What you describe sounds like well-reasoned speculation to me. Thanks for the details! I tried to gain insights from an old friend and coworker who’s worked for Niantic on Ingress and PoGo for years, and he’s been very careful not to disclose anything.
And for me, in the absence of credible leaks, thoughtful speculations are golden.
Im not much of a speculator, but i do look forward to these.
Release date? Theyll get here when theyll get here. Niantic was extremely slow with Gen 4, and we still dont have all the legendarys from that gen yet so might be a while.
Im very afraid of what moveset these will get. Reshiram and Zekrom look awesome (Dem attack stats) but as weve seen before, movesets can ruin even those.
Interesting typings atleast (Ice dragon Kyurem could be a great dragon raider perhaps?) but as you say, only 1 ice attack.
Atleast it looks more interesting that the lake spirits we have now, or the REGI trio weve had in GEN3.
Slight correction but Regis are Gen 3
I agree, I will max out the two big guys regardless of their movesets
When it comes to release dates, I speculate 10-11 months between major wave releases (Halloween doesn’t really count as it’s usually only a few Pokemon). In this case, all of Johto was released in February 2017. The first wave of 50 Pokemon from Hoenn was in early December 2017. The first major wave of 20+ Pokemon from Sinnoh was in October 2018. If that trend continues, we could be seeing an August release, but I can see it being pushed to September based on the events going on in the summer.
All the Legendaries outside of Regigigas are technically out now, which I’m sure we will get at least 4 weeks dedidated to that. That means we still have over 2 months worth of summer to fill. We could see rotating Lake Trio, which would be the safest bet (and for me desirable just to get the entries) but we could get a LOT of returning Legendaries to fill the void. We could see an increased presence of special Raid Days as well. Niantic is going to have to keep us very busy this summer or else Pokemon GO will suffer greatly.
They COULD move up Gen 5’s release to mid summer, but we might have already seen data for that already had that been the case, so it doesn’t seem likely that would happen. I also put these speculations out there to help think about raid battle teams for each Legendary that will cross our path. As I’ve seen so far, we have a fair few Trainers here on the forums that are very unfamiliar with Unova, so giving them a heads up should help them along with preparations and expectations.
I’m expecting Raid Days of the Legendary Beasts this summer.
I am as well, honestly, but Niantic has surprised us before.
As they just did. 6 weeks of postponing Regigigas and GEN5.
Yup! Like I said, they might surprise us. I’m a little annoyed they decided to push back Regigigas, but hopefully that means he will be here by mid-July.
They might have a reason for pushing back regigigas release date, might end up seeing him at the end of summer
Well, like I said, the timing would be about correct. Have Regigigas close out the summer to buffer the release of Gen 5 in August or so, maybe have one more returning Legendary, but beyond that, it’s pushing it.
When it comes to release dates, I speculate 10-11 months between major wave releases (Halloween doesn’t really count as it’s usually only a few Pokemon). In this case, all of Johto was released in February 2017. The first wave of 50 Pokemon from Hoenn was in early December 2017. The first major wave of 20+ Pokemon from Sinnoh was in October 2018. If that trend continues, we could be seeing an August release, but I can see it being pushed to September based on the events going on in the summer.
Wow, I more or less called it in that first paragraph. Now that we know that Unova is coming out in September, I can’t help but wonder when we will see the first Unova Legendary. Due to Regigigas still not out (earliest opportunity now is late-September) and with Halloween to follow, I can’t help but wonder if Unova Legendaries will be pushed into November. This schedule is looking a wee stretched now.
Or we could get Gigas in quests, that wouldve been amazing
I don’t see the point of that since it’s a Legendary, albeit one harder than usual to obtain in anything before ORAS. Still, this is Niantic we’re talking about. They still have the Sinnoh Mythicals left to get in, and I imagine that will start to crowd.
What would be rad is kicking off Unova with Victini Special Research, since it is technically the first Pokemon in the Unova Pokedex.
I mean the breakthrough
Victini wouldve been awesome.but Im giving them another 2 years
That’s quite optimistic–although I certainly hope so as well–but then again, Niantic really needs to start chugging out these Mythicals. I’m still wondering how they’re going to deal with the Phione/Manaphy pairing and the two forms of Shaymin.
Maybe the Manaphy quest will also reward you a 100km egg or something for Phione
Oh god, that would be both interesting and excruciating for a lot. XD
Welp, there goes my hope for Gigas being in the breakthrough, we get the same Mon that seems to have like 10% overall encounter rate instead
But yeah, 100km would take a looong time 
If you can put the 100km Egg in a Super Incubator it would not be a problem to me.
I imagine they wouldnt let that happen - bit Its still 67km