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New system would prevent non-residents from buying certain items from Pok\u00e9mon Center Online<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Scalping is becoming an increasingly big problem for the Pok\u00e9mon<\/strong> franchise in Japan, and we\u2019ve been seeing increasingly inventive attempts to counter resellers\u2019 attempts to snatch up in-demand items and flip them for profit, such as stores making shoppers pass a Pok\u00e9mon<\/em> quiz<\/a> before they can make a purchase or taking scissors to the packaging<\/a> afterwards. Now the Pok\u00e9mon Company<\/strong> itself is considering possibly the strictest measure yet: requiring would-be Pok\u00e9mon card buyers to show a government-issued ID card before buying packs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n While Pok\u00e9mon<\/em> is an even bigger deal in its home country than in the many other nations around the world where it\u2019s phenomenally popular, this wouldn\u2019t be a card issued by the Japanese government specifically for Pok\u00e9-purchases. In a statement posted to the official Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game website on Thursday, the company says that it is looking into requiring buyers to confirm their identity via their My Number Card<\/strong>. Introduced in 2016, the My Number Card is an ID card that includes the bearer\u2019s name, address, date of birth and photo, along with a 12-digit unique personal identification number.<\/p>\n As of 2021, My Number Cards also include an embedded IC chip<\/strong>, and it\u2019s this technological feature that the Pok\u00e9mon Company wants to apply to the purchase of Pok\u00e9mon<\/em> cards via the Pok\u00e9mon Center Online<\/strong>, the Pok\u00e9mon<\/em> franchise\u2019s official online store. Under the system, would-be buyers would use a third-party service to read their My Number Card\u2019s IC chip and confirm their identify, after which they would be authorized to make the applicable purchases.<\/p>\n \u25bc A My Number Card interfacing with a smartphone<\/p>\n The Pok\u00e9mon Company isn\u2019t planning to make My Number Card verification a requirement for any and all online purchases, but the announcement says it would be applied to \u201cthe purchase and lottery registration for certain items,\u201d<\/strong> most likely referring to new releases and high-demand items (which are often offered through a lottery system in which purchase rights are randomly awarded if demand is expected to be much greater than supply).<\/p>\n Ostensibly, this system would allow the Pok\u00e9mon Company to more easily identify scalpers who are buying in bulk and block them from making further purchases. However, there are other groups which would also be shut out from making purchases by a My Number requirement, starting with people who aren\u2019t Japanese residents<\/strong>. My Number Cards are only issued to Japanese citizens and foreign residents of Japan, so tourists or overseas shoppers would be out of luck. This might actually be an intended effect of the system, though, as there\u2019s a perception in Japan that foreign resellers make up a sizable portion of the scalper demographic.<\/p>\n Non-residents wouldn\u2019t be the only ones affected by this system, though<\/strong>. Japanese citizens\/residents aren\u2019t legally required to have a My Number Card, and need to file application paperwork in order to obtain one. As such, there\u2019s a portion of the Japanese population that doesn\u2019t have a My Number Card yet, and simply uses other forms of ID, such as a driver\u2019s license, insurance card, or foreign resident card, instead. My Number Cards also aren\u2019t normally issued to children under 15 (though that probably won\u2019t make a difference for buying things from the Pok\u00e9mon Center Online, since kids that young won\u2019t have their own credit card either).<\/p>\n The Pok\u00e9mon Company says it\u2019s also planning to make My Number Card identification verification a requirement for registration for certain official Pok\u00e9mon Card Game<\/em> tournaments in Japan<\/strong>. This seems like it could present a problem for younger competitors, but it\u2019s likely that official registration requires a parent or guardian\u2019s consent, and so the adult\u2019s My Number Card would be used as a proxy form of identification.<\/p>\n The Pok\u00e9mon Company\u2019s announcement says that the goal of the My Number system would be to \u201censure fair opportunities and safe, secure service to all customers,\u201d and while the Pok\u00e9mon Card Game<\/em> website says that they are \u201clooking into the introduction\u201d of the system, the Pok\u00e9mon Company\u2019s official Twitter account is firmer in its declaration that they \u201care planning to introduce\u201d a My Number Card requirement. The system is projected to be in place as early as August, and with application processing time sometimes taking up to two months, passionate fans will need to get their paperwork started soon.<\/p>\n Source: Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game official website<\/a>, Pok\u00e9mon Company official Twitter account<\/a> via Kinisoku<\/a><\/em> New system would prevent non-residents from buying certain items from Pok\u00e9mon Center Online. Scalping is becoming an increasingly big problem for the Pok\u00e9mon franchise in Japan, and we\u2019ve been seeing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/4_179648.jpg?w=640\")
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