Pokémon fans in 15 countries got their first chance to play wildly popular mobile game Pokémon Go over the weekend, but prospective players in China, India, and Korea are still waiting for the title to debut in their own territories.
Niantic confirmed trainer locations on Friday in the following countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau.
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Niantic CEO John Hanke told Forbes that Pokémon Go's introduction in Korea is proving particularly challenging, due to Google Maps' information system being limited because of security concerns over North Korea.
As for China, Hanke called a rollout "technically possible, but difficult to introduce due to the many hurdles, or should I say regulations we'd have to clear to get it to users."
Niantic has been silent on the reasons for the launch hold-up in India, which is home to a lucrative mobile market of over 200 million users.
Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Council of Virtual Spaces has temporarily banned Pokémon Go in the country. According to the BBC, the ban is related to "unspecified security concerns" and followed a short meeting where the council "were waiting to see to what extent the game's creators would co-operate with them".
The game has been downloaded 100 million times in the U.S. alone, and is reportedly responsible for doubling sales of portable smartphone battery backups as players roam for extended periods trying to locate Pokémon.
Its ratio of paid users to total users is said to be 10 times that of Candy Crush, which generated over $1 billion of revenue in both 2013 and 2014. According to brokerage Needham & Co, Apple is set to make $3 billion in revenue from the game's in-app purchases in the next one or two years.
Top Rated Comments
A few more weeks and it will be Pokémon Who?
funny, i remember seeing comments like this, saying it wouldnt make it past the second week ;)its been, what, 4 weeks now and counting? still with a record player base,
has over 50 million downloads and counting. yep its going to disappear.
Gyms are also pointless to take lver cuz it barely ever lasts 2 minutes let alone 20 hours
Their customer feedback is also non excisting and when they do release a comment they come off as total pricks
Pokemon Go already.
The game starts to go downhill after reaching level 20. Up till then it's a challenge to evolve and catch and hatch enough to get the points to have access to ultra balls. But after that, its the same exact game, with mostly the same creatures appearing nearby but are now more challenging to catch. Hope they add some new features soon
you are also discounting the loads of other features that will be added. just to name a few:1. there are over 700+ pokemon to catch, this is jus the first 150 from the original games.
2. there is going to be a trading feature added, stated to be similar to the current nintendo DS style trading options.
3. there will be a battling feature added for battles outside of gyms, again, similar to the way the DS games handle battling.
4. Global and regional leader boards for things like, Number of gyms held by each team.
5. The fact that the Pokemon company LOVES themed events and giving away rare pokemon and items at them.
6. Things like TM's to change your pokemons moves down the road, and items to help boost your pokemon in battle(just like the current pokemon times
i honestly question that they know what they are even doing at this point. i mean they arent doing themselves any favor especially how quiet they always stay.
see lets see, you would rather have a feature that does NOT work be in the game rather then them remove it, fix it, and then reimplement it? they only removed it about a week ago, maybe cut them some slack and give them another week?you are right. they only have a pretty successful game out that follows the same general concept. but nope, no idea ;)
it already shows where i live and I am not surprised. no new features, in fact they just take stuff out cuz they apparently have no idea how to fix it. STUPID and no statement whatsoever
they are only dealing with the most popular thing to hit the internet. ever. pokemon go has literally flooded the internet faster then any other thing to ever be on the internet. just looking up google searches alone it dwarfs any other "fad" or popular subject ever.
and the game is only 4 weeks old. you act like its going to die already or that they will never be able to fix it.
4 weeks and 4 updates so far. thats actually pretty impressive considering its a game who is quickly approaching 100m downloads at just over a month old, it took facebook/twitter/instagram years to hit the 100m mark at first. pokemon didnt even take a whole fiscal quarter to do so.