Pokémon GO

Blitz

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So this happened.



Basically it's a mobile game based off of Ingress, a Sci-Fi AR game about something or other with a release date of sometime in 2016.

There's going to be a weird optional peripheral thing that you put on your wrist that gives you notifications and interacts with the game.

The game is free but has in-app purchases.

LATER ADDITIONS TO THE OP:

Pokémon Go eventually became a bit of a phenomenon, a very popular game played by people of all ages all over the world.

In Pokémon Go, you're playing on a team, but you aren't often likely to actually meet - or even communicate with - your teammates. To play smartly and effectively, and be a good teammate without communicating, you can follow some of the emergent unwritten rules. As in, unwritten until user WaterBomb actually wrote them down. We decided to quote his text below:

Evening folks! This idea came to me while out walking with my son today and playing Go. There are a lot of nuances and other "unspoken" rules that are meant as courtesies to your fellow players. However, some people are not aware of these rules (or ignore them) so I'm compiling a list here as a reference for everyone so you avoid being "That Guy" who unintentionally causes frustration to those around you.

The Third Pokemon Rule
This rule pertains to placing your Pokemon in gyms. Now, as you are well aware, when a gym is captured it requires 2000 Prestige to reach Level 2. Since you get a 2000 Prestige bonus automatically from placing a Pokemon in a gym, it will inevitably reach Level 2 as soon as you capture it. To reach Level 3 (and have a capacity of 3), the gym must reach 4000 Prestige, which can be achieved by the next person adding a Pokemon to it. To reach Level 4, the gym now requires 8000 Prestige. This essentially means that the next person (Third total) to add their Pokemon to the gym will not automatically boost its level simply by doing so. The gym will require some training after that before a 4th person can leave their Pokemon.

Now, as you are also aware, training friendly gyms is not the easiest or most fun thing to do. You can only bring one Pokemon, and the bonus Prestige you receive depends on your Pokemon's CP in relation to the Gym Defenders'. When a gym's lowest Pokemon is difficult to defeat, like a Snorlax or a Slowbro, it becomes very difficult to train that gym. This is where the Third Pokemon Rule comes into play. If you are going to be the Third person to add a Pokemon to a gym, do your teammates a favor and leave one that is easy to defeat. Leave that 20cp Magikarp you know you've been holding onto because it's in the top percentage of all Magikarp. This is highly beneficial to your teammates because it allows the gym's Prestige to be increased easily and quickly, which in turn allows more pokemon to be added to it and the Gym made stronger and more difficult to take down, which benefits your whole team and not just you.

Summary: don't be that guy who leaves a freakin Snorlax as the lowest cp Pokemon in a gym that will need to be trained. It makes your teammates sad.

The Next Level Gym Deployment Rule

This kind of follows after the first rule. Have you ever gone to a friendly gym and tried to train it up a bit so you can stick one of your own Pokemon in it? Have you slaved and sweated and worked your way up, finally getting the gym to the next level, only to have some douchemissile swoop in and throw his Pokemon in there instead, taking advantage of all your hard work and leaving you with more to do? Don't be that douchemissile. If you come across a gym and you see it near the next level, check to see if someone is actively training it first. If they are, when it does reach the next level, let them have first dibs on the new slot. If you're feeling nice, you can even help them get it there faster if you like.

Summary: don't be that guy who steals a gym slot right after someone has just trained it to the next level.

The Gym Capture Delay Rule

Ok, this one might be a bit controversial, only because it involves you being courteous not just to your teammates, but to your opponents as well. We've all endured that painful experience of taking down an enemy gym to zero Prestige, only to have your enemy slide a new Pokemon into it before you've had a chance to claim it. We all know there's a natural delay that happens after a gym is fully defeated, and it's common courtesy to allow the person who defeated it the honor of placing their Pokemon in it. By all means, feel free to go ahead and destroy their Pokemon right afterward, just do it the right way.

Summary: don't be that guy who camps on a gym and continually puts new Pokemon in it right after it's defeated before the defeator has a chance to.

These are just a few basic guidelines to get us started. If you have an idea for one, please post yours in a similar format to the way I've posted mine. If people like them, I'll add them into the OP. I'd like this thread, honestly, to be a nice resource to new and old players alike, so we may all have a much more pleasant Pokemon Go experience!
 
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This is a genius idea. I'm sure it will make a ridiculous amount of money for nintendo.

