Fan “Plays” on 58 Consoles at Once in Pursuit of One of the Rarest Shiny Pokémon

Pokémon fans are known for their unwavering dedication, and nowhere is that more evident than in shiny or alternate-colored Pokémon hunting. These collectors spare no effort in chasing down these elusive variants, often investing hundreds of hours of gameplay to catch them. Among them, one hunter has recently captured the community’s attention because he is playing 58 consoles simultaneously to get a rare shiny Pokémon with a nearly impossible success rate.

For the uninitiated, the mainline Pokémon games feature rare color variants of each creature, commonly referred to as shinies. Under normal circumstances, the base encounter rate for a shiny is roughly 1 in 4,000, though this figure can be improved through various in-game boosts, particularly in more recent titles.

Who Is Professor Rex and Why Is He Looking for One of the Rarest Shiny Golduck?

This brings us to Professor Rex, a well-known figure in the shiny-hunting community. His previous exploits have already demonstrated a willingness to invest immense time and effort into obtaining shinies through legitimate, old-school methods.

Most recently, in celebration of the annual Safari Week event, he unveiled his dedicated gaming setup, or his “laboratory” as he calls it, to tackle one of the most challenging quests of his hunting career: a level 25 shiny Golduck.

Why Is a Level 25 Shiny Golduck So Rare?

Professor Rex is conducting his search in Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire for the Game Boy Advance, where the base shiny rate drops to 1 in 8,192. To complicate matters further, Golduck appears in the Safari Zone with only a 5% encounter rate.

But the real hurdle is the level requirement: Psyduck evolves into Golduck at level 33, making a level 25 Golduck an unusual anomaly that can only appear under very specific conditions. In fact, only 1 out of every 16 Golduck encounters yields one at level 25. And even if this Pokémon appears, capture is far from guaranteed. The Safari Zone’s mechanics allow Pokémon to flee with relative ease.

Altogether, the probability of successfully obtaining this particular shiny stands at a staggering 1 in 9 million, or roughly 0.0000111%.

Professor Rex Surprises Community by Playing Pokémon Simultaneously in 58 Consoles

Given those odds, a solo player attempting one encounter at a time could easily spend years on the hunt. Professor Rex, however, has dramatically scaled up his efforts by running 58 consoles at once.

His setup includes a mix of Nintendo GameCube and Wii systems, each equipped with the Game Boy Player and Pokémon Box: Ruby & Sapphire, which allow him to run Ruby & Sapphire without needing multiple physical copies. Even after removing the cartridge, the game continues to run. All games are controlled using the legendary WaveBird Wireless Controller.

As such, Rex can take on up to 58 encounters at once and quickly check for any shiny spawns, significantly improving his odds of finding a Golduck and repeating the process over and over. Despite this advantage, actually spotting this extraordinarily rare variant remains an immense challenge. The player admits it could take forever, and jokes that he’d happily settle for even a level 26 to 29 shiny Golduck.

“To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever get it,” confessed Professor Rex. “I chose it more as the most outlandish goal I could think of. A shiny hunt I could keep working on indefinitely.”

In reality, the Pokémon content creator revealed that between Safari Week 2025 and 2026, he has encountered only 14 shiny Psyducks and not a single Golduck so far.

“And the worst part is that none of these ‘phases’ have brought me even a step closer to my goal. Shiny hunting isn’t cumulative. In fact, I’m exactly as close to finding it now as I was when I started,” the player explained.

What do you think of Professor Rex’s mission? Have you ever set yourself a notoriously difficult Pokémon shiny hunt? Let us know in the comments.

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