The Firm of The Rising Sun

Yes. First of all, that is indeed one of the greatest Finnish hockey players of all-time.

Anyway, by the time of the release of this text, the Pokemon Go app has made itself a worldwide phenomena in just 1 week from its release. With a little help from camera and GPS, the game is about catching Pokémon-creatures in a real-world environment. The game was instantly a major hit from Niantic: It offers especially for the nostalgy-craving Millenials the chance of a lifetime to make their childhood dreams come true in the form of becoming a REAL Pokémon trainer.

The success that followed the release has been a total jackpot for the owners of The Pokémon Company, mostly for the Japanese video game company Nintendo. The figure below illustrates the Nintendo's stock development during the past 3 months and the stock sky-rocketing right after the release causing the equity valuation going up by over 90%.

Although already being the world's biggest video game company by revenue, the release of the Pokémon Go and the year 2016 might give the firm a new boost that it needs after releasing the Nintendo Wii back in 2006. In 2006 Nintendo couldn't compete in the market with Sony's Playstation 3 nor Microsoft's Xbox 360 game consoles. But now 10 years after, Nintendo is soon going to take the Iron throne of the game industry back with the boost of the Pokémon brand. And what would be a more of appropriate time than the 30th anniversary of the firm's most known brand, the Mario.

The triumph of the Nintendo began during the 1980's with the game Donkey Kong. The game was a huge success and made the company a known player in the industry. And after the release of the company's own game console, the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) the system was the best-selling console of its time. Also when Nintendo introduced a now-standard business model of licensing third-party developers, authorizing them to produce and distribute titles for Nintendo's platform, Nintendo could almost state its being the greatest video game company in the world.

After the competition became more fierce in the 1990's with Microsoft's PC's, the Xbox and Sony's Playstation, Nintendo made a strategic choice to stick focus on hand-held consoles and during 2009 Nintendo had 70% of the handheld gaming market with its 3DS product. However, after the letdowns of the GameCube and Wii and disappearance of the hand-held-console market due to smartphones, Nintendo suffered major blows and was in a need to innovate something new to keep up with the modern technology. 

With help from a small San Francisco-based software development company Niantic, Nintendo might have got its keys for the "next best thing", gaming that could be done in real life in real-life environment.

The virtual reality has always been a concept that closely relates to gaming. If already people spend hours, days and even months escaping the reality in the worlds of World of Warcraft, Minecraft, Runescape or, god forbid, Habbo Hotel, why not combining the two realities into one. Gaming that creates real-world connections and communities with other players wandering around city parks looking for Pokémons. A real group phenomena that is happening now in my backyard.

Also Nintendo and Niantic found the market of nostalgy-craving Millenials who are probably at the moment the most eager consumers of the Pokémon Go app. Nintendo also announced yesterday to release a new game console, Nintendo Classic Mini on which you can play the old Nintendo classics such as Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. The console is clearly aimed for the same focus group of Millenials.

Developing new products, tailored for the right focus-group with couple of new groundbreaking gaming-innovations, Nintendo starts rising like a 100 HP Moltres. It is interesting to see, what is going to happen in the industry during the next years. These kind of modern technological innovations have a considerable effect on peoples lives also in general, and I'm keen to see what kind of reforms will the Nintendo's latest actions cause in the world.

Text: SW

Picture's don't belong to me.