According to recent reports, Nintendo is planning to take Pokemon Go live in 200 countries “relatively soon”. Presently they are working on server capacity to enable wider rollout worldwide.
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The virtual reality based game has blended the real world perfectly with an augmented Pokemon world.
The game has so far been launched in the US, Germany, Australia and New Zealand – and officially became available in the United Kingdom yesterday, where it shot straight to the top of the app charts. Speaking on the server crashes, Nintendo had stated: “The enthusiastic response to the launch of Pokemon Go has been tremendous and inspiring”.
The news comes from Niantic’s CEO John Hanke, who told Reuters that Pokemon Go will cover the entire world soon.
Shares in Nintendo have surged 77 per cent to a six-year high in just over a week on the game’s success, adding $15 billion in market value. Niantic is working on that issue, Hanke said: “There are solutions to that”.
Without going into details for the timeframe, Hanke did suggests that Niantic Labs’ other AR title Ingress had performed in roughly the same manner; a month or two worth of rollouts to reach roughly 200 markets.
But he was more reticent about prospects for a launch in China, saying only that there are regulations that have to be considered. From Hanke’s words, it seems like South Korea is a very viable market, as it is one of the biggest gaming populations following Japan.
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Hanke also mentioned about a sponsorship program, which will lead gamers into privately sponsored locations earning the game developer a token amount for every individual visiting the place. Globally, Niantic now has eight corporate sponsors for Ingress, including SoftBank Group Corp.
