McDonalds statement said:"We love seeing fans’ passion for our limited-time Happy Meal promotion celebrating 25 years of Pokemon. With such significant demand for our promotional Pokemon TCG cards, and some fans even going to extreme lengths to get them, we’re working quickly to address shortages and also strongly encouraging restaurants to set a reasonable limit on Happy Meals sold per customer. We want to offer the full Happy Meal experience to as many families as possible, and help ensure everyone is able to get in on the fun!”
Despite their statement, McDonalds has also confirmed that it will not restrict individual stores from selling the Happy Meal toys a-la-carte, and that it would be a decision for each individual franchise on how they accomodated customer requests to purchase toys without meals. McDonalds did however emphasise that it is against company policy to sell cases of Happy Meal toys, and that McDonalds policy is that Happy Meals toys should be distributed only through its stores.
While Happy Meals with "back-up toys" will be offered to customers in stores which have run out of Pokémon cards, we imagine that these presumably non-Pokémon toys will be of little if any compensation to all the fans out there who are looking to purchase the Happy Meal specifically for, and only because of, the accompanying Pokémon goods.
- Sources
- McDonalds Media Release