Apparently internal communication from McDonald’s Japan made its way onto internet forums which in turn generated a ton of hype, which sounds like it could be a good thing but what happened was that it caused Niantic to be concerned about its servers. Apparently they were worried that all the hype would cause the servers to overload, thus preventing players from having a good experience.
Ironically enough server issues were the reason why the game was not launched in Japan at the start. We suppose Niantic now needs to work to ensure that they have enough servers and the capacity to handle the influx of players, but when exactly this will be remains to be seen. We should point out that neither Niantic nor McDonald’s Japan has made any official announcement yet.
This is essentially a rumor of a rumor, so take it with a grain of salt for now, but in the meantime we’ll keep our eyes peeled for an official announcement.