I think interacting w/ pokemon in real life will give the series a new feeling of excitement and joy its been lacking for a while. It will be interesting to see how Game Freak will change the mechanics of the game so that it will fit onto a smart phone. I'm definitely looking forward to this.
EDIT: Link to interview
 
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Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
I'm totally interested in finding Pokemon in a semi-real life setting. It's a little bit like the Google April Fool's catching POkemon game, but additionally you can trade and battle together.
However, I'm concerned about just one thing-- can you battle one on one with your friends?
I know you can battle together, but what about selecting one friend to battle?
I see it's possible from a programming point of view, just wanted to know if they are bothered.

I wonder what Pokemon I can find in Hong Kong... if they are bothered to program it at all.
(Google did)

PS: It seems that all the Pokemon at the moment are Kanto Pokemon.
 
It's nice to see a Pokemon ad that's aimed directly at adults. Aside from an almost entirely adult cast, there wasn't a single reference to a post Gen I pokemon in that commercial, and pikachu even had it's original cry, so it can definitely be stated that this is aimed towards the original generation of players.

If this works, then it really will be a genius move on Nintendo's part, and probably more so on Niantic's part; looking into Ingress, this looks like it will be a much more successful and in-depth version of the PokeWalker or the Dream Radar, but as a standalone game itself, and not just a supporting system. Thematically speaking, this level of connectivity and explorative setting is right up Pokemon's alley, and I'm sure that this must be like a dream come true for some people. I honestly hope, however, that when Masuda said that future games will keep it in mind, that we won't be able to transport pokemon born in the main series to this game; I think it would make competitive play much more...authentic, if we couldn't optimize our pokemon genetically speaking, and I think that Go might be a viable venue for this kind of play style.

I also hope that by "in-app purchases", they don't mean two dollars for a pokeball, and twelve for an ultra ball.
 
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Let's hope the purchases will be fair this time, hmm? *glares at Pokemon Shuffle*

But in all seriousness, my guess is, the transaction system will probably have to do with the regions of the Pokemon, like, say, 2.00 USD for a Johto pack, similar to Pokedex for IOS.
 
I get the feeling that this is going to be even closer to the original idea behind Pokemon. Satoshi Tajiri used to talk about how the games never really captured the kind of interaction he wanted to create between players and Pokemon, and the features they're hinting at, like the way they handle battle (It looks like you can select a nearby trainer and ping their Pokemon) right down to hunting around your local area, brings the concept a lot closer to the bug collecting sentiment.

But I wonder what this app is going to do for the future of the main series games. Are they going to move all of their efforts over to GO? Is this going to effect VGC in the future? Will there be more generations of games made for Nintendo devices that have a compatibility feature with GO?

Just how big IS this supposed to be? There are so many unanswered questions...

There is something funny about this, though. They partnered with Niantic, who makes AR games, and that laboratory was a startup at Google, made ever famous in the community for April Fools Day last year.
 
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... eeeeh... maybe I'm being a negative nancy but am I the only one who thinks this looks kind of shit?
I mean like, my big concern is the whole interactivity thing. Realistically, outside of Japan, what are the chances of meeting someone else who'd have it? Like, maybe this'd work in 1997, but Pokémon's popularity on a larger scale is essentially dead. If you find someone else around you in the USA or the UK that likes Pokémon even a little bit then you pretty much gave your soul to the devil. And without that multiplayer aspect which will never happen because maybe you'll have one friend who has it and fighting only them over and over again is going to get boring a la streetpass, it's kind of... eh. Just a boring gimmick that'll wear off quickly especially when actually doing it will look bloody stupid and embarrassing to anyone around you. And would you really be willing to walk significant distances just for one certain Pokémon? That's about on par with going to Japan for that one Moonblast Jirachi event.
Also it's free except you have to buy a wristwatch thing and it follows the F2P model so it can royally go fuck itself
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
1. I get the feeling that this is going to be even closer to the original idea behind Pokemon. Satoshi Tajiri used to talk about how the games never really captured the kind of interaction he wanted to create between players and Pokemon, and the features they're hinting at, like the way they handle battle (It looks like you can select a nearby trainer and ping their Pokemon) right down to hunting around your local area, brings the concept a lot closer to the bug collecting sentiment.

2. But I wonder what this app is going to do for the future of the main series games. Are they going to move all of their efforts over to GO? Is this going to effect VGC in the future? Will there be more generations of games made for Nintendo devices that have a compatibility feature with GO?

