Should you buy the Pokémon Go Anniversary Box: Is it worth your coins?

Along with an Ash-hat Pikachu, Pokémon Go is celebrating its first birthday with a discount Anniversary Box in the Pokémon Go Shop.

The Anniversary Box includes 6x Egg Incubators, 6x Max Revive, 2x Premium Raid Passes, 20x Ultra Balls. That's a lot of stuff for one little box but, the big questions is, is it worth your Poké Coins. In other words, should you buy the Anniversary Box?

What's the Anniversary Box?

The Anniversary Box is a bundle of items from the Pokémon Go Shop that are currently being offered at a discount, presumably from July 6 to July 24, 2017.

Here's how Pokémon Go describes it:

You'll also be able to stock up for Raid Battles and the events ahead with the special limited-time Anniversary Box, which will include Incubators, Max Revives, Ultra Balls, and Raid Passes at a discount in the in-game shop.

How much is the Anniversary Box?

1200 Poké Coins, which is $12.

What do you get in the Anniversary Box for 1200 coins?

  • 6x Egg Incubators (usually 6 x 150 = 900 coins)
  • 6x Max Revive (usually 180 coins)
  • 2x Premium Raid Passes (usually 2 x 100 = 200 coins)
  • 20x Ultra Balls (not usually available but theoretically worth 200 coins)

Doing the math, thats: 900 + 180 + 200 + 200 = 1480

So, not a huge discount. At least nowhere nearly as good a discount as the Holiday Boxes.

If you're high enough level and spin enough PokéStops, you can also get enough Ultra Balls and Revives/Potions to negate the value of those items in the Anniversary Box making it an even worse value:

  • 900 + 0 + 200 + 0 = 1100

So, basically if your style of play consumes Ultra Balls or Max Revives faster than you can get them from PokéStops, you can enjoy some small amount of savings from the Anniversary Box.

Otherwise, you're better off buying only the items you need, when you need them.

Any Anniversary Box questions?

If you've got any questions about Anniversary boxes, drop them in the comments!

Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.