“Pokemon Go can now be played in Japan”.
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Nintendo’s shares suffered a rare bad day since Pokemon Go took the world by storm, tumbling 13 percent to around ¥27,765 on the disappointment.
Pokemon GO has officially taken over the entire world, well, nearly the entire world.
Investors and analysts are betting the success of the game, available officially in 35 countries and played in many more, will be transformational for Nintendo. The “Pokemon Go” app is downloaded twice as often to iOS devices as Android in the USA, implying that there were 14 million iOS users, according to AppInstitute, she said.
TechCrunch said the sponsorship will see McDonald’s 3,000-plus fast food restaurants across Japan become “gyms”, or battlegrounds, for Pokemon collectors.
Japan, one of the world’s biggest gaming markets, joins the United States, Canada, Australia and more than 30 countries in Europe to have the “augmented-reality” game, in which players interact with virtual characters in the real world. A report that the game would finally be released in Japan on Wednesday raised expectations, but turned out to be false. The chain already gives away Pokemon-themed toys with its Happy Meals.
Keito Sato, 17, walking with school friends in Tokyo’s Roppongi area, said he’s been playing since he learned about the game’s release via Twitter.
The release in Japan comes two weeks after the game made its chart-topping debut overseas, triggering a worldwide phenomenon that has added more than $20 billion to Nintendo’s market value.
While it has also been reported by electronic retailers that since the launch of game, sales of mobile chargers and charging cases has surged.
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Nintendo shares fell almost 13 percent Wednesday after a 10-day surge prompted by the blockbuster success of its augmented reality smartphone game, “Pokémon Go”. The other 2,500 are “Pokestops”, where players can get “Poke Balls” and other items they need to play the game.
