Niantic

Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 20 Comments

Late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata passed away from bile duct cancer last July. Yet up until his death, he still continued to be deeply involved with different projects, such as Pokemon GO.

In a new article, Nikkei writes that “[Iwata] continued to work in a hospital room until the last moment, using his favorite PC and exchanging views on ‘Pokemon Go’ with Tsunekazu Ishihara, the Pokemon Company’s president and his close friend.” The site also says that Iwata was “closely involved” with Pokemon GO’s development “from the planning stage.”

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Posted on 8 years ago by Zack in Mobile, News | 2 Comments

According to FT.com, Pokemon GO has not only exceeded $250 million in global revenue, but is on track to reach $1 billion in sales.

Furthermore, the site reports that one in five Pokemon GO players spends money on the app and over 11 million paying players in the US and UK alone, according to a survey of 50,000 players conducted by pollster YouGov.

YouGov’s study further elaborates on these statistics, stating that 1 million UK residents paid to play Pokemon GO in it’s first month, with the majority of those players paying between 80P and £14.99, rather than the minimum of 79P. 29% and 20% of American and German players respectively tapped into their PokeBanks to spend money on the app, with 9% of German fans – roughly equivalent to 142,000 individuals – spent over €100.

It’s estimated that 13% of the adult population in the US, UK and Germany have downloaded Pokemon GO, with 90% of that number continuing to play for four weeks after the initial download. A third of those players were over the age of 35 and high earners.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 0 comments

It’s no secret that Pokemon GO has boosted sales of the franchise in various ways. We’ve heard about the increased performance of the games, trading card game, and more in various countries, but Bloomberg now offers up some information for the United States.

Based on data from Adobe’s Digital Price Index, online Pokemon-branded merchandise sales were up 105 percent in July year-over-year. This includes toys, electronics such as video games, plus T-shirts, caps and other apparel. Retailers such as Build-A-Bear and GameStop are seeing huge benefits from the craze that has become Pokemon GO.

Other specific data is tough to come by. However, Bloomberg does have an anecdote from Ansony Morales, assistant manager at a Virginia-based Build-A-Bear, who said more customers are looking for Pokemon-related merchandise. We also heard from GameStop last month that sales rose by more than 100 percent at stores used as PokeStops.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 0 comments

Pokemon GO launched with a McDonald’s partnership a couple of weeks ago. Over 3,000 locations became either PokeStops or Gyms. The move made sense for the fast food restaurant, as they likely knew it would boost business.

And that’s exactly what’s happened. McDonald’s sales in Japan rose 27 percent last month, with the company stating that there was demand for children’s meals featuring Pokemon toys and increased traffic thanks to Pokemon GO.

That’s definitely good news for McDonald’s, but the restaurant believes it’s too early to estimate Pokemon GO’s impact on earnings. That being said, more customers are being drawn in due to the partnership.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments

GamesBeat was recently given the opportunity to speak with The Pokemon Company consumer marketing director J.C. Smith. Smith had plenty to say about the Super Bowl commercial which aired earlier in the year, the Detective Pikachu film (we’ll hear more “soon”), Pokemon GO, and more.

Per usual, we’ve rounded up some of the important responses below. You can read the full interview on GamesBeat here.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 3 Comments

Pokemon GO has its second notable partnership. In Japan, the TOHO cinema chain will have most of its movie theaters become PokeStops. It’ll only be outside however, as to not disturb folks watching films.

The Pokemon GO and TOHO partnership will kick off later this year.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 5 Comments

Pokemon GO received its latest update yesterday. For a select group of players fortunate enough, they now have access to some features Niantic is testing. There are big improvements across the board when it comes to tracking.

First, you’ll see that the Nearby section has changed to a greater extent than we knew of previously. Players can now see the closest PokeStop if a Pokemon is near there. Also, when touching a Pokemon and select “view”, it zooms out and takes you to an overview map – the Pokemon appears to be in the pink circle. Choosing the Pokemon to track puts a marker on the live map, and when one flees, you’ll be notified with a message.

Here’s a look at what’s to come for tracking in Pokemon GO:

As Niantic is still in the testing phase with new tracking features, things may change a bit before the system is rolled out to all players. Still, what we’ve seen so far is a noticeable improvement compared to what’s in Pokemon GO at the moment.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 5 Comments

When you’re driving, you shouldn’t be playing Pokemon GO. Niantic wants to make that clear with a new warning that can now be issued following today’s new update.

If you’re going too fast, you may see the notice appear. It’s a basic warning which asks users not to play and drive. You’ll need to tap “I’m a passenger” in order to continue playing. That seems pretty fair!

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 6 Comments

Update: Now that we have slightly more extensive patch notes, here’s what Niantic has to say about Sightings officially:

“We’re currently testing a variation of the ‘Nearby Pokemon’ feature with a subset of users. During this period you may see some variation in the nearby Pokemon UI.”

There’s another aspect of today’s Pokemon GO update not included in Niantic’s official patch notes (version 0.33.0). After applying the update, you should see that the “Nearby” feature has been replaced as “Sightings”. Nearby was removed entirely with version 1.1.0 / 0.31.0.

How Sighting actually works is unclear. Some players have been messing around with it for a bit though, and their reports may offer up some clues as to how it functions.

Pokemon GO seems to scan the area around you roughly every 15 seconds. If a new Pokemon spawns, it’ll be added to the Sighting lists. If it goes away, it’ll be removed. Those who move too far away from a Pokemon will see it disappear. Apparently the distance is roughly 700 feet.

Keep in mind that this information is entirely unofficial at the moment.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 0 comments

Update: We now have slightly more extensive patch notes – see below.

Pokemon GO’s latest update (version 1.3.0 / 0.33.0) is starting to go live. It’s a bit more involved than the last one, as Niantic has addressed a bug with XP bonuses and the battery saver mode has returned on iOS. Additionally, there’s now a driver warning as well as the ability to change your nickname once.

Currently, the update is available on Android. The same patch should be up for iOS users very shortly.

Head past the break for the official patch notes.

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