids.

  • Routes and Showcases will continue.

Ultra Unlock: Paldea

In addition, the following are set to debut during Ultra Unlock: Paldea which runs from Sunday, September 10 at 10 a.m. to Friday, September 15, at 8 p.m. local time.

  • Nymble and Lokix

  • Pawmi, Pawmo, and Pawmot

  • Bombirdier (shiny unlocked)

  • Frigibax (also available via 10 km eggs after the event), Arctibax, and Baxcalibur

More about the Ultra Unlock

  • Trainers can find Gimmighoul Coins if they spin PokéStops (Roaming Form Gimmighoul won’t appear without Golden Lure Modules, though).

  • 4x Catch XP

  • 4x Stardust

  • A, D, E, L and P-shaped Unown in One-Star Raids — don’t tell anyone but I literally just discovered that it’s spelled “Unown” and not “Unknown”

  • Increased spawn rates for Hoppip, Houndour, Buizel and Fletchling.

  • Turtonator, Kleavor and Bombirdier in Three-Star Raids.

  • Paldean starters and Lechonk available in 7 km eggs.

  • Pawmi encounters for Field Research Tasks.

Pokémon fans ain’t snoozing on Sleep

That’s right, 10 million people have downloaded the Pokémon Sleep app since it’s launch just over a month ago. Is that good? Bad? How many of them have caught shiny Metapods? How many of them are actually sleeping better?

These are answers we may never. One thing we do know is how this launch stacks up against other Pokémon apps:

  • The Arceus of all Pokémon apps, GO hit 100 million downloads in its first month, riding that hype train hard. Ah, simpler times. (Try not to think too hard that babies born when GO released are now in first grade.)

  • Pokémon Smile, the toothbrushing augmented reality app to teach kids how to brush their teeth, hit ~629,000 downloads in month one.

  • Pokémon Café Mix had 2.9 million downloads after a moon cycle.

  • Magikarp Jump, the humble tap-tappy game hit 10 million downloads in 2 months.

  • And, last but not least in this app-launch list, Pokémon Masters EX reached 12 million downloads after month one.

For a game that’s mostly a sleep tracker, not too shabby I’d say. The reviews are good too, with the only real complaint being that the app sometimes doesn’t track sleep accurately.

Personally, I won’t be playing until I don’t have to stick my phone physically next to me in bed even though I’m intrigued by the concept of Sleep with a capital “s”. Maybe the next Pokéball Plus-Minus-Equals will be a wrist device you wear to track your sleep and spin PokéStops?

To celebrate the milestone, the game is giving away a Commemorative Gift in-game (sorry, it’s not replica Ash pajamas) and hosting a “Good Sleep Day” event now through Friday, September 1.

The Ten Million Download Commemorative Gift is available for all users, and contains the following things I know nothing about:

  • Sleep Points ×1,000

  • Good Camp Ticket ×1​

  • Poké Biscuits ×5

  • Ingredient Ticket S ×3

Card of the Week

In honor of the last Victory Road email before Labor Day, here’s Lapras from Obsidian Flames, chilling in the lake and living its best life.

Random encounters around the internet

Obscure Pokémon Fact of the Day (from u/Mx_Toniy_4869)

Until next time,
Cooltrainer “sobbing for Sobble” Ace