(Rumour) Pokémon GO is to Release in Japan on July 20th

There’s an English expression, “in for a penny, in for a pound” and since we’ve been covering a fair few Pokémon GO related rumours, here’s another one, sources claim Pokémon GO WILL release in Japan tomorrow.

By all means, disbelief the information above, but my obligations as a journalist demand I see the story through to the end, so if you haven’t got time for rumours, feel free to leave. For those of you who do decide to continue reading, this claim comes from sources who chose to spill the release to TechCrunch, the very same TechCrunch OurMine recently contacted, to claim responsibility for the DDos attack on last Sunday.

Furthermore the very same sources also claim that when Pokémon GO does release in Japan tomorrow (the day the Summer holidays in Japan begins,) we will also see the partnership between McDonalds and Pokémon GO put into effect as over 3,000 McDonald’s restaurants will become Gyms all over Japan for Pokémon GO players to visit, battle and claim for themselves. Then provided all that goes well, the McDonalds Pokémon GO gyms are expected to start popping up elsewhere.

Now as far as this rumour goes I’m not quite sure what to make of it myself to be honest. It would one great for Japan if it was true, but given all the server issues we’ve been having recently, are we really ready for Japan to join in with the madness. It was only the other day John Hanke, the CEO of Niantic Labs, was telling Forbes that the reason why they hadn’t released in Japan was because it would overload the servers. That they just weren’t ready for it, but if this rumour is true, suddenly they are ready, just like that.

But thinking about it, the delayed the global release because of server issues, saying they wanted to take their time amending it before continuing with the release and then the next week, over 30 European countries were given official access to the app. Who’s to say history won’t repeat? We were told by during E3 that the app would come out around the same time as the Pokémon GO Plus near the end of July and instead, the first release was closer to the beginning of the month. Niantic do seem to be in the habit of promising something on such and such date, only to deliver a lot sooner.

So who knows, maybe there is some truth to this rumour and credibility to TechCrunch’s sources and if there isn’t, we’ll find out tomorrow.

Source: @jonrussell of TechCrunch