Trainers,
the past 24 hours were an emotional rollercoaster for us and the rest of Pokémon GO community. It all started in the morning with an abrupt GAME_MASTER change, showing new items (mainly Berries), new spawns and new customisations rolled out aggressively.
Fresh out of that hype train, a reader from Leipzig, Germany sent us a photo on Facebook indicating that a major Pokémon GO event is going to take place on February 18 in that mall, connected to Generation II.
We published a report on it, started sharing it on Twitter and surprisingly, something weird happened – Niantic reacted. 6 hours after we posted the original news, the mall took down all the posters and changed their marketing.
That, together with the GAME_MASTER changes and recent announcement by Niantic that Valentine’s Day event is extended through 18th, makes us wonder: did we just poke a beehive?
Here’s what we know.
It Has Been 2 Weeks Since a Client-Side Update
Aside from the holiday break, we’ve seen a client-side update every two weeks. Two weeks from the current version (v55.0) was this past Sunday. We are now right in the sweet spot for a new client-side update.
Old APK Versions Discontinued
Illicit 3rd party applications who handshake with Niantic’s private API found their connections failing a few hours ago, as new server-side changes took root. This move generally comes as no surprise, as it happens every time Niantic deploys a new version of the server side code, however, the timing and correlation is interesting.
Our Hypothesis
Something’s big about to happen, we’re just not yet sure if it’s Generation II. The new PokéStops will happen for sure, but we think it’s going to be more than that, we are overdue for a major app update soon.
