'Pokemon GO' News: Nintendo Shares Surge On Friday Amid Widespread Support For AR Game [VIDEO]
Nintendo might not have been directly involved in the development of the highly-anticipated, augmented reality title, Pokemon GO, but the veteran gaming firm sure reaped the benefits of the game's launch.
As Pokemon GO dominated the rankings of both the iOS and Android app stores on Friday, Nintendo's investors reacted extremely positively to the game's reception, sending the firm's shares surging 8.9 percent, largely beating analysts' expectations.
David Gibson, an analyst at Macquarie, stated that Pokemon GO's successful launch is quite extraordinary, considering that the game was not even promoted that much.
"The really interesting thing is that this all happened without much promotion. The game has done all this, getting to the top of the download rankings, by itself and that shows you the power of the brand. It's encouraging because it shows that strongly branded IP will be successful in the App Store," he said.
Indeed, the widespread positive reception to the game has been phenomenal, with Pokemon GO being downloaded hundreds of thousands of times in a single day. In fact, Nintendo's servers even went down for a while, due to the immense number of players who were attempting to log into the game.
What is particularly interesting about the Pokemon GO phenomenon is the fact that the title practically proved Nintendo wrong. For the longest time, Nintendo has been very hesitant to bring its IP to a more open platform. Until today, the firm's biggest brands, such as Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong, still remain exclusive only on Nintendo's own devices.
With Pokemon GO, however, Nintendo finally explored other options, allowing one of its most popular IPs to be released on the iOS and Android platform.
Pokemon GO is a unique game that uses augmented reality to catch the titular pocket monsters through the lens of their smartphone cameras. Using augmented reality, the game gives players the feeling of actually capturing Pokemon in real life.
The extremely popular game has been officially launched in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Other regions are scheduled to follow soon.