Just how big IS this supposed to be? There are so many unanswered questions...
1. I remember that, he also said that Pokemon Adventures (manga) is the most like the world he wanted to create, especially the battle too.

2. I think the video confirms that we can battle with nearby trainers, so I also really really hope there will be a VGC for it.
Serebii says that GO will link to the main games somehow, so it is quite possible there will be newer games compatible with it.

I mean like, my big concern is the whole interactivity thing. Realistically, outside of Japan, what are the chances of meeting someone else who'd have it?
Err...maybe you can invite a few friends to your house or something?
 
2. I think the video confirms that we can battle with nearby trainers, so I also really really hope there will be a VGC for it.
Serebii says that GO will link to the main games somehow, so it is quite possible there will be newer games compatible with it.
During the press conference, Masuda said that they were going to keep Go in mind while designing future main series games. This tells me that it probably won't be fully compatible until Gen VII, but that it will be like Bank and that it's meant to be a multi-generational tool. This also tells me that, unless this does ridiculously well, consistently better than the games, then the main series games will always be the primary focus. There's a reason why they won't develop a real Pokemon MMORPG, and I think that this will ultimately function similarly, in that it won't draw as much attention and, primarily, sales as the main series games.

... eeeeh... maybe I'm being a negative nancy but am I the only one who thinks this looks kind of shit?
I mean like, my big concern is the whole interactivity thing. Realistically, outside of Japan, what are the chances of meeting someone else who'd have it? Like, maybe this'd work in 1997, but Pokémon's popularity on a larger scale is essentially dead. If you find someone else around you in the USA or the UK that likes Pokémon even a little bit then you pretty much gave your soul to the devil. And without that multiplayer aspect which will never happen because maybe you'll have one friend who has it and fighting only them over and over again is going to get boring a la streetpass, it's kind of... eh. Just a boring gimmick that'll wear off quickly especially when actually doing it will look bloody stupid and embarrassing to anyone around you. And would you really be willing to walk significant distances just for one certain Pokémon? That's about on par with going to Japan for that one Moonblast Jirachi event.
Also it's free except you have to buy a wristwatch thing and it follows the F2P model so it can royally go fuck itself
I know that this won't be the same everywhere, but I thought the same about the actual population of players until I started going to the midnight releases for the games. Besides, Ingress, the game that this is based off of, has only had an open beta for about two years, and is said to have over seven million players, many of whom meet in groups each month, it seems. Could you imagine what would happen if this scaled up for pokemon players? If this works even remotely similarly to Ingress, then I think that Game Freak will consider this a success.

Besides, next to a two hundred dollar game system with forty to eighty dollar additions every few years, followed by another multi-hundred dollar system when your current system is obsolete, what's a clip that probably won't top twenty dollars? It's the in-game purchases that we'll have to watch out for, and Pokemon has never been particularly bad about those.
 
Since no-one else has mentioned it yet, I'll bring up the elephant in the room: I hope this isn't the beginning of the end for Nintendo as a hardware manufacturer.
 

cant say

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damn I hate when people say 'off of' lol

Anyway, when I heard about this I thought it was gonna suck, but then I actually bothered to watch the trailer and it looked pretty cool. I'm wondering how the wild Pokemon will be generated, will they randomly pop up at different times (like can I just walk around my property / neighbourhood everyday and catch new things?) or will everything be set like the Google Maps thing (I'll have to go to different places all the time after I catch everything in an area)? Chances are it would be the former, which would be really good coz forget going to new places lol...

I'm also wondering how the battling will work. Will it be like the main series where you chose moves to use against the opponent/foe? Or will it be like Digimon back in the day where you would simply connect with someone to battle and the battle gets simulated / played out on its own? Both are fine with me, I'd almost prefer the Digimon style coz then you can easily just battle all the passerbies you walk past without having to actually interact with them, lol.

I'm also wondering what capturing Pokemon will be like. Do we have to actually battle them like in the main series to weaken them first, or just throw balls like in the video? It also showed the standard Poke, Great and Ultra Balls, but will they have all the other variations to chose from? Will there be some 'Pokemon Go' exclusive balls??

They're surely taking the piss with that Mewtwo video though. I mean it was really cool but that many people congregating to do something like that? Come on... I wonder how those things will be hosted. I'm thinking they'll pretty much be like current in-person events they have now (ie: your local game store will host one and hope to get a shop-full of people to defeat the legendary and claim it for their app (and potentially transfer to the main games??)). I'm sure there will be massive ones at events like VGC and stuff though.

