The Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Shiny Koraidon & Shiny Miraidon event sparked outrage after many fans couldn’t get codes. However, GameStop is now blaming The Pokémon Company for the Shiny distribution event having problems.
GameStop Says The Pokémon Company Restricted Shiny Koraidon & Miraidon Codes
When the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Shiny Koraidon & Miraidon event went live on September 26, it was a mess. European stores were delaying the distribution indefinitely, and GameStop ran out of codes within hours. However, players became outraged when GameStop did a second round of Shiny Koraidon & Miraidon giveaways in October, and it was revealed that each store only had 50 codes per location.
The question many Pokémon fans asked was: why can’t they just print more codes? However, according to GameStop, it was The Pokémon Company’s decision to limit each store to only 50 codes. The gaming retailer made the claim in an exchange with Pokémon outlet Serebii on X. “It appears GameStop is enforcing a hard limit per store still. We are unsure why,” Serebii wrote. An account tied to GameStop then replied, “That decision is made by Pokémon.”
While the gaming retailer was quick to point the finger at The Pokémon Company, the X account didn’t add any further context. So it’s unclear why Nintendo is not just printing out more codes for Shiny Koraidon & Shiny Miraidon. After all, they could just generate an infinite amount of the codes without running into a limit. However, if all of this is true, it appears The Pokémon Company wanted to make the Shiny Legendaries extremely rare, since each store was purposely limited in what they could give away.
Getting Both Shiny Koraidon & Shiny Miraidon Was Nearly Impossible
With GameStop having a 50-code limit, this made it nearly impossible for most players to obtain both Shiny Koraidon & Shiny Miraidon. Because for some reason, in 2025 we are still splitting up Shiny Box Legendaries to one per code. If a Pokémon Scarlet and Violet player was lucky enough to get two codes at their local shop, that meant only 25 fans in that area would have been able to get Shiny Koraidon & Miraidon.
Unsurprisingly, fans were not happy about GameStop’s claims. “How can Pokémon give its loyal fans an ‘opportunity’ to obtain once-in-a-lifetime Shinies that won’t ever be available again. Just to then limit the number of those fans who can actually get the codes!” a player on X vented, for example. Another user on the site wrote, “Artificial scarcity only helps the scalpers. Do better, Pokémon and GameStop. This is on BOTH of you.”
Adding salt to the wound is that the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Shiny Koraidon & Miraidon codes have now exploded on eBay. Scalpers have flooded the auction site, selling the rare Legendaries for as high as $35. At the time of writing, The Pokémon Company has not responded to GameStop. Regardless, hopefully we get a round 3 of the distribution event, this time without code limits.
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