The Internet is Falling for a Fake Pokemon Rumor

No, Pokemon 0 and Pokemon 1 are not the next Pokemon games.

Earlier today, a set of Pokemon game logos popped up on 4Chan, which a poster claimed he pulled off of the European Union's trademark site. The logos were for "Pokemon 0" and "Pokemon 1" games, which the poster claimed were the names of the next Pokemon games, which will be released for the Nintendo Switch.

Although many fans were skeptical that the logos were real, that didn't stop the Internet from quickly picking them up and running with them. Soon, the "logos" were popping up everywhere, even though a search of the EUIPO shows no sign of the logos on their database.

The hoax uses two bits of information to goad players that they "might" be real. The first nugget is that Pokemon Sun and Moon were "leaked" when Nintendo filed for the copyrights to the games a couple of days before they were announced in 2016. The other is that the news that a Nintendo Direct is coming in just a few days, and some fans are expecting big news to start 2018.

Unfortunately, the logos aren't even remotely professional looking and fall way short of Nintendo and Game Freak's usual standard. It looks like someone had a little bit of fun using MS Paint and the Internet was a bit overeager.

That isn't to say there won't be a Pokemon announcement in the upcoming Nintendo Direct. In fact, it's widely expected that Nintendo will announce a US/European release date for the Detective Pikachu 3DS game.