Overall, this is gonna be pretty cool. I'm gonna have to get one of those attachable battery pack things for my iphone though, the poor stock battery will be destroyed because of this...
 
I mean, it's the Pokewalker with more functionality. And AR. If HGSS got you out of the house, I'm sure this is going to turn more nerds into hiking hobbyists.

I'm digging the idea of having legendaries be these social boss monsters that aren't easy to beat or tame. This would be one of the few games that requests community participation without making the quest something you can one-shot, like when dungeon crawlers award community points for the number of times a dungeon is cleared. I'm kind of excited for that.

I do have a con, though: They haven't announced whether or not it's going to be available for download on your DS. While smartphones are common, I don't think it would be a smart move long-term to leave out young fans or anyone who may have invested in their handheld game console in favor of a phone. So I hope they're thinking about that.
 
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Maybe I'm just not so hyped for this because it's the sort of thing that reinforces my sneaking feeling that the modern world is increasingly blurring the lines between illusion and reality in a way I'm not entirely comfortable with.

EDIT: actually I've realised why I hate this idea so much: I play video games to escape reality, not to enrich it.

EDIT 2: and I've just thought of another reason: Pokemon Go is basically an advert for the Pokemon franchise, designed as a free app with zero cost-of-entry to hook nostalgic millennials back into the series. The video game industry, not content with the pseudo-brainwashing hype culture surrounding games, is now hyping up an advert. Yes that's right, their hyping up their own hype.

EDIT 3: maybe I should just start a thread entitled "noobcubed's vanity thread explaining how Pokemon Go symbolises everything that is wrong with humanity"...
 
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I do have a con, though: They haven't announced whether or not it's going to be available for download on your DS. While smartphones are common, I don't think it would be a smart move long-term to leave out young fans or anyone who may have invested in their handheld game console in favor of a phone. So I hope they're thinking about that.
I disagree on this one. I think that on a smartphone, they reach out to a far greater audience than if it was a DS download, encompassing pretty much all ages. Many kids, especially where I am in the US, have either a smartphone themselves, or regular access to their parent's. I'm sure mom won't mind lending little Jimmy her phone if his wrist goes off in Wal-Mart, for instance. Also, based on the English video, their target market for this device isn't exactly little kids. Based on the video alone, it's more geared to older, late teen/early adult age, pretty much all of whom have a smart device of some kind. Also, with it being an app, it's easily transferable from one device to another, arguably more so than on a DS system. Incorporating a device most people own already instead of the purchase of a whole new Nintendo handheld, is one of the smartest moves they could make. It's also greatly augmented by the fact that it will run in the background of your phone, allowing Pokemon to burst into your life at literally any time, unlike on the DS where you have to make the choice to play something, and close anything else you have open. So what if I'm on a SSB fest on my DS? My wrist says there's a Charizard near me, so that can wait.

I personally hope that it's more than just the original 151. If there are in-app purchases (like implied with whatever currency was below the PokeBalls in the video), maybe that'll be how they unlock more generations. Or they start it with the 151 to see how it takes off, and then add more later, which is another perk of it being an app and more easily update-able.

That's my thoughts. I can't explain in words how excited I am for this. I'm making mine into a pendant. Poke-pendant. My wrists are already full with my watch and tool bracelet, and I can't always wear a pin.
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
During the press conference, Masuda said that they were going to keep Go in mind while designing future main series games. This tells me that it probably won't be fully compatible until Gen VII, but that it will be like Bank and that it's meant to be a multi-generational tool. This also tells me that, unless this does ridiculously well, consistently better than the games, then the main series games will always be the primary focus. There's a reason why they won't develop a real Pokemon MMORPG, and I think that this will ultimately function similarly, in that it won't draw as much attention and, primarily, sales as the main series games.
Oh, I didn't watch the conference. Let me watch it now...

The project was on for 2 years?
I think Pikachu kept its old voice, rather than the XY anime voice.
So the google April Fool's was part of advertising this?


PS: It's kinda difficult for me to distinguish the pronunciation between Pokemon GO and Pokemon Gold. x___x

I mean, it's the Pokewalker with more functionality. And AR. If HGSS got you out of the house, I'm sure this is going to turn more nerds into hiking hobbyists.

