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Pokemon GO & Nintendo's Theoretical, Yet Hopeful, Future

News broke yesterday that the Pokémon Company will be collaborating with Nintendo Ltd. (NTDOY) and former Google (GOOGL) subsidiary Niantic, Inc. to produce Pokémon GO, the first of approximately five mobile games Nintendo plans on releasing by 2017.

Per the Verge, "You may think it is a small number," said former Nintendo CEO and President Satoru Iwata back in May when discussing the then new mobile gaming initiative, "but when we aim to make each title a hit, and because we want to thoroughly operate every one of them for a significant amount of time after their releases, this is not a small number at all and should demonstrate our serious commitment to the smart device business."

The late great Iwata was not exaggerating about making “each title a hit.” Just watch the promotional video released for Pokémon GO.

Seriously, how can anyone not be excited for this mobile game! For the many of us who grew up playing Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue on our transparent Atomic Purple Game Boy Colors or our Game Boy Pockets, to the younger generation of fans playing Pokémon Black and Pokémon White on their Nintendo 3DSs, bringing a version of these games into both the virtual and physical reality realms of life is borderline revolutionary, at least for the Pokémon fandom.

Nintendo is developing the Pokémon Go Plus, a companion smart-watch designed to vibrate and light up when you approach a wild Pokémon near your real world location. Once notified, you would then open the game on your phone, and engage with caution, especially if it is a swarm of wild Beebrill. According to the CEO of the Pokémon Company Tsunekazu Ishihara, via yesterday’s press conference, he and Iwata had been working on this project for roughly two years.

The game itself is being developed by Niantic. The company is known for creating Ingress, the augmented reality mobile game, which utilizes GPS technology to enable a science-fiction story that encompasses the entire world. Ingresscurrently has 12 million downloads worldwide.

Pokemon GO will be available for download by 2016 for iPhone and Android users via the Apple (AAPL) App Store and Google Play, free of charge. There will be, however, in-app purchases that users can make. The companion smart-watch’s price has yet to be determined.

What Nintendo Should Be Pursuing

Pokémon GO is Nintendo’s inauguration into the mobile gaming world. Back in August of this year, a CMBC article was published detailing the spending of iPhone and Android phone users for in-app purchases for these free downloadable games. Some of the numbers are simply staggering.