Hello, scrublords.

As you are probably aware, the Pokémon Company has announced its new mobile application with support from Niantic or Android and iOS slated for 2016 called "Pokémon Go".



If you're not aware, that's what this blog is for.

Basically, the tl;dr is that it is trying to simulate a Pokémon game in real life.

More elaborately, the smartphone application works along with an internet connection, GPS, and an accessory (which is to presumably imitate Pokéball throwing actions and provide notifications) to imitate similar actions that a Pokémon trainer does in a Pokémon game, which are exploring, interacting with other "trainers", catching and battling other Pokémon, and trading. So basically, you become the trainer.



The game is intended to bring a realistic Pokémon game feel to the real world, one in which you are the trainer and your mission is to explore your surroundings for Pokémon, opportunities for battle, and other interesting stuff.

Not much information has been released yet, but here's what we can deduce from the trailer and press conference:


•Several generations of Pokémon
•Wireless trading
•1-on-1 battles
•Team battles
•"Unite" feature
•Pokémon catching accompanied by a wrist accessory
•Pokéballs
•Hidden Pokémon across the world


If I have left something out, tell me!

MY THOUGHTS

I overly optimistic for Pokémon Go, as I strongly believe it has huge potential. Adventuring to discover and catch new Pokémon will be extremely fun, battling other people can be really intuitive, especially the team battles and the "unite" thing debuted in the trailer.

I believe that this game can bring people of all ages from all around the world into the world of Pokémon, and, as a result, huge success. A broader audience is exactly what Nintendo needs.

However, this can also crash and burn in a spectacular fashion depending on the reception from the general consumer that plays smartphone games, simply because Pokémon fans alone are not enough to make this game a success, because it depends heavily with human interaction.

I really don't want Nintendo to make this game an in-app purchase nightmare, similarly to what games such as Clash of Clans are. I believe there needs to be an adequate balance between content, quality, DLC and in-app purchases. However, Nintendo can really easily make it so, just like what Pokemon Shuffle surged to be.

Finally, I need to emphasize my concern for the accessory dubbed "Pokémon Go Plus". Nintendo needs to be extremely careful on how this will be implemented into Pokémon Go, because I doubt someone that is new to Pokémon would want to buy an accessory to play the game. It also needs to be cheap.

Agree? Disagree?

Which leads me to...

YOUR THOUGHTS

Aside to inform, I wanted to write this blog to know what you think. Do you think this has potential? Do you think it is silly? Will it crash and burn? Would Iwata be happy?

What do you think?

Leave a comment and discuss with others!

---

Watch the trailer here.

Watch the press conference aquí.

---

Thanks for reading!

1.2