Better Late Than Never
Pokémon Go proves it’s time for Nintendo to start making smartphone games already.
If you’ve recently seen millennials wandering around a bit more entranced by their phones than usual, the culprit may be Nintendo’s new game, Pokémon Go. It’s an augmented reality (AR) experience which allows players to progress by exploring the real world. Tapping into the power of your phone’s camera and GPS chip, players are confronted by Pokémon as they walk their dogs, buy groceries, or ride home on the bus. The game is remarkably entertaining, and its rousing success should be all the motivation Nintendo needs to finally get into mobile gaming in a proper way.
In case you missed it, the first Pokémon video games, Red and Blue, were released for the original Game Boy in 1996. The role-playing series centers around capturing hundreds of the titular “pocket monsters” and battling them to become the greatest Pokémon trainer in the land. Red and Blue were an instant hit, leading to five generations of sequels. The most recent versions, Pokémon X and Y, were released for the Nintendo 3DS in October 2013; the seventh generation has been announced but hasn’t come out yet.
Pokémon Go isn’t a full-fledged Pokémon game in that it doesn’t have a story or other characters. And instead of using your captured Pokémon to battle and collect others, you catch Pokémon in this game by tossing pokéballs at them with your finger. This is more like Pokémon-lite: the essence of the series without all the trappings of a real game. That’s not to say that Go brings nothing new to the table, however. The AR lets you catch Pokémon everywhere — on the sidewalk, in your living room, or as I have done a few times, in my wife’s car (don’t worry, she was driving). New social elements have also been added to Go, such as the ability to battle for control of gyms located in real-world places like churches and community centers.
Judging by the response I’ve seen so far on social media and in the gaming and tech presses, this game is steamrolling over its competitors. My gamer friends and I downloaded it immediately to revel in two decades’ worth of nostalgia. But even people who don’t normally care about video games are falling in love with Go and following the series’ exhortation to “catch ’em all.” The web has produced some fun stories about people being brought together as they explore the world in search of rare Pokémon. And, predictably, criminals are now using the game to lure in victims. (This, humanity, is why we can’t have nice things.)
Some of the draw of Go is no doubt how adorable its Pokémon are. And much of also comes from scratching that nostalgic itch. Probably the biggest draw, though, is the Nintendo brand itself. We’ve been happily playing Nintendo games for decades now across six console generations. Nintendo is one of those brands like Post-It and Google that have become so successful that they are synonymous with their products. Just as one might “Xerox” a photocopy, many a child has gleefully enjoyed time with his “Nintendo,” even when the console in question was made by Microsoft or Sony.
Until recently, Nintendo has wholeheartedly resisted the gaming community’s pleas to bring its franchises — which include staples like Mario Bros., Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Star Fox — to smartphones. I couldn’t tell you how or why they made this decision, except to surmise that they want to encourage further sales of their mobile console, the Nintendo 3DS. Perhaps they believe that offering software for smartphones will dilute their own brand and cannibalize hardware sales.
The problem with that line of thinking is that Nintendo lost the mobile gaming hardware battle years ago. There is simply no reason for me to carry around a Nintendo 3DS all the time when my iPhone can quite capably play games in addition to a litany of other functions. None of us need two plastic bricks weighing us down when one will do. By adding functionality and reducing prices, Apple and Google have made mobile gaming accessible to the masses in a way that Nintendo never could. To borrow a phrase Steve Jobs used when discussing the digital storage company Dropbox, mobile gaming has become “a feature, not a product.”
That may be a hard truth for a company like Nintendo to swallow, but it’s the obvious reality of the post-iPhone world. Their staid refusal to embrace smartphone gaming is accomplishing nothing but the acceleration of their own obsolescence. Nintendo’s first major foray into this market, in the form of Pokémon Go, has already added $7.5 billion (yes, billion, with a “b”) to their stock price. I’d call that a success. I hope I can also call it a vanguard.
Nintendo has a unique ability to tug at gamers’ heartstrings. They could release games based off of any of their major franchises and all but print money. Sure, doing so might kill the 3DS, but guess what, it’s dying anyway. At least on mobile, it’s time for them to become a software company. So please, Nintendo, give the child in each of us something fun to do with our phones. Email is boring, messaging is a pain in the ass, and I’m tired of the Candy Crushes of the world (and their ludicrous micro transactions) dominating mobile gaming. You have the know-how and quality to do mobile gaming right, and we have the cash to reward for you it.
Pretty please? If not for me, won’t you do it for Charmander?
