Hanke, with representatives of Pokemon and Nintendo, announced Pokemon GO last month. Provided certain milestones are met, however, that initial investment could climb up another $10 million, ringing in at a grand total of $30 million when all is said and done.
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Formerly an in-house venture of Google, Niantic was spun off following the Internet search giant’s recent corporate structure overhaul. Niantic will leverage the funding and strategic relationships to continue work on its “Pokemon Go” game, support its Ingress community, scale its platform and bring new games to market. Nintendo is also reportedly working on a watch-like device called Pokemon Go Plus, according to the reports this watch-like device will be an alternative to handheld smartphones used to play Pokemon Go. The money will be put not only into Pokemon Go but also Niantic’s smartphone AR title Ingress, as well as in-development titles. The recently announced Pokemon Go is the next effort from the studio, which will be funded by Nintendo, The Pokemon Company, and Google themselves. As we’ve heard before, it will be an augmented reality game that allows players to find, catch, and battle Pokémon in the real world. “We are all incredibly excited about the opportunity to create a product true to the spirit of the original Pokemon games while extending gameplay out into the real world”. But things are beginning to shift at Nintendo and the company has plans to release multiple mobile titles for both Android and iOS over the course of 2016, causing a few to question the future of the company’s dedicated portable console, the 3DS.
