'Pokémon Go' Delayed in Japan Due to Leaked McDonald's Sponsorship Details

[MacRumors]

Niantic has decided to postpone the launch of Pokémon Go in Japan today, due to an unexpected email leak that revealed details about the company's rumored sponsor partnership with food chain McDonald's. A source close to the company confirmed the delay to TechCrunch, referring to a specific email chain between Pokémon Go's creators and McDonald's as the reason behind the move.

The two companies -- in addition to The Pokémon Company and Nintendo itself, presumably -- believed that the all-but-confirmed launch of Pokémon Go in the country would create a hype that "would overload the game" for a lot of its players, not just within Japan. The creators of Pokémon Go now hope that a restructured, less publicly expected launch will prepare the game's servers for an influx of players in the country that will undoubtedly be quite high.

When Pokémon Go does launch in Japan, it will be the first territory to introduce sponsored retail partnerships, which aim to lure players to restaurants like McDonald's in order to generate revenue for both Niantic and the corporate food chain. According to these sources close to the launch, all 3,000 McDonald's locations in Japan will be turned into gyms where players can battle opposing teams to take over the location, or train their Pokémon with teammates if they've already conquered the gym. It's unclear if any locations will be PokéStops instead of gyms.

The debut of Pokémon Go in Japan is now said to be "imminent," with a report from Nikkei suggesting the new launch date could be as soon as tomorrow, July 21. Over the weekend, the game launched in Canada and 26 countries across Europe, and it's already been available in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Japan will mark its first launch in Asia, with an expected rollout to other countries in the region in the coming weeks.

Thanks to Pokémon Go's success, Nintendo's market value has more than doubled since the game launched earlier in July. The company is now worth $42.5 billion, and it even broke the single-day trading record in Tokyo last Friday when $4.5 billion worth of stock was traded. Nintendo's new valuation now puts it ahead of Sony, which has a market cap sitting around $40 billion.

Article Link: 'Pokémon Go' Delayed in Japan Due to Leaked McDonald's Sponsorship Details

 

[IAmGLaDOS]

Oh thank goodness, I was worrying there wasn't going to be another Pokémon GO article today.

 

[japanime]

We don't need Pokemon GO. We catch real-live Pokemon here in Japan every day.

 

[iTom501]

I'm done playing the game. It was just a week long sensation (in my case) because of the bugs and issues. To me it's unplayable at this point. Sorry

 

[BrodieApple]

Here come the Pokemon Go article complainers

 

[coolfactor]

Wasn't Pokémon conceived in Japan? Ironic that it was slow to launch there.

Even though I've never played this (doubt it would work on my aging iPhone 4), I think it's a genius creation! Just wondering how long it will last. One thing is for sure.... there's going to be a ton of other entrants into this field now. Expect many, many more "games" and apps launching with similar augmented-reality features. Nintendo really has come out with a game-changer.

 

[joueboy]

I'm done playing the game. It was just a week long sensation (in my case) because of the bugs and issues. To me it's unplayable at this point. Sorry

Don't apologize it's not your fault. They should just made this app local and sync your captures at certain point of time of the day, instead of relying so much on server every time.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

The servers don't really do all that much for this game, do they?

It seems to me that all they have to do is serve up packets saying that an object is at a location. I feel like the packets can probably be under 12 bytes per object (4 bytes to express longitude, 4 bytes to express latitude, and 4 bytes to say what the object is)... you send out maybe 1 object per minute. Occassionally the server needs to receive info saying that a pokemon was caught, or a lure was placed, or to save some info about a pokemon being renamed or whatever.

I would think that the servers for this game really don't have to do all that much compared to a lot of other services... there's no images or videos or audio being streamed... all the media is stored locally as part of the app download. All that is sent back and forth is some game data. Authentication is probably the most taxing part of this game on the server.

Edit: Someone else pointed out the fact that pokestops have real-world thumbnails associated with them. So the servers do have to serve up some images. I changed my mind - serving up those thumbnails are probably the most taxing thing the servers have to do.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Why are they worried about scaling the servers now? Better late than never though.

 

[Pakaku]

Wasn't Pokémon conceived in Japan? Ironic that it was slow to launch there.

And that the delay is because of a deal with a non-japanese business.

 

[jacjustjac]

The servers don't really do all that much for this game, do they?

It seems to me that all they have to do is serve up packets saying that an object is at a location. I feel like the packets can probably be under 12 bytes per object (4 bytes to express longitude, 4 bytes to express latitude, and 4 bytes to say what the object is)... you send out maybe 1 object per minute. Occassionally the server needs to receive info saying that a pokemon was caught, or a lure was placed, or to save some info about a pokemon being renamed or whatever.

I would think that the servers for this game really don't have to do all that much compared to a lot of other services... there's no images or videos or audio being streamed... all the media is stored locally as part of the app download. All that is sent back and forth is some game data. Authentication is probably the most taxing part of this game on the server.

I think it does serve out the thumbnails of landmarks used as pokestops. I noticed that I can't "check-in" until the photo loads.

Something about this app feels so "proof-of-concept" and not actually intended to be that popular. At least it doesn't seem like the programmers planned it would go as well as it has.

 

[coumerelli]

Somebody at Nintindo is saying "I told you so." #freetheplatform

 

[ke-iron]

I'm done playing the game. It was just a week long sensation (in my case) because of the bugs and issues. To me it's unplayable at this point. Sorry

It's actually pretty stable right now, in terms of being able to log on and play. The other bugs while in game are so minor.

 

[nikicampos]

The servers don't really do all that much for this game, do they?

It seems to me that all they have to do is serve up packets saying that an object is at a location. I feel like the packets can probably be under 12 bytes per object (4 bytes to express longitude, 4 bytes to express latitude, and 4 bytes to say what the object is)... you send out maybe 1 object per minute. Occassionally the server needs to receive info saying that a pokemon was caught, or a lure was placed, or to save some info about a pokemon being renamed or whatever.

I would think that the servers for this game really don't have to do all that much compared to a lot of other services... there's no images or videos or audio being streamed... all the media is stored locally as part of the app download. All that is sent back and forth is some game data. Authentication is probably the most taxing part of this game on the server.

That's what bothers me, I think it has to do with the programming of the app and how it handles data or maybe they just have three small servers for the whole world...

Compared to games like Call Of Duty, etc. this games doesn't send/receives that much of information, I don't play all day, but in 8 days it only has consumed 64.9 MB
[doublepost=1469025888][/doublepost]

I think it does serve out the thumbnails of landmarks used as pokestops. I noticed that I can't "check-in" until the photo loads.

Something about this app feels so "proof-of-concept" and not actually intended to be that popular. At least it doesn't seem like the programmers planned it would go as well as it has.

Completely agree with you, they thought it was going to be another flop just like Miitomo.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I think it does serve out the thumbnails of landmarks used as pokestops. I noticed that I can't "check-in" until the photo loads.

Something about this app feels so "proof-of-concept" and not actually intended to be that popular. At least it doesn't seem like the programmers planned it would go as well as it has.

Oh yeah. I forgot about the pokestop thumbnails. So it does serve up a few low resolution pictures. Given how little data the game needs to use outside of that, I imagine the thumbnails are easily the most taxing thing the servers do. Serving up 100M of those every day (and especially when there's certain hours where they probably serve 30M of them) could overwhelm a server if you weren't thinking you'd get hit with such volume.

 

[nikicampos]

It's actually pretty stable right now, in terms of being able to log on and play. The other bugs while in game are so minor.

The three step bug is not minor, it's almost 80% what the game is all about, to track pokemons and that is not working.

 

[Kaibelf]

Don't apologize it's not your fault. They should just made this app local and sync your captures at certain point of time of the day, instead of relying so much on server every time.

So completely ignoring the gym aspect and any potential trading or PvP framework? Why would they do that?

 

[iTom501]

It's actually pretty stable right now, in terms of being able to log on and play. The other bugs while in game are so minor.

Probably because you are in the US, It's a nightmare in the UK, My password is getting reset every other day, sometimes the app won't even load or would just randomly quit and it makes me feel I'm wasting my time so I stopped...

 

[NT1440]

I was really hoping this game would be community sourcing important locations, not just letting the McDonalds and Starbucks of the world sponsor them.

 

[iTom501]

Don't apologize it's not your fault. They should just made this app local and sync your captures at certain point of time of the day, instead of relying so much on server every time.

The entire company seems like a mess, I was shocked to see that the game was first released in the US instead (Japan?) where the whole Pokemon concept comes from, It just seems incredibly rude and then all that mess with freezing and password resets, my password would always reset itself and I wouldn't be able to set a new one because their website won't work, so in conclusion, I'm done!

 

[Glassed Silver]

I was really hoping this game would be community sourcing important locations, not just letting the McDonalds and Starbucks of the world sponsor them.

Well, two things:
a) Monetization. It's a fine line. You need to balance IAPs and sponsorships, because the servers won't run without some dough behind them. Sure it's basically a game to promote the main games, but I'm sure they don't want to just rely on IAPs only. Wouldn't complain if the sponsorships wasn't a thing, then again it might secure the longevity of the game even better, especially if you consider that some Pokémon are supposedly exclusive to certain locations, so you could consider catching foreign Pokémon part of a travel experience. Since not everyone is likely to happen to just have a world trip organized for the next year or so by chance, I'm sure that if you want to give players a shot at this being part of their gameplay experience, you need the game to last.
b) It already has community-sourced data. It took a lot from Ingress and Ingress itself didn't have user-submitted locations right away.
I assume they might implement user submission sometime down the road.
At the moment, your best shot is to install Ingress and submit stuff there and hope it transitions over to Pokémon Go. I doubt they'll run two completely separate location databases and if they do, I'd assume they share data on an ongoing basis.

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[jclardy]

The servers don't really do all that much for this game, do they?

It seems to me that all they have to do is serve up packets saying that an object is at a location. I feel like the packets can probably be under 12 bytes per object (4 bytes to express longitude, 4 bytes to express latitude, and 4 bytes to say what the object is)... you send out maybe 1 object per minute. Occassionally the server needs to receive info saying that a pokemon was caught, or a lure was placed, or to save some info about a pokemon being renamed or whatever.

I would think that the servers for this game really don't have to do all that much compared to a lot of other services... there's no images or videos or audio being streamed... all the media is stored locally as part of the app download. All that is sent back and forth is some game data. Authentication is probably the most taxing part of this game on the server.

Edit: Someone else pointed out the fact that pokestops have real-world thumbnails associated with them. So the servers do have to serve up some images. I changed my mind - serving up those thumbnails are probably the most taxing thing the servers have to do.

I think their main issue before was that the servers were calculating distances to nearby pokemon for every user, every few seconds (distance formula is a square root, though they could do an approximation. Given the state of the game I doubt they optimized that at all.) And that is likely why every pokemon is showing as "3 steps" away, because they disabled that calculation (Which should be on the client side as it is only a handful of calculations, but doing it for every user, for every pokemon in range, every few seconds means that is likely why they fried their servers the first few days.)

 

[vooke]

I think their main issue before was that the servers were calculating distances to nearby pokemon for every user, every few seconds (distance formula is a square root, though they could do an approximation. Given the state of the game I doubt they optimized that at all.) And that is likely why every pokemon is showing as "3 steps" away, because they disabled that calculation (Which should be on the client side as it is only a handful of calculations, but doing it for every user, for every pokemon in range, every few seconds means that is likely why they fried their servers the first few days.)

That's more like it. I've also noticed Pokemons appearing at very similar locations lately. Is it possible that they are programmed to appear along the trainer's path with the frequency and type being subject to some factors such as how long the player has been at it?

 

[NT1440]

I'm currently catching all the complainers, my ComplainDex is almost full, still looking for the most rare ********s.
I'm hopeful though. I copied my Masterball using the MissingNo trick, so I'm sure to get them all eventually!


Well, two things:
a) Monetization. It's a fine line. You need to balance IAPs and sponsorships, because the servers won't run without some dough behind them. Sure it's basically a game to promote the main games, but I'm sure they don't want to just rely on IAPs only. Wouldn't complain if the sponsorships wasn't a thing, then again it might secure the longevity of the game even better, especially if you consider that some Pokémon are supposedly exclusive to certain locations, so you could consider catching foreign Pokémon part of a travel experience. Since not everyone is likely to happen to just have a world trip organized for the next year or so by chance, I'm sure that if you want to give players a shot at this being part of their gameplay experience, you need the game to last.
b) It already has community-sourced data. It took a lot from Ingress and Ingress itself didn't have user-submitted locations right away.
I assume they might implement user submission sometime down the road.
At the moment, your best shot is to install Ingress and submit stuff there and hope it transitions over to Pokémon Go. I doubt they'll run two completely separate location databases and if they do, I'd assume they share data on an ongoing basis.

Glassed Silver:mac

What is Ingress?

 

[C DM]

What is Ingress?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingress_(video_game)