Pokémon GO is becoming available for more and more countries and since its initial release over a week ago, there are over now 30 countries packed with gamers who can’t get enough of the app and Japan is not among them.
It is crazy to think how could Japan not be able to play GO, what with being the country where Pokémon was created, but the CEO of Niantic has explained to Forbes why Pokémon GO can’t be played in Japan just yet and it is the servers.
John Hanke: “At present, the server capacity in Japan is not powerful enough. We are working hard with our partners in Japan to enable the servers to keep up with demand once the game goes online there. We expect it to be released by the end of July.”
End of July is better than say next month for those in Japan, as all the waiting must be highly frustrating, but although that is the desired estimated release for the Niantic team, but Forbes thinks differently because “other game watchers and those familiar with Japan’s network complexities are suggesting that mid-September looks more likely.” For Niantic’s sake I hope it does turn out to be end of July as opposed to mid-September because if the latter does in fact turn out to be true, a lot of fuss will be kicked up in the gaming community and a lot of hate directed at Niantic.
It wasn’t all about Japan though as the conversation between him and Forbes, also covered two other Asian countries. China and Korea to be precise and Hanke went on to explain some of challenges Niantic will have with releasing the app in those two locations:
“Google’s map information system in Korea is limited due to security concerns over North Korea. In China however, it is technically possible, but difficult to introduce due to the many hurdles, or should I say regulations we’d have to clear to get it to users.”
Still this is Niantic after all, they will find a way to make it happen, it is just a matter of time. But how much is question that only they know the answer to and although they are speaking out quite a bit lately, Niantic are continuing to hold their cards close.
Source: Peter Lyon of Forbes
[…] in with the madness. It was only the other day John Hanke, the CEO of Niantic Labs, was telling Forbes that the reason why they hadn’t released in Japan was because it would overload the servers. That […]