I'm digging the idea of having legendaries be these social boss monsters that aren't easy to beat or tame. This would be one of the few games that requests community participation without making the quest something you can one-shot, like when dungeon crawlers award community points for the number of times a dungeon is cleared. I'm kind of excited for that.
Pokemon adventures are very much like hiking/ eco-tours in the first place... or rather, that's what the first gen anime and manga was like.
So I'm actually hyped.
 

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... eeeeh... maybe I'm being a negative nancy but am I the only one who thinks this looks kind of shit?
I mean like, my big concern is the whole interactivity thing. Realistically, outside of Japan, what are the chances of meeting someone else who'd have it? Like, maybe this'd work in 1997, but Pokémon's popularity on a larger scale is essentially dead. If you find someone else around you in the USA or the UK that likes Pokémon even a little bit then you pretty much gave your soul to the devil. And without that multiplayer aspect which will never happen because maybe you'll have one friend who has it and fighting only them over and over again is going to get boring a la streetpass, it's kind of... eh. Just a boring gimmick that'll wear off quickly especially when actually doing it will look bloody stupid and embarrassing to anyone around you. And would you really be willing to walk significant distances just for one certain Pokémon? That's about on par with going to Japan for that one Moonblast Jirachi event.
Also it's free except you have to buy a wristwatch thing and it follows the F2P model so it can royally go fuck itself
Pokemon X and Y are the best-selling games on the Nintendo 3DS and ORAS are the third best-selling on the system. This is not what I call "dead." I feel like you really underestimate the popularity of Pokemon, even among the teen/young adult crowd. If Pokemon were really "dead" as you say, I don't think they'd be trying this app, and I don't think X and Y would be the best-selling 3DS games. Personally, I think it's cool they're trying to implement AR, even if I personally think AR is silly and I'm probably not getting this.
 
Pokemon X and Y are the best-selling games on the Nintendo 3DS and ORAS are the third best-selling on the system. This is not what I call "dead." I feel like you really underestimate the popularity of Pokemon, even among the teen/young adult crowd. If Pokemon were really "dead" as you say, I don't think they'd be trying this app, and I don't think X and Y would be the best-selling 3DS games. Personally, I think it's cool they're trying to implement AR, even if I personally think AR is silly and I'm probably not getting this.
The third best-selling game on the 3DS, yeah... but people who actually have 3DSes are, in my experience, few and far between. In addition XY has sold worse than literally every other generation and it is not nearly the media monster it was years ago. I'm not gonna make a serious argument out of this because it's very arbitrary and subjective depending upon location, I just don't realistically see a situation where two people who have never met are on the street and go "oh hey, you have that pokemon app too, let's trade and battle" outside of Japan.
 

Hulavuta

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... eeeeh... maybe I'm being a negative nancy but am I the only one who thinks this looks kind of shit?
I mean like, my big concern is the whole interactivity thing. Realistically, outside of Japan, what are the chances of meeting someone else who'd have it? Like, maybe this'd work in 1997, but Pokémon's popularity on a larger scale is essentially dead. If you find someone else around you in the USA or the UK that likes Pokémon even a little bit then you pretty much gave your soul to the devil. And without that multiplayer aspect which will never happen because maybe you'll have one friend who has it and fighting only them over and over again is going to get boring a la streetpass, it's kind of... eh. Just a boring gimmick that'll wear off quickly especially when actually doing it will look bloody stupid and embarrassing to anyone around you. And would you really be willing to walk significant distances just for one certain Pokémon? That's about on par with going to Japan for that one Moonblast Jirachi event.
Also it's free except you have to buy a wristwatch thing and it follows the F2P model so it can royally go fuck itself
Well I highly disagree with Pokemon being "dead" in any sense, even if it's not as popular as it once was. At my college I streetpass several people a day who are into Pokemon but aside from anecdotal evidence (because I obviously understand it depends on every person's location), like others have said, Pokemon games and merchandise still sell extremely well and this has been the top trending story on Facebook pretty much all day. The concept of it ("Finally, Pokemon in real life!") is something almost everyone has wanted for pretty much forever so it's going to do well at least for a little while. And it has a very, very, casual level of entry. It's free and most people who have any passing interest or knowledge of Pokemon (which is pretty much everyone, everyone at least knows what Pokemon is) will probably at least try it. They're smartly only using Pokemon from the first generation in ads and such which are the ones most people will recognize and have nostalgia for.

