McDonald's Japan Unit Plans Poké mon Go Tie-Up
July 20 2016 - 8:40AM
Dow Jones News
TOKYO—McDonald's Holdings Co., the fast-food chain's Japanese
unit, said on Wednesday it plans to tie up with popular smartphone
game Poké mon Go.
"McDonald's Japan plans to collaborate with smartphone game Poké
mon Go in the near term," the company said.
The restaurant chain didn't mention when the tie-up would happen
or when the game would launch in Japan.
It would be the first business tie-up for "Poké mon Go," an
augmented-reality game in which players use smartphones to search
for virtual creatures layered over images of the real world.
Poké mon Co. and Niantic Inc., the creators of the game,
declined to comment.
"Poké mon Go" is free to download, and the publishers earn
revenue through in-app purchases, such as "incense" to lure the
child-friendly Poké mon characters. Niantic has said the company
would seek sponsorship deals for the game as additional sources of
revenue, and Niantic's chief, John Hanke, said over the weekend in
Tokyo that the game would be available "real soon" in Japan.
Niantic, a San Francisco-based startup spun out of Alphabet
Inc.'s Google last year, has already struck similar partnerships in
Japan with major companies including McDonald's, SoftBank Group
Corp. and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. for an earlier game
it produced called "Ingress."
"Poké mon Go" was first introduced two weeks ago and is now
available in many countries including the U.S., Canada and many
European nations. The tardiness of the game's arrival in Japan,
birthplace of the Poké mon characters, has irked some Japanese
fans.
Write to Takashi Mochizuki at takashi.mochizuki@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 20, 2016 08:25 ET (12:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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