Some rivalries you just can’t let go, even if one side has clearly outpaced the other. There’s Nintendo vs. Sega, Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake, and of course, Pokémon vs. Digimon. Bandai Namco’s monster tamer series hasn’t kept the vice grip on pop culture that Nintendo’s has, but Digimon has been respectably trucking along with all manner of games, anime and products for a dedicated audience. These days, Digimon is mostly doing its own thing. But, it’s about to release its own mobile card game app to compete with Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket.
A teaser for the new game was posted on the official Digimon Trading Card Game social media channels, where the fox-like Digimon Renamon picks up a smartphone and is digitized and sucked into the device. The screen then states that more information will be available at Digimon Con, a dedicated live stream taking place on March 19 at 11 p.m. Eastern. The teaser is vague, so we don’t know if this will be an official digital platform to play the modern card game, or if it will have gacha mechanics similar to Pokémon TCG Pocket. But either way, Digimon is about to enter the card game app market again.
While Pokémon has had one major TCG for 30 years, Digimon has had multiple iterations of a card game over the decades, the current one launched in 2020.
Outside of the card game app, we’ll hopefully hear more about upcoming Digimon anime and video game projects like Digimon Story: Time Stranger coming later this year. Right now, there is no active Digimon anime on TV after Ghost Game ended in 2023, so it would be cool if we heard about a new series later this week.