I just don't realistically see a situation where two people who have never met are on the street and go "oh hey, you have that pokemon app too, let's trade and battle" outside of Japan.
I agree with this. But smartphones are so ubiquitous nowadays (even though I don't have one...which is a budgetary restriction rather than a choice but anyway) I think there will be plenty of mileage to get out of just doing it with your friends. Unlike with the actual games, you don't have to shell out a lot of cash to reach the barrier of entry. Most people have smartphones and the app is free.

Basically all in all, I don't think it's going to be a failure. Can you honestly expect it to do worse than something like Flappy Bird? It's not a completely weird and new idea like Flappy Bird but it still has some novelty. But it will probably be a fad that will eventually end within a year or so. I don't expect casual players (who will make up the most of the people getting it) will have the attention span or dedication to stick with it for very long.

And I'm kinda glad...like noobcubed said, I'm worried about the direction Pokemon will be going with this move especially as we have had no word of an upcoming Z game. IIRC Nintendo said in the past that they didn't want to do paid DLC or go into Mobile games, both of which they are now doing, so I greatly fear that they may have to sacrifice their integrity in order to remain competitive. But really I don't know much about the game industry or how Nintendo's doing, so I don't know if it's justified or not. Please don't interpret this as an attack on Nintendo.
 
I'm mostly worried about how this is really going to look. It looks great in the trailer, i'm hyped. But is it really going to look that great staring at a phone? How are the models going to line up properly on the ground? Will we be walking around to see a Gyrados stuck in a tree? I hope they will fix issues like that. And if the in-app purchases are pokeballs, this is going to suck.
 
I disagree on this one. I think that on a smartphone, they reach out to a far greater audience than if it was a DS download, encompassing pretty much all ages. Many kids, especially where I am in the US, have either a smartphone themselves, or regular access to their parent's. I'm sure mom won't mind lending little Jimmy her phone if his wrist goes off in Wal-Mart, for instance. Also, based on the English video, their target market for this device isn't exactly little kids. Based on the video alone, it's more geared to older, late teen/early adult age, pretty much all of whom have a smart device of some kind. Also, with it being an app, it's easily transferable from one device to another, arguably more so than on a DS system. Incorporating a device most people own already instead of the purchase of a whole new Nintendo handheld, is one of the smartest moves they could make. It's also greatly augmented by the fact that it will run in the background of your phone, allowing Pokemon to burst into your life at literally any time, unlike on the DS where you have to make the choice to play something, and close anything else you have open. So what if I'm on a SSB fest on my DS? My wrist says there's a Charizard near me, so that can wait.

I personally hope that it's more than just the original 151. If there are in-app purchases (like implied with whatever currency was below the PokeBalls in the video), maybe that'll be how they unlock more generations. Or they start it with the 151 to see how it takes off, and then add more later, which is another perk of it being an app and more easily update-able.

That's my thoughts. I can't explain in words how excited I am for this. I'm making mine into a pendant. Poke-pendant. My wrists are already full with my watch and tool bracelet, and I can't always wear a pin.
I think you're underestimating the processing power of a DS. Streetpass/Spotpass works similarly to text message alerts, which happen in real-time like how this app would alert you when a Pokemon is nearby. It's not a requirement to whatever game you're playing, and always runs in the background unless you specify that you don't want to send/receive data. The requirement to transfer personal data (moving the app across devices) is just as complex as it is anywhere else; you need an existing account to validate that it's your data, and you're not just copying private info from someone else on to another device.

As far as having to exit another game to open up the app, I'm sure they have features in mind to give you a window of time to track that nearby Pokemon, like how rustling grass in ORAS has 30-some-odd seconds before it disappears.

It would probably require an adapter of some kind for the geo-locating functionality, but it's more than doable. And I'm not going to argue that they shouldn't pander to the smartphone market, but it's always worth outreaching as much as possible. It wouldn't be a bad move if they didn't make the app downloadable from the eShop, but it would be a nice gesture. As long as they're going for compatibility with the new games, it would be a pleasantry to handle it all on one device, is all I'm saying.

I'm mostly worried about how this is really going to look. It looks great in the trailer, i'm hyped. But is it really going to look that great staring at a phone? How are the models going to line up properly on the ground? Will we be walking around to see a Gyrados stuck in a tree? I hope they will fix issues like that. And if the in-app purchases are pokeballs, this is going to suck.
Have faith that the company doing the AR work is going to do an earnest job? Check out Niantic's other apps (Search for Nianticlab in your browser), and if their previous projects don't look very refined to you, that's probably the best way to gauge visual appeal at this stage.
 

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