Niantic Explains Why Pokemon GO Is Still Not Available In Japan

There are many great games that have come out of Japan, and in the past gamers in the West have lamented at how long Japanese games take to get localized for the West, if at all. It seems that the tables have turned somewhat with Pokemon GO being released in multiple countries except for Japan, one of the few countries in the world that has an actual Pokemon Center.

So what’s the deal? Why is Japan not part of Pokemon GO’s launch? It seems like the same problems other countries are facing, which is due to server issues which is why Niantic is taking their time rolling it out. This is according to Niantic’s CEO John Hanke who explained the reason for the delay to Forbes.

According to Hanke, he says, “At present, the server capacity in Japan is not powerful enough. We are working hard with our partners in Japan to enable the servers to keep up with demand once the game goes online there. We expect it to be released by the end of July.” Like we said, this is pretty much the same reasoning as to why the app has not rolled out worldwide just yet.

That being said, our earlier report had quoted Hanke as saying that the developer is aiming for a launch in a total of 200 markets in the near future. As it stands the game has only made its way to less than 50 countries, but we guess we’d rather them settle their server issues first rather than launch a game that we can’t play.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Apps, Pokémon GO