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Pokemon GO Japan launch delay angers gamers, hits Nintendo share price

Tech Crunch is also reporting that Pokemon GO will release in Japan tomorrow, July 21, instead, and Niantic’s decision to make the first 3,000 gyms in Japan exclusively McDonald’s locations will likely only encourage more activity from a player base that has been starved for some Pokemon catching action. Nintendo has referred any queries regarding Pokemon GO to Pokemon Company.

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The Guardian reckons that yesterday’s leak of the news that the game would launch alongside a partnership with McDonalds created so much interest that developer Niantic has got cold feet, fearing that its servers will not be up to the demand.

“Pokemon Go: When will it come out in Japan?” cried a headline in the afternoon edition of the top-selling Yomiuri newspaper. TheStreet Ratings feels its strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows weak operating cash flow.

In what remains one of the stranger news stories stemming from the staggered Pokemon GO global release, Japanese gamers still don’t have their hands on the game.

Nintendo’s shares suffered a rare bad day since Pokemon Go took the world by storm, tumbling 13 percent to around JPY 27,765 ($261) on the disappointment. Despite the small hiccup in Nintendo’s recent exorbitant market gains, its market cap has almost doubled since Pokemon Go’s launch on July 6. It’s apparent that this is Niantic’s form of adjusting the game’s difficulty, but it could be too unfair for other players.

Citing a source “close to the launch”, TechCrunch said the title’s afternoon arrival has been cancelled after internal communication abouthe launch from sponsor McDonald’s Japan hit the Web. According to Sensor Tower (via VentureBeat), Pokemon GO has already crossed 30 million downloads, and $35 million grossed in revenue.

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A Spearow a Pokemon character appears in a London street during a game of Pokemon Go a mobile game that has become a global phenomenon