Nintendo stock falls on report of Pokemon GO delay in native Japan

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By Larry Banks

On Wednesday Nintendo’s shares lost some of their huge recent gains from the meteoric success of its Pokemon GO mobile game, partly due to a reported delay for the game’s launch in Japan.

Tech site TechCrunch said that the game’s developer, Niantic Inc, planned to launch Pokemon GO in Japan on Wednesday, but it was cancelled at the last minute due to the company apparently being worried that the huge number of users would overload its servers.

TechCrunch also said the Japanese launch of the game, in what is one of the world’s biggest gaming markets, was imminent.

Nintendo’s stock fell 10 percent by the afternoon trade, although it has gained 87 percent since the game was launched on July 6th in the US, Australia and New Zealand, adding $17 billion to its market capitalisation. Pokemon GO is now available in 35 countries.

As spokesperson for the Pokemon Company, which created the game with Nintendo and Google spinoff Niantic, declined to comment on the report, saying nothing had been decided in terms of a Japanese launch date.

Pokemon GO, which mixes a classic twenty-year-old franchise with ‘augmented reality’ is set to become the first mobile game to beat the $4 billion per year mark, beating Candy Crush Saga and Supercell’s Clash of Clans games.

SOURCE: Reuters.

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