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Nintendo doesn't actually own Pokémon Go

Michelle Avenant
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 20 Jul 2016
While Nintendo is investors' most direct way of putting money on Pokémon Go, the gaming company does not directly own the smash hit mobile game.
While Nintendo is investors' most direct way of putting money on Pokémon Go, the gaming company does not directly own the smash hit mobile game.

While Nintendo's shares have skyrocketed (and then descended slightly) in the wake of Pokémon Go's meteoric success, the mobile game is not directly owned by Nintendo, despite several publications reporting on Pokémon Go as "its" game.

Pokémon Go was developed by software development company Niantic, and published by The Pokémon Company, which licenses and manages the Pokémon brand.

Niantic labs began as a Google start-up but spun out as an independent entity in 2015, while The Pokémon Company was established through joint investment by three gaming companies holding the copyright on Pokémon: Game Freak, Creatures, and Nintendo.

Because Niantic and The Pokémon Company are both private companies, as are Game Freak and Creatures, Nintendo, which owns a third of The Pokémon Company and has undisclosed stakes in Niantic, is investors' most direct means of putting money on the game.

By association

An article on gaming news site Eurogamer explains that Nintendo also stands to gain massively from Pokémon Go due to its iconic association with the Pokémon brand, and through future products that either link to the game or possess similar qualities.

The Pokémon brand has been critically interlinked with Nintendo's since the franchise began in the 1990s with a pair of video games released on Nintendo's original Game Boy console.

Nintendo executives have also been publicly involved with the game throughout its pathway to release. The Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara named Nintendo as a "partner" in the project when the game was announced in November (although the nature of this partnership has yet to be clarified), and said he had been discussing the idea for the game with late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, notes Eurogamer.

Nintendo is also set to release a Bluetooth-enabled wearable device, The Pokémon Go Plus, specifically for playing the game without constantly staring at one's smartphone.

Furthermore, Pokémon "being catapulted back to the forefront of public consciousness" is likely to reflect well on Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, a pair of Pokémon games to be distributed by Nintendo for its handheld 3DS console in November, speculates Eurogamer.

The palpable "swell of nostalgia for Pokémon among twentysomethings" also bodes well for other iconic Nintendo characters, such as Zelda and Mario, further down the line, Eurogamer observes.

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