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Pokemon Go Doubles Nintendo's Stock Price (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the going-viral dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report form Reuters: Shares of Japan's Nintendo Co soared another 14 percent on Tuesday, more than doubling the firm's market capitalization to 4.5 trillion yen ($42.5 billion) in just seven sessions since the mobile game Pokemon GO was launched in the United States. The phenomenal success of Pokemon GO -- now available in 35 countries, the majority in Europe, and most recently in Canada -- has triggered massive buying in Nintendo shares, surprising even some seasoned market players. Nintendo shares ended Tuesday up 14.4 percent at 31,770 yen, bringing its gains to more than 100 percent since the launch of the game on July 6. Turnover in Nintendo shares hit 703.6 billion yen, surpassing the record for trading turnover in individual shares it set on Friday, of 476 billion yen. Trading in Nintendo shares roughly accounted for a quarter of the entire trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's main board. The success of Pokemon GO, unforeseen even by its creators, has boosted hopes that Nintendo could capitalize on a line-up of popular characters ranging from Zelda to Super Mario to strengthen its new foray into augmented reality. Pokemon GO is now the biggest mobile game of all time in the United States.

2 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And yet nothing of value was gained. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    1. It's summer
    2. It's social
    3. It's Pokemon

    It's a geolocation MMO built with an extremely popular franchise on top of it. The game is based on Ingress, which had something like 7 million players as of last year and even then a lot of people hadn't even hard of Niantic before Pokemon Go. Most of the important locations were generated from Ingress and/or data collected from Ingress players.

    I don't think that either Nintendo or Niantic were quite prepared for the rush that is happening right now, I mean they knew it would be big but not quite this big.

    And sure, it may be a fad but damn, it's pushing a lot of downloads / new phone purchases

    People will look back at this the same way we look back at the hula hoop craze, another frivolous toy that caught on and got people moving... you know, for kids!

  2. Re:And yet nothing of value was gained. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    ," said tlhIngan, staring like a zombie at their terminal mindlessly typing slashdot comments like a SHEEPLE