So I was thinking about the post I wrote earlier. We're all generally operating under the assumption that Niantic wants to make the rollout of generations last as long as possible, hence the general drip-feeding of new Pokemon. But having caught a Jangmo-o earlier today, I was thinking "isn't it a bit premature to release Jangmo-o?" I mean, Goomy wasn't even a year ago and Deino hasn't even had a community day yet. Feels like they could have held it back for a bit longer if they wanted to.
So that got me wondering about the length of time between pseudo-legendary releases, and whether it just feels longer than it is. When I think back to the start of Pokemon Go in 2016, I always end up assuming that it was a full year until Gen II dropped. But, of course, it wasn't - Gen II actually debuted in December 2016 (less than six months after the game was released) with the introduction of all the baby Pokemon; the rest following a couple of months after. So I took a quick look and calculated how long it was between each generation's pseudo debuting. List time!
- Dratini, like most Gen I mons, dropped on 6th July 2016
- Larvitar, like most Gen II mons, dropped on 16th February 2017, a mere 225 days later
- Bagon and Beldum debuted together on 9th February 2018, 358 days later
- Gible was released late in Gen IV, coming as part of the final large batch of mons on 17th May 2019, 462 days later
- Deino was released with a large amount of Gen V 16th September 2019, only 122 days later
- Goomy appeared for the first time on 4th May 2021, a whopping 596 days later
- Finally, Jangmo-o was released as part of the first wave of Gen VII mons on 1st March 2022 (today), 301 days later
Quite uneven. Looking at the numbers, Deino appears to have come way too early, accounting for the giant gap between it and the next gen's pseudo. The pandemic might account for Goomy's delayed release, but that seems unlikely given that numerous other Pokemon were introduced during that time, as well as the general shift to drip-feeding that took place during Gen V's rollout as opposed to the "chunk" releases of previous generations.
Overall, the average time between pseudos is
344 days. Goomy and Deino sort of cancel one another out here.
So then I got curious about the amount of time it's taken for each generation as a whole to debut. Note that I'm counting a generation as starting when the first Pokemon from a new region drops, opening up a new section of the Pokedex (therefore regional forms don't count). Gen VIII is omitted for clarity, and because it was explicitly characterised as a "sneak preview" rather than a full rollout of a new gen akin to what we've seen with Kalos and Alola.
The generational rollout is as follows:
- Gen I, of course, started on 6th July 2016
- Gen II dropped on 12th December 2016 with the introduction of baby Pokemon, 159 days later
- Gen III followed on 20th October 2017 with the introduction of various Ghost-types, 312 days later
- Gen IV arrived on Oct 16 2018 with a wave of Sinnoh species, 361 days later
- Gen V debuted on 16th Sep 2019 with a wave of Unova species, 335 days later
- Gen VI started on Nov 30 2020 when Espurr began appearing in raids, 441 days later
- Gen VII began on Mar 1 2022 (today) with a small wave of Alola species, 454 days later
Okay, so this is a bit more even, and we start to see a broad trend emerging in which each generation is progressively taking more and more time to arrive, with only Gen V breaking the pattern as it took less time to debut than its predecessor. Gen II is an outlier in terms of pure numbers, coming way more rapidly than the other generations did (probably why, as I said, I often misremember Gen II as coming a full year after Gen I's launch) while Gens VI and VII increase the interlude from roughly a year to roughly a year and a quarter each.
But, amusingly, the average amount of days between generations is the same as between pseudos -
344*! Curious. I don't know if this means anything in particular for the future, but it was a numerical curiosity I felt like sharing after thinking about it a lot earlier. Expecting patterns and trends to continue is something of a fool's errand in Pokemon, which loves to surprise us (and yet we still try). But if the general trend I've outlined continues, we can expect to see Gen VIII debut properly around June next year. Which would, of course, be when a new season would be due to begin. Let's see...
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*(actually 343.67 rounded up the nearest whole number, but close enough)