That’s right, Japan. You would think they would be playing it like insane over there.
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This stratesphoric rise, highest experienced by the company in a decade, is thanks to an unprecendented success of the augmented reality game, that has boosted hopes that Nintendo could capitalize on a line-up of popular characters ranging from Zelda to Super Mario to strengthen its new foray into augmented reality.
Pokémon GO still isn’t available in Japan, with developer Niantic stating that a late July release is likely, due to the fact that the game’s servers simply wouldn’t cope with the demand. The sheer hysteria the game has produced over the last few weeks has proved the current global server setup simply isn’t strong enough, especially with so many of us downloading the “unofficial” APK for weeks prior to official release in a given region.
Shares in the Japan unit of McDonald’s Corp. rose 9.9 percent to 3,340 yen as of 11:00 a.m.in Tokyo trading Tuesday.
The “Pokemon Go” fever that has gripped smartphone users across the globe has led Japanese videogame giant Nintendo to double its value at the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
“Pokemon Go” was developed jointly by Pokemon Co., which manages the franchise and is 32% owned by Nintendo in terms of voting rights, and Niantic, a Google spinoff. Because of this, gamers in Japan have gone insane and have been buying up Happy Meals as the toys that are bundled with the meal are Pokemon-related. The coins can also only be used to buy in-game items such as Lucky Eggs and Poke Balls, rather than sweets that would allow players to level up their Pokemon with no effort. Games for smartphones and other mobile devices accounted for 928.3 billion yen, or 70%, of the total, making Japan one of the world’s largest markets for mobile games. Please see our terms of service for more information.
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The mobile game has become an instant hit just one week after launch. Nintendo is now worth more than $40 billion, which is higher than its Japanese competitor Sony.
