Pokemon Go hits Canada & 26 European countries, server struggles stall Japan launch
Despite a possible weekend assault by hackers, Pok?mon Go is now available in 35 countries, with a Japanese launch on hold pending an expansion of much-needed server capacity.
Developer Niantic's official Twitter account for Pok?mon Go announced the availability in Canada on Monday morning. European countries added over the weekend are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland.
A rollout in the property's home of Japan has yet to happen. Speaking to Forbes, Niantic CEO John Hanke said that "at present, the server capacity in Japan is not powerful enough." Hanke promised a launch in Japan later in July, and 200 countries in total within a couple of months.
Outage tracking data aggregator Downdetector.com continues to report mass server outages, aggravated by the wide weekend launches, across most of Europe . The North American outages have abated somewhat even with a still growing user base, and remain focused in the core of major metropolitan areas with suburbs and smaller towns less profoundly affected.
On top of the weekend expansions, a hacker group declared responsibility for severe weekend server access problems. Niantic and Google have not confirmed the claims, saying only that the problems during the time of the alleged assault have been rectified. The same group has claimed on Twitter that they will continue attacking the servers for the game on August 1.
Google, Nintendo, Niantic, and intellectual property manager The Pok?mon Company are all deeply involved in the development of Pok?mon Go. Apple and Google are collecting the customary 30 percent from in-app purchases, and as a result make more money off the game than Nintendo does directly. Nintendo's stock price has surged 50 percent since the title's release.
Pok?mon Go is available from the iOS App Store, requires iOS 8 or above, and occupies 193MB of storage space.
Developer Niantic's official Twitter account for Pok?mon Go announced the availability in Canada on Monday morning. European countries added over the weekend are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland.
A rollout in the property's home of Japan has yet to happen. Speaking to Forbes, Niantic CEO John Hanke said that "at present, the server capacity in Japan is not powerful enough." Hanke promised a launch in Japan later in July, and 200 countries in total within a couple of months.
Outage tracking data aggregator Downdetector.com continues to report mass server outages, aggravated by the wide weekend launches, across most of Europe . The North American outages have abated somewhat even with a still growing user base, and remain focused in the core of major metropolitan areas with suburbs and smaller towns less profoundly affected.
On top of the weekend expansions, a hacker group declared responsibility for severe weekend server access problems. Niantic and Google have not confirmed the claims, saying only that the problems during the time of the alleged assault have been rectified. The same group has claimed on Twitter that they will continue attacking the servers for the game on August 1.
Google, Nintendo, Niantic, and intellectual property manager The Pok?mon Company are all deeply involved in the development of Pok?mon Go. Apple and Google are collecting the customary 30 percent from in-app purchases, and as a result make more money off the game than Nintendo does directly. Nintendo's stock price has surged 50 percent since the title's release.
Pok?mon Go is available from the iOS App Store, requires iOS 8 or above, and occupies 193MB of storage space.
Comments
Every day without fail, 1 or 2 Pokemon posts. Give it a rest.
The long-term significance is that this game = the 1st significant proof-point for the monetization of AR. That could have large implications across the app industry -- not just games -- as other companies think about how AR can benefit them. In that context, tracking the rollout of the 1st successful AR deployment could be instructive.
This game/concept is nothing short of brilliant (minus the few idiots going overboard). Shortly after it was released to Canada yesterday, I took the kids outside to try it out. There were dozens of people in my neighborhood all doing the same thing. So while our kids were catching Pokemon and chatting with other kids, my wife and I were chatting with other parents (many of whom we never met before). We also took our dog out for a walk and ran into at least 10 other dogs/owners also walking their dogs while playing (we normally only ever run into 1 or 2). Needless to say our dog was very happy to have so many buddies to burn off energy with. We ended up walking over 5km with our family, which is much longer than we usually do.
I see so many critical comments claiming that being outside is meaningless if all you're doing is staring at your screen. It's so much more than that.