‘Pokemon Go’ Augmented Reality Smartphone Game Announced

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sj2iQyBTQs

The Pokemon Company’s Tsunekazu Ishihara is currently holding a live stream announcement on NicoNico. This post will be updated as the announcement is detailed.

They are announcing a new Pokemon project and wanted to do a press conference for the first time in the company’s history to announce this.
The project has been worked on for two years with Nintendo.
It’s an augmented reality mobile game and you can capture Pokemon in real life through your smartphone (full details not revealed yet).
The promo video shows Mewtwo battling and people using their smartphones to capture and trade Pokemon in real life.
The company working on the game is brand new to Pokemon and called “Niantic.” They were originally part of Google.
The game will be available on Android and iOS in 2016.
Ishihara first had the idea for the game after playing Niantic’s Ingress video game.
It’ll be a “wholesome, fun” game that families can enjoy together. They want people to go outside and discover new areas together.
Pokemon will roam free in the real world (on your smartphone). Players can capture Pokemon in any environment in all places around the world.
“Imagine discovering a Pikachu hiding by the Eiffel Tower.”
Junichi Masuda also worked on the game. He was involved in settings, game design, and some music. “The day has finally come when Pokemon will live in the real world.”
Players can capture Pokemon in Poke Balls and trade and battle them.
2016 is the 20th anniversary of the original Pokemon games. Masuda hinted that they considered how this game might tie into future main series Pokemon titles, which means it’s not replacing the main games.
“Pokemon Go Plus” will be a wearable device you can use with the game so you don’t have to stare at your smartphone the whole time. It vibrates when it senses a Pikachu in the area, for example, so you don’t have to always be checking your phone for Pokemon in the area. It lets you know whenever something is happening in the game. It uses Bluetooth to connect to your phone. (Picture below.) You can use it to throw a Poke Ball too. It only uses LED lights and vibrating so it doesn’t consume too much energy. They made it so players would be able to pay attention to their surroundings.
The game can be used without the watch.
Mr. Miyamoto from Nintendo was also involved with the game. Everyone was involved!
Pokemon Go Plus can clip on to your clothes or be worn like a watch.
The game uses location-based technology.

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Time to be the very best…

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Please search for “JME - the very best” on YouTube, you saying this just reminded me of it, it’s a tune released in the uk a few days ago.

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I was hoping for at least some type of announcement for a new main-series Pokemon game, or maybe some info on the blob thing or the Mega/Primal/New forme of Zygarde…but noooo, give us another spinoff that I won’t buy :stuck_out_tongue:

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Really? thats your biggest concern? I’m pissed it only took them 1 Great ball to catch Charizard.

Ahhhhhh, Ingress is so cool.
This is sweet.

Augmented reality is a nice idea!

This news was even anounced in more then 1 news paper here in the Netherlands.
Can’t wait to try it.

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I think perhaps Nintendo are finally realising that a significant amount of their fanbase are people who grew up with the franchise and are now in their mid to late 20s, people who have stuck with Pokemon their whole adolescents and into their adult years, or at least picked it back up again.

Pokemon is important enough to me that I bought a DS just to play Generation 4 Pokemon games, and I bought a 3DS just to play X/Y and on. There are actually a lot of people like me who buy Nintendo handhelds JUST for Pokemon.

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I think also this is a good sign of being relevant to how people game. Mobile gaming is eating a share of the handheld market. No way to ignore that. This takes advantage of a profit avenue that is under explored. It’s like producing a game where almost everyone already had the console.

Absolutely true, but poses many problems for the core mainline games. Pokemon GO! is indeed interesting but is no doubt going to have a HEFTY dose of MTX in it. If it makes too much money then all it takes is some bigwig at Nintendo (who have already said they are shifting to focus a lot of resources on the mobile market for all their games) is going to want to put more into the mobile area than the console one.

I am not saying it’s going to ruin the mainline console games and their quality, but the risk is there. When a game like Clash of Clans, or Angry Birds pulls in 2m/day from MTX, and costs a relatively insignificant amount to make and maintain. Then why is a company going to produce a game that costs 5-10m to make with no guarantee it will make money for them.

Imagine it with Hololens…

I second this.
Also, im more excited now then when I was a kid.

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Looks terrible!

You are no longer welcomed here.

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Don’t think I have ever cringed more in a video game trailer before!

2016

I have to wait that long?

RATS!!!

I wonder how close you have have to get and for how long?

LOL, i was totally expecting him to bust out like a bad ass and take off into the sunset

Great point, I have been very close to doing this also but have avoided as I know the time fall out that will occur lol!

I think it was advertised pretty well, like everything though, advertisements and reality can be miles apart. Interested to see what it’s like, strange that it promotes gangs of people to gang up on an individual and kick the crap out of it.

Can’t wait to see Pokémon games pop-up in the top x most downloaded games, or most earning games (?) in the appstores

I’m super excited for this :grin:

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