McDonald's to limit Pokémon Happy Meal toy purchases in UK

McDonald's will reportedly restrict the number of additional Pokémon toys you can buy when Pikachu and pals turn up in UK Happy Meals from 19th May.

The fast food giant is yet to confirm what the included Pokémon gift will be, though the expectation is it will offer the same limited-run Pokémon cards it did when the same promotion caused chaos in the US back in February. Scalpers quickly gobbled up supplies of the $2.49 Happy Meals in order to nab the included Pokémon cards and sell them on for profit.

Now, UK McDonald's restaurants are being warned ahead of time to place limits on customer spending. Nintendo Life has obtained an internal memo which states customers will be limited to "one additional toy beyond their Happy Meal allocation", though notes there still isn't a limit on buying up the Happy Meals themselves.

In the US, reports suggested Happy Meal food was being found binned, while large stock boxes of the cards meant for delivery to McDonald's restaurants mysteriously appeared on eBay.

Online, YouTubers broadcast pack openings for dozens of Happy Meal boxes they had driven round different McDonald's to order, while families complained they had turned up at outlets later that day to be told all restaurants in their local area had sold out.

McDonald's recently announced it would stop offering plastic toys in Happy Meals - leading to the switch to Pokémon cards for the recent US promotion.

Of course, Pokémon cards have recently seen a huge resurgence in popularity thanks to big name YouTubers buying up some of the few remaining unopened boxes of original cards, and generating a spike of interest that only raises the prices of these cards even higher.

Sets of the Pokémon cards available in US Happy Meals are currently listed on eBay for hundreds of dollars.