6 ms·

Nintendo is up 35% on Pokemon Go success

72 points by derwiki 10y ago

pboutros 10y ago
I bet it would be up even higher if Niantic (sp.?) and Nintendo had a formalized data sharing agreement. See HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12071098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12071098
- swanson 10y ago
  Because folks trading $NTDOY surely are deeply concerned with formalized data sharing agreements...
eth1 10y ago
http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/80610796/pokemon-go-is-bad#p80618256 http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/80610796/pokemon-go-is-ba...
jamisteven 10y ago
One more thing I dont understand the value of, just like twitter.
- jimwalsh 10y ago
  You don't understand the value of Twitter, yet are an HN reader?
- rarec 10y ago
  The main difference is Pokemon Go actually can make money.
- abustamam 10y ago
  It's a very popular game with a lot of people willing to spend a lot of money to get ahead.
- Falcon9 10y ago
  If you create a Pokestop, they will come. One thing Niantic did was turn certain businesses into portals - Pokemon Go could make many times more money with a similar deal.
- bsamuels 10y ago
  You should try it - I didn't understand the appeal until I found that I had spent my entire Sunday walking around town looking for pocket monsters
- j2bax 10y ago
  I think this is just a glimpse at Nintendo IP's potential on mobile. They've kept their IP's very close to their own hardware until recently.
  - allemagne 10y ago
    Having a Pokemon mobile game is a no-brainer, and I don't think that's just in hindsight. What other major mobile opportunities are there for Nintendo's IP besides porting classic games and such? Genuinely curious.
    - j2bax 10y ago
      That's true, that particular IP makes extra sense on mobile devices. I think the number of individuals now in the category of having plenty of disposable income but not necessarily having the time/drive to buy Nintendo's dedicated consoles will prove a very profitable audience on the devices they already own (iOS/Android). Nintendo could charge a serious premium for any of their apps and I bet many people would pay it. Or they can release freemium apps with gobs of unlockable content... Either way, it seems like its inevitable at this point that they will venture outside of their little walled garden with their closely guarded IP's.
    - flycaliguy 10y ago
      Wii Fit seems like a natural... fit. They already ship with a step counter that integrates into your game at home. If would be pretty cool actually if there was a virtual yoga teacher in the park and people gathered and did yoga as a rag tag group. I think the key would be making Pokemon Go work and then building incentives to play other titles, rewards for sticking to Nintendo's sphere.
- imron 10y ago
  Do you always like to brag about your ignorance? I mean I don't personally use Twitter or play Pokemon Go, but it's not to difficult to see the value they provide to (millions of) other people.
valine 10y ago
Pokemon Go should implement a way for businesses to request pokéstops be placed at their store front, for which the Pokémon company could charge a small fee. Think of the revenue they could generate. Consumers would actually seek out the advertising instead of blocking it.
- Keyframe 10y ago
  I came to the same realisation when I've discovered that closest Pokemon Gym is right outside/next to a local Lidl shop.
- traspler 10y ago
  At least in Ingress they did something like this. They partnered with Vodafone so every Vodafone store became a Portal. They also had a partnership with a drugstore chain where you could get item codes inside the store. So it's not unrealistic.
- wklauss 10y ago
  I doubt this is a great opportunity for businesses other than having an image of the storefront in the app. Geolocation range is wide enough that players don't need to go inside the store or be in front of it in order to have access to the Pokéstop. I guess for areas with low density of commercial storefronts could attract some foot traffic, but doubt it will be that significant in long term.
  - vlunkr 10y ago
    Eh, it's not THAT wide, you definitely have to be within sight of it
  - tlrobinson 10y ago
    Maybe put a physical QR code in the window or inside the store that needs to be scanned to get access to the Pokestop? However, I'm not really sure business really want to advertise to people whose intent is just to collect virtual Pokemon. Maybe they could somehow tie real-world purchase to in-app tokens, i.e. buy $10 worth of stuff at some store and receive 100 Pokecoins.
Philipp__ 10y ago
And they didn't even make proper Pokemon game. What I mean by that, this is something expected, since AR gaming on Nintendo's platforms is nothing new. What led to popularity is the iOS/Android platform. This game is bollocks, I didn't even installed it after I saw total permission request over Google Acc. And what shocked me the most, is how lazy this game was done, I am not saying that infrastructure behind it is bad, I do not know about it anything, but the lack of combat and everything else makes me feel this is rather bad attempt to recreate Pokemon experience we all know and love from other Nintendo systems. tl;dr: I really do not get the hype behind this game.
- lubujackson 10y ago
  The game isn't just the game, it's the social experiment of walking to a place with a lure and seeing 15 people playing. It's hearing someone talk about catching a pokemon you just caught yourself at the same location. It's Tinder for gamers. The lack of gameplay is probably intentional. There is very little to do without going for a nice walk. If you play it like a walk supplement, it's great fun and not overwhelming. If you go on a walk just to catch Pokemon, it's a nice outing - nothing more.
- jscrilla 10y ago
  Honestly it sounds like you didn't even give it a chance. The game has a ton of success largely because it gets people out into the world, finding new Pokemon as they go. Niantic is going to expand into PVP battles and the like, but it's not that bad of a game. Just needs some time to grow.
  - xenihn 10y ago
    It currently feels like an MVP. I'm sure it will be great once they add a proper battle system. I can easily see myself sinking hundreds of dollars into it.
- vlunkr 10y ago
  I think part of the joy is in the simplicity. Walk to a Pokemon, catch it. I think people have different expectations for mobile apps, ie. the small learning curve.
xenihn 10y ago
I hope the success of Pokemon Go convinces Nintendo to do a proper mobile port of Advance Wars, or maybe even a native mobile game. Warbits is good, but I'd love to see what Intelligent Systems could do with a native iOS game.
- danso 10y ago
  I was just thinking -- as any NES-era child does -- that perhaps the greatest benefit of Pokemnon Go (ive never played a Pokemon game) is that it convinces Nintendo to port its classic IPs to mobile. As a very disappointed WiiU owner, mobile seems like a brighter future for Nintendo than the console wars.
  - dmix 10y ago
    Nintendo 3DS is continuing to do so well right now I don't think they have a big incentive to port to iOS/Android. I personally was just deciding whether or not to buy a 3DS (my first *DS) and the content available for it but not on mobile was the biggest selling point. Making the games available on mobile could very well eat into their platform profits. Unless they start failing in that area I don't see them investing in it in the short term. Although it would obviously be a big cash cow if they chose to either way. But they wouldn't be able to sell games for $39 like they do now on the Nintendo eShop.
- flukus 10y ago
  Well Fire Emblem (fantasy advance wars) is coming to mobiles soon so it would make sense for advance wars to follow it.
hatsunearu 10y ago
I want to voice my concerns about the future of Pokemon Go so I'll do it here. The power inflation is insane. The game will probably be unplayable to new players by the end of this month. Unlike Ingress, the game does not have a way to "remove" power from the game. You can increase the combined combat points of your pokemon collection unbound, and you have a massive power inflation going on. Sure, you get diminishing returns on the training but in the end the pokemon don't disappear and you have a permanent increase in strength. Ingress mechanics always removes XM from the system and you get an equilibrium with the spawn rate of XM and the consumption rate of XM (roughly equal to the rate of portal turnover). Pokemon Go has none of that. If this isn't addressed properly I think the game might just die.
- shkkmo 10y ago
  In Ingress, only inactive areas had XM decay as a significant source of destruction. Most areas saw the majority of destruction redone by players, and the only limit on that was generally people's willingness to spend time farming. In Pokemon Go, Attacking and powering up gyms takes longer, but is still fundamentally tied to farming equipment (potions and revives). We'll see how Pokemon Go develops, given it's growth at present it's hard to predict how stable or volatile gym membership will end up being.
- lubujackson 10y ago
  There's two things of interest here. The game itself, which is really thin as far as gameplay and will dry up like a standard MMORPG as people go crazy leveling and the initial rush dies down. But the social aspect of meeting up at hotspots and dropping lures to get a party started and all that feels like a new sort of sensation that should persist beyond this one game. The real key is the location data from Ingress. There's plenty of room to expand into other games, to create a cross-game persistent world or do any number of fun things (they already have the original Ingress game and a travel app based on it). It'll be interesting to see if they can keep branching off from this. I think ultimately it could become a sort of better Foursquare and that's where real advertising $ could come into play. It's been an advertiser's dream for a while for a phone app to make some sort of "location alerts with coupons" hit critical mass and slathering that over this game would be extremely easy (go to the Starbucks to get a Pikachu or free lure!)

72 points by derwiki 10y ago

I bet it would be up even higher if Niantic (sp.?) and Nintendo had a formalized data sharing agreement. See HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12071098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12071098

swanson 10y ago
Because folks trading $NTDOY surely are deeply concerned with formalized data sharing agreements...

eth1 10y ago

http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/80610796/pokemon-go-is-bad#p80618256 http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/80610796/pokemon-go-is-ba...

jamisteven 10y ago

One more thing I dont understand the value of, just like twitter.

jimwalsh 10y ago
You don't understand the value of Twitter, yet are an HN reader?
rarec 10y ago
The main difference is Pokemon Go actually can make money.
abustamam 10y ago
It's a very popular game with a lot of people willing to spend a lot of money to get ahead.
Falcon9 10y ago
If you create a Pokestop, they will come. One thing Niantic did was turn certain businesses into portals - Pokemon Go could make many times more money with a similar deal.
bsamuels 10y ago
You should try it - I didn't understand the appeal until I found that I had spent my entire Sunday walking around town looking for pocket monsters
j2bax 10y ago
I think this is just a glimpse at Nintendo IP's potential on mobile. They've kept their IP's very close to their own hardware until recently.
- allemagne 10y ago
  Having a Pokemon mobile game is a no-brainer, and I don't think that's just in hindsight. What other major mobile opportunities are there for Nintendo's IP besides porting classic games and such? Genuinely curious.
  - j2bax 10y ago
    That's true, that particular IP makes extra sense on mobile devices. I think the number of individuals now in the category of having plenty of disposable income but not necessarily having the time/drive to buy Nintendo's dedicated consoles will prove a very profitable audience on the devices they already own (iOS/Android). Nintendo could charge a serious premium for any of their apps and I bet many people would pay it. Or they can release freemium apps with gobs of unlockable content... Either way, it seems like its inevitable at this point that they will venture outside of their little walled garden with their closely guarded IP's.
  - flycaliguy 10y ago
    Wii Fit seems like a natural... fit. They already ship with a step counter that integrates into your game at home. If would be pretty cool actually if there was a virtual yoga teacher in the park and people gathered and did yoga as a rag tag group. I think the key would be making Pokemon Go work and then building incentives to play other titles, rewards for sticking to Nintendo's sphere.
imron 10y ago
Do you always like to brag about your ignorance? I mean I don't personally use Twitter or play Pokemon Go, but it's not to difficult to see the value they provide to (millions of) other people.

valine 10y ago

Pokemon Go should implement a way for businesses to request pokéstops be placed at their store front, for which the Pokémon company could charge a small fee. Think of the revenue they could generate. Consumers would actually seek out the advertising instead of blocking it.

Keyframe 10y ago
I came to the same realisation when I've discovered that closest Pokemon Gym is right outside/next to a local Lidl shop.
traspler 10y ago
At least in Ingress they did something like this. They partnered with Vodafone so every Vodafone store became a Portal. They also had a partnership with a drugstore chain where you could get item codes inside the store. So it's not unrealistic.
wklauss 10y ago
I doubt this is a great opportunity for businesses other than having an image of the storefront in the app. Geolocation range is wide enough that players don't need to go inside the store or be in front of it in order to have access to the Pokéstop. I guess for areas with low density of commercial storefronts could attract some foot traffic, but doubt it will be that significant in long term.
- vlunkr 10y ago
  Eh, it's not THAT wide, you definitely have to be within sight of it
- tlrobinson 10y ago
  Maybe put a physical QR code in the window or inside the store that needs to be scanned to get access to the Pokestop? However, I'm not really sure business really want to advertise to people whose intent is just to collect virtual Pokemon. Maybe they could somehow tie real-world purchase to in-app tokens, i.e. buy $10 worth of stuff at some store and receive 100 Pokecoins.

