It’s been a while since the GPS-based game has been out in the wild, yet Pokémon Go hasn’t managed to reach all the major markets yet. This seem to have become the primary focus of the game developers now though. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, The Pokémon Company president and Chief Executive Officer Tsunekazu Ishihara said that the highly popular, AR based mobile game will soon be hitting China and South Korea.
Since its release, Pokémon Go has taken the gaming industry by storm, breaking records and setting benchmarks right and left. From becoming the top-grossing game ever, to becoming the fastest mobile game to hit the $500 million revenue mark, the list of achievements is almost as long as the number of badges won by Ash. The most surprising fact however, is that it managed to do so without even entering some of the world’s most concentrated gaming markets.
The game hasn’t yet come to major Asian countries like China, India and South Korea — all of which incidentally, also have hordes of Pokemon fans just waiting to get their hands on Go. It just recently hit Japan which was taken as an indicator that other Asian countries are also close-by in the queue. However, with Ishihara’s latest statement that China and South Korea will see the game release soon, things are surely starting to heat up.
According to market researcher Niko Partners, the Chinese domestic mobile game market will reach a value of $8.3 billion in 2017, so introducing Pokémon Go in that area is definitely a sound move, both from a strategic and from an economic perspective.
There are a few obstacles, though. Google Maps works differently in these Asian countries, due to restrictions imposed by governments. So it is unclear how the game devs will work their way around that and the company might have to make some extra efforts to get things up and running. Nevertheless, the profits will surely outweigh the losses in huge ratios once the initial hiccups subside.
Wonder when the game will finally make its way to India?
