At last Nintendo has done it, it has taken the step towards the AppStore but in the way that we all (or almost all) expected it to do, we finally have Pokémon on our iPhones, yes, it has its positive parts and its negative parts, let's see what we have in hand.
Pokémon GO It is the result of Nintendo and The Pokémon Company joining forces with Niantic, a company that until a few days ago was part of Google (it split to form an independent company under the arm of Alphabet) and that we remember is responsible for the "famous" augmented reality game and virtual Ingress.
For those of you who don't know, Ingress was a Google experiment that was based on an augmented and virtual reality game that forced us to move on a map that was the real world, on that map there were portals, these portals were really points of interest in our cities or towns and were debated by two sides, the Illuminati and the Resistance, the blues and the greens. , two sides that had to use an entire arsenal of virtual artifacts to capture those portals and keep them under their side, the side that had the most portals and maintained at the end of the month was the winner of that month in a game that never ends.
Good or bad? It depends, Ingress really did not have the expected success, it was expected to be a game that would fill the streets, that it would be a revolutionary form of entertainment that made players go out and play outside taking advantage of new technologies, What happened? That it was not quite like that.
Do not get me wrong, Ingress caused a sensation and currently has its community of players and its own localized events, however it is not by far the success it was intended to achieve, and less when this game it was just another Google tool to do their own thing.
Right, Google used Ingress to keep track of our tours thanks to GPS and with all the data that Ingress collected power improve Google MapsA good idea or a perverse idea? Decide it yourselves.
Now that Niantic is in charge of much of the development of Pokémon GO leaves this game in a serious question, will it be the same tool as Ingress but with a new more attractive facade for consumers? Or, on the contrary, will it be the dream of every child and adolescent who has grown up with Pokémon and has always longed to be a trainer?
The answer to these questions is in the hands of Nintendo itself and Niantic, depending on how smart they are, they will take advantage of the second or not and finally make a MMORPG original and based on a completely innovative style.
The project is intended to be released in 2016, and I just ask you to really take advantage of the Pokémon universe (as a fan that I am), and I will explain myself:
I would like the Pokémon to be scattered around the world just like they were in console games, that you can't find a legendary Pokémon inside your house but that you don't have to go to a Nintendo event for it, I would like if To give an example, you want an Articuno, you must go to the top of a mountain in winter, so that Charizards do not appear in a clearing as happens in the video, that collecting Pokémons and being a good trainer depends on your effort and not of the amount of money you have put into the game (which will be Free2Play) or however lucky you are, that they take advantage of the difficulty of the original games and the will of the fans willing to work hard so that having a legendary or evolved Pokémon at a high level is really something to be congratulated.
Taking advantage of this new way of playing that is augmented reality and the new dimensions that this opens up to the game could change the mechanics and make playing like being in the series, that if you get too close to a shy Pokémon to capture it, run away, you may have than entertain them or weaken them with yours to capture them, that the fights are worth seeing, that if for example you want to heal your weakened Pokémon you have to go through a set point or through your own house, you really have the opportunity to do something great and to take advantage of what is learned with Ingress so that this game is a reason to get the players out of their houses and walk the streets.
Pokémon Go will be available in 2016 for free for iOS and Android, it will include catchable Pokémon, Pokémon exchange and battles between them and you can buy a special bracelet that will allow you to know when there is a catchable Pokémon near you without having to be aware of your smartphone, without a doubt we have no choice but to wait to see if Nintendo does its magic again and this time it takes us out on the street, if the project is carried out as I describe the truth is that it could be a very important change and beautiful in the way we play and interact with the people around us.