Pikachu was yesterday welcomed home by thousands of enthusiastic Japanese gamers as the global phenomenon that is Pokemon Go finally launched in its native market.
The smartphone game has now been launched in more than 40 countries, including the US and much of Europe, but Japan — where Nintendo Co started the mythical creature franchise 20 years ago — was kept waiting.
The suspense lasted for days, as international media reports about a timeline for the Japan rollout kept changing, and Nintendo, Pokemon Co and the game’s US-based developer, Niantic Inc, all declined to comment.
However, that finally ended yesterday, as the game was made available online in Japan.
“We are truly happy that we have been able to bring this to Japan, where Pokemon was born,” Niantic announced on its blog.
It attributed the delay in Japan to responses “beyond our expectations” after the game’s rolling release began on July 6.
User reaction in Japan was ecstatic.
High-school student Mamiko Amaha, 16, was immersed in Pokemon Go with a group of girlfriends in Tokyo’s historic Asakusa district in search of Pokemon characters, as crowds of tourists strolled around.
“It was like: ‘Finally! I want to play it immediately,’” Amaha said outside the colorful Sensoji Temple of her reaction when the app became available.
“When we’re playing, we see Pokemon on our friend’s shoulder,” she added. “So we’re like: ‘It’s there, it’s there.’”
Since its global launch, Pokemon Go has sparked a worldwide frenzy among users who have taken to the streets with their smartphones.
The game has given a shot in the arm to Nintendo’s nascent move into mobile gaming — after it abandoned its long-standing consoles-only policy.
The videogame giant’s stock at one stage had more than doubled in the past couple of weeks, with its market value earlier this week soaring to ¥4.5 trillion (US$42.39 billion), meaning it was more valuable than Japan Inc standard bearer Sony Corp.
The stock rose on the Japan launch, surging as much as 6.8 percent as investors cheered the rollout, but later pared gains to rise 1.4 percent in mid-afternoon trading.
Meanwhile, McDonald’s Japan and Pokemon Co officially announced a collaboration whereby the fast-food chain’s outlets are to be key locations — gyms and “PokeStops” — for Pokemon Go players.
McDonald’s Japan shares rose about 3 percent following the announcement.
Amid widespread anticipation before the official release, the government issued a rare safety guide warning of the dangers gamers could face, from heatstroke to online scams.
Another potential pitfall could be Pokemon Go’s effect on workplace discipline.
“Pokemon Go came, I cannot bother with work,” one person said on Twitter minutes after the game hit Google Play.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the