The Starbucks leak is at least partially true: Niantic has confirmed that Pokemon Go has teamed up with the coffee company. Starting at 2 p.m. EST today, 7800 participating locations will become PokeStops and/or gyms, so you can get your coffee and screw around on your phone in a totally new way. One Reddit user has noted that the promised promotional drink is super sweet, but we’ve yet to hear anything about new Pokemon and their relationship with Starbucks. We have, however, heard some more news.
Sprint is also getting in on the Niantic team ups. Like Starbucks, participating Sprint, Boost Mobile, and Radio Shack shops are also PokeStops and gyms. While there was no mention of promotional drinks for these businesses, they are offering charging stations at least.
As some players have already noticed, the new update allows for some small quality of life improvements, from seeing the type of Pokemon you’re fighting in gyms to sending multiple Pokemon to the professor for candy.
What wasn’t officially mentioned was that there seems to be a lot more in the patch that prepares the game for Generation 2 Pokemon and additional features. The official Pokemon Twitter page, like Niantic, is teasing new information being released on December 12th, but dataminers at Silph Road have found the sound effects for the next 100 Pokemon, ground work for genders (but no UI functions yet), further updates to shinies (also lacking UI work for non-dataminers), additional upcoming customization for trainers, and Pokemon costumes, the first of which seem to be holiday related. What Niantic intends to announce is unknown, but at least we have a few ideas about what may be coming up soon!
