Pikachu, Bulbasaur and other creatures of the