Alongside Friday’s Japanese launch of the app, Nintendo issued a statement warning investors that its effect on this week’s first-quarter earnings would be “limited”.
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Hanke seemed very interested in giving Pokéstops a bigger priority in the game: “That’s a pretty cool idea that you can acquire an object that changes the function of a Pokéstop and gives it a new ability”. And despite the massive early success Pokemon Go has enjoyed, Nintendo has opted not to revise that outlook for the time being.
The small team at Niantic Labs, founded internally at Google and spun into an independent entity past year, has struggled to keep the game’s servers running as more users join, Hanke said, and their current priority was to prevent servers from crashing.
Nintendo went through the roof since everyone assumed the company had created the game. Investors are also waiting for announcements on Nintendo’s other upcoming mobile games and its next-generation console expected to be released next year, analysts Mia Nagasaka and Yuki Maeda wrote in a July 22 report. If the game generates about 396 billion yen annually, that would add about 47 billion yen to Nintendo’s bottom line, he said.
Looking for Mewtwo, Zapados and more legendary Pokemon?
The game, which lets allows players capture, battle, and train virtual creatures that appear on device screens as though in the real world, has become a global cultural phenomenon.
What: Shares of Nintendo Co., Ltd. After debuting in the USA earlier this month, Pokemon Go launched in Japan on Friday and became available in Hong Kong on Monday. So far, analysts haven’t given any estimates on how much Nintendo could earn from such partnerships, and the companies haven’t disclosed any details on the alliance.
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It has not only proved wildly successful but has been highly controversial, with users warned about playing the game while driving or at school. “From a long-term perspective, the current stock price isn’t necessarily expensive”.