Philipp__ 10y ago

And they didn't even make proper Pokemon game. What I mean by that, this is something expected, since AR gaming on Nintendo's platforms is nothing new. What led to popularity is the iOS/Android platform. This game is bollocks, I didn't even installed it after I saw total permission request over Google Acc. And what shocked me the most, is how lazy this game was done, I am not saying that infrastructure behind it is bad, I do not know about it anything, but the lack of combat and everything else makes me feel this is rather bad attempt to recreate Pokemon experience we all know and love from other Nintendo systems. tl;dr: I really do not get the hype behind this game.

lubujackson 10y ago
The game isn't just the game, it's the social experiment of walking to a place with a lure and seeing 15 people playing. It's hearing someone talk about catching a pokemon you just caught yourself at the same location. It's Tinder for gamers. The lack of gameplay is probably intentional. There is very little to do without going for a nice walk. If you play it like a walk supplement, it's great fun and not overwhelming. If you go on a walk just to catch Pokemon, it's a nice outing - nothing more.
jscrilla 10y ago
Honestly it sounds like you didn't even give it a chance. The game has a ton of success largely because it gets people out into the world, finding new Pokemon as they go. Niantic is going to expand into PVP battles and the like, but it's not that bad of a game. Just needs some time to grow.
- xenihn 10y ago
  It currently feels like an MVP. I'm sure it will be great once they add a proper battle system. I can easily see myself sinking hundreds of dollars into it.
vlunkr 10y ago
I think part of the joy is in the simplicity. Walk to a Pokemon, catch it. I think people have different expectations for mobile apps, ie. the small learning curve.

xenihn 10y ago

I hope the success of Pokemon Go convinces Nintendo to do a proper mobile port of Advance Wars, or maybe even a native mobile game. Warbits is good, but I'd love to see what Intelligent Systems could do with a native iOS game.

danso 10y ago
I was just thinking -- as any NES-era child does -- that perhaps the greatest benefit of Pokemnon Go (ive never played a Pokemon game) is that it convinces Nintendo to port its classic IPs to mobile. As a very disappointed WiiU owner, mobile seems like a brighter future for Nintendo than the console wars.
- dmix 10y ago
  Nintendo 3DS is continuing to do so well right now I don't think they have a big incentive to port to iOS/Android. I personally was just deciding whether or not to buy a 3DS (my first *DS) and the content available for it but not on mobile was the biggest selling point. Making the games available on mobile could very well eat into their platform profits. Unless they start failing in that area I don't see them investing in it in the short term. Although it would obviously be a big cash cow if they chose to either way. But they wouldn't be able to sell games for $39 like they do now on the Nintendo eShop.
flukus 10y ago
Well Fire Emblem (fantasy advance wars) is coming to mobiles soon so it would make sense for advance wars to follow it.

hatsunearu 10y ago

I want to voice my concerns about the future of Pokemon Go so I'll do it here. The power inflation is insane. The game will probably be unplayable to new players by the end of this month. Unlike Ingress, the game does not have a way to "remove" power from the game. You can increase the combined combat points of your pokemon collection unbound, and you have a massive power inflation going on. Sure, you get diminishing returns on the training but in the end the pokemon don't disappear and you have a permanent increase in strength. Ingress mechanics always removes XM from the system and you get an equilibrium with the spawn rate of XM and the consumption rate of XM (roughly equal to the rate of portal turnover). Pokemon Go has none of that. If this isn't addressed properly I think the game might just die.

shkkmo 10y ago
In Ingress, only inactive areas had XM decay as a significant source of destruction. Most areas saw the majority of destruction redone by players, and the only limit on that was generally people's willingness to spend time farming. In Pokemon Go, Attacking and powering up gyms takes longer, but is still fundamentally tied to farming equipment (potions and revives). We'll see how Pokemon Go develops, given it's growth at present it's hard to predict how stable or volatile gym membership will end up being.
lubujackson 10y ago
There's two things of interest here. The game itself, which is really thin as far as gameplay and will dry up like a standard MMORPG as people go crazy leveling and the initial rush dies down. But the social aspect of meeting up at hotspots and dropping lures to get a party started and all that feels like a new sort of sensation that should persist beyond this one game. The real key is the location data from Ingress. There's plenty of room to expand into other games, to create a cross-game persistent world or do any number of fun things (they already have the original Ingress game and a travel app based on it). It'll be interesting to see if they can keep branching off from this. I think ultimately it could become a sort of better Foursquare and that's where real advertising $ could come into play. It's been an advertiser's dream for a while for a phone app to make some sort of "location alerts with coupons" hit critical mass and slathering that over this game would be extremely easy (go to the Starbucks to get a Pikachu or free lure!)