The physical Pokémon Trading Card Game has been printing money for the last few years, riding a speculative bubble that shows no signs of stopping. However, trouble could be brewing for its digital sibling. As Pokémon TCG Pocket‘s player numbers and sales keep dipping, developer DeNA appears to be looking for a new lifeline. According to Japanese media Nikkei, that lifeline might be artificial intelligence.
DeNA’s net profit actually tripled to 33.4 billion yen (around £154 million) last quarter. It’s all thanks to the stock market listing of the Japanese taxi app GO, and it has nothing to do with games. The actual games business had a much rougher quarter; revenue down by 33% and profit down by a brutal 62%.
Reportedly, this is caused by sales for the company’s biggest hit, Pokémon TCG Pocket, that continue to decline year-on-year. The game currently averages 23 million monthly active users, down from 39 million a year ago — a loss of 16 million players in just 12 months. In late July, DeNA made some major changes to counter its player base problem. It introduced a pity system for pack openings — guaranteeing better card pulls after enough bad ones — and fixed a loophole that made players keep re-earning duplicate cards.
Revenue, though, has cratered hard despite that effort. Pokémon TCG Pocket made around $235 million in its launch month back in November 2024, but by April 2026 that had shrunk to just $31.4 million. Not bad for a game that often appears near the top of the Play Store charts, but a brutal comedown nonetheless.
“DeNA is often asked if its main businesses are games and sports, but our core business is a ‘business creation factory’ that continuously generates and grows new businesses,” said DeNA’s President Tomoko Nanba during a press conference. She added that one avenue for growth is investing in B2B services that leverage generative AI.
Globally, the company is known for developing Final Fantasy Record Keeper and various Nintendo-brand mobile games including Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, and of course, Pokémon Masters and TCG Pocket. But in Japan, it’s also famous for its sports portfolio, owning the Yokohama DeNA Baystars baseball team, Kawasaki Brave Thunders basketball team, and S.C.Sagamihara football club.
But according to Nikkei’s report, Japanese analysts are skeptical about DeNA’s ‘AI pivot’ plan. Toyo Research’s Hideki Yasuda said that any payoff from new business ventures ‘is years away,’ and noted that this strategy update was light on specifics. No medium-term profit targets, nothing especially new versus what’s been said before.
Whether AI startups could turn into DeNA’s a genuine second wind or just another trend of tech companies throwing buzzwords, the result is still up in the air.
