Pokemon GO's Next Massive Update Leaked by Starbucks?
By Jasmine Henry 25 November 2016
A huge update for Pokemon GO appears as a possible leak by coffee company Starbucks, as a memo sent to employees hints at ‘new Pokemon’ being added to the game.
Over the past week, Niantic has made several changes to its massively popular augmented-reality app Pokemon GO, including fixing Gym training and rolling out the new tracker tool to several regions. But according to a new leak, this is not the only set of changes that the developer is working on, as a massive new update to the game is said to be right around the corner.
The details of this upcoming Pokemon GO update arrive via Reddit, where a user posted a memo from Starbucks to its employees. The leaked documents explain that, on December 8, the “majority of company-owned” Starbucks locations in the United States will be turned into either PokeStops or Gyms and on the same day, “new Pokemon” will be added to the game. By locating the PokeStop/Gym Starbucks location within the game, players will “unlock” the Pokemon GO Frappucino Blended Beverage. The Pokemon GO drink is a vanilla frappucino “evolved” with raspberry syrup and blackberries.
Niantic has yet to announce the update, but several Starbucks employees have verified that the memo is real. However, even without these employees’ confirmations, the Pokemon GO update certainly seems likely. After all, the Starbucks partnership wouldn’t be the first time that Niantic had teamed up with businesses, as a McDonalds partnership began in Japan.
Meanwhile, recent datamining of the game’s files suggested that Pokemon GO is about to add Gen 2 Pokemon to the game. This, combined with Niantic CEO John Hanke’s confirmation that Pokemon GO will add more new generations of Pokemon in future, all seem to affirm what the leaked Starbucks memo is saying.
What does remain a big question, however, is whether the Starbucks promotion will come to other territories and whether the new Pokemon will be US-only too. There are Starbucks locations all over the world, and it would make sense to turn Starbucks everywhere into Gyms and PokeStops in theory, but that would be a large undertaking. So, there may be no plans to take the partnership global.
Moreover, Niantic has previously delayed updates and performed a staggered, global rollout for Pokemon GO features, such as the aforementioned tracker tool. Global fans will certainly be upset if they are forced to wait an extra amount of time for the new creatures just because of their location, so it will be interesting to see whether Niantic heads off these concerns by making the new Pokemon available to everyone at the same time when the update hits later this week.
Pokemon GO is available now for Android and iOS devices.
