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The Verge recently spoke with Niantic’s Dennis Hwang, who was previously in charge of designing Google Doodles. Much of the conversation revolved around Pokemon GO.

At one point, Hwang was asked if he considers the game to be a social network. His response was as follows:

“I think we would like for it to be. That’s kind of part of the way we envision our platform, is really bringing people together. It’s not really about the specific game title or mobile phone app, it’s how do you create a shared experience that brings people together. So for Ingress, when we did start seeing boyfriend / girlfriend, husband / wife, people who are having kids after meeting each other playing our game, it was super satisfying and we were overjoyed to see that actually happening.

We’re sort of trying to paint an optimistic future, where technology is really bringing people together, not like you’re strapping a screen in a dark place to your face, where every interaction becomes through a camera, through a computer, through a network — that seems a little too dystopian to us. So we’re trying to see if there’s a better way to do things.”

Hwang later took on a question about Pokemon GO’s design and whether he’d change anything. This prompted him to speak about wanting to incorporate “more heads-up play.” Niantic wants players looking less at their phones rather than more.

Hwang said:

“Oh, there’s a lot that isn’t perfect. We had a pretty tight timeline to build this. I think just generally speaking the biggest element we’re looking to improve is allowing more heads-up play. It saddens me a little bit when I see a lot of hunched over people outside. They’re having fun, they’re outside in a great public park, but we’re always wanting a little more direct engagement with our immediate surroundings. So those are design choices we’re looking at carefully to keep improving it.

Like let’s say in the current interface, some of the information about a pokémon that spawned is in fine detail and the icon is really small. It’s going to make you go closer to the screen. We may just iterate on the design until you feel like the information is being presented to you in a way where you’re not having to stick your nose on the screen. It could be a simple size change, or the way the notification is animated, or it could be auditory cues instead of visual cues. There are a lot of options we’re going to explore.”

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Pokemon GO fans recently found evidence of a new planned feature via data mining: daily bonuses. Today, Niantic confirmed that the functionality is on the way, and also shared first details.

Players who catch Pokemon every day will receive a pair of bonuses. Additionally, you’ll get a larger bonus for catching Pokemon seven days in a row. Bonuses are also planned for those who visit a PokeStop and spin the Photo Disc every day as well as for a seven day streak.

By catching a Pokemon at any time on Tuesday local time, you’ll be eligible for the next daily bonus on Wednesday at 12 AM local time.

Full details about the different bonuses can be found after the break.

Miitomo’s latest update brings back another set of Miitomo Drop items, “Dress to impurress! Cat Style”. By using coins or game tickets, players can get their paws on the following items:

– Tiny kitty cap
– Cat-ear headband
– Striped kitty muffler
– Cat-faced stockings
– Cat hood w/ muffler
– Cat-paw dress shirt
– Hoodie w/ wraparound kitty
– Shorts w/ calico-cat print
– Cat companion
– Silly-kitty sweater
– Kitty miniskirt
– Cat-faced pumps

The stages will be available until 10 AM EST on November 3.

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Nintendo isn’t using any random or in-house engine for the creation of Super Mario Run. Instead, the company went with a well-known tool. As it turns out, Super Mario Run is being made with Unity.

The engine’s official Twitter account shared the news:


Super Mario Run debuts on iOS next month. Nintendo intends to bring it to Android devices at a later date as well.

Thanks to TDude73 for the tip.

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Pokemon GO has been a runaway success for Niantic and the Pokemon Company, but it seems its wild popularity is dwindling – at least compared to other mobile game titans.

A collection of data regarding Pokemon GO and its overall decline in revenue has been posted on the Survey Monkey Intelligence blog, detailing how steep the decline in revenue is. During it’s peak month of July and some time afterwards, Pokemon GO was the most profitable mobile game by a very wide margin. However, its revenue generation has shrunk to levels that are more comparable to other mobile games, such as Mobile Strike, Game of War and Clash Royale. In the blog post, its mentioned that the revenue generation of Pokemon GO has fallen to a level that puts it on par with Candy Crush Saga. Furthermore, the author believes that this downward trend will continue to a certain degree:

October saw Pokémon GO’s daily revenues fall below those of Game of War, Mobile Strike, and Clash Royale, who are now vying for the top grossing game spot.

Pokémon GO’s revenue stats on U.S. smartphones have put it essentially on par with Candy Crush Saga… for the moment. (We expect Pokémon GO revenues will keep falling to some degree.)

Data collected by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower indicates that Pokemon GO has returned to the top of the charts. Thanks to the mobile game’s Halloween event, it’s now number one again as the iPhone’s highest-grossing title in the United States. Last week, it had fallen as low as number ten.

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Following Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing earlier in the week, Nintendo shared the full Q&A that took place with investors. However, just like always, it’s only available in Japanese initially. The English translation will likely be posted sometime next week.

In the meantime, Cheesemeister and Takashi Mochizuki have been providing a few unofficial translations. Head past the break for Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima’s comments on third-party support for Switch as well as other tidbits.

Wall Street Journal technology reporter, Takashi Mochizuki, states that Nintendo has no plans to release that game in China at the time being. Nintendo announced Super Mario Run at an Apple press conference earlier this year. Despite announcing that the game would come over to approximately 150 countries, it seems that Nintendo seems reluctant to release it in China–at least for now. Super Mario Run is set to release in December of this year.

SourceVia

Following Nintendo’s recent financial results meeting, president Tatsumi Kimishima sat down with Bloomberg and answered a couple of their questions on the Switch and Nintendo’s other future projects. Read the full interview here; below are a couple of interesting excerpts:

Will you discontinue the 3DS?

Thanks to our software, the 3DS hardware is still growing. So that business still has momentum. And certainly rather than being cannibalized by the Switch, we think the 3DS can continue in its own form.

The video didn’t seem like a typical Nintendo promotion. It was aimed at an audience that you would expect for Sony or Apple.

As the name implies, we’re switching a lot of things. But we have no interest in switching our customers. We have no intention of just going after a certain age group. Depending on the kind of software that comes out, families and kids will be able to play too. The titles we did show, those are games that for people who understand they will grasp it right away, but for families and kids, we want them to understand by actually experiencing it.

Miitomo has been updated with more content. Users will find a returning stage, along with some brand new items.

“Dinosaurs! Prehistoric Posh” is the stage in question. It includes the following:

– Tyrannosaur hood (set)
– Tyrannosaur suit (set)
– Stegosaurus plates
– Archaeopteryx necklace
– T. rex skull
– Fossil tyrannosaurus suit
– T. rex tailbones
– Pteranodon pal
– Triceratops hat
– Dinosaur mesh cap
– Big dinosaur tee
– Dino-clawed pants

And as far as the new items go, you can nab the following:

– Flared trench coat
– Mixed-bead barrette
– Varsity jacket
– Vintage tennis sweater
– Checkered skirt
– Cuffed bermuda shorts
– Nubuck boots
– Baron von Bones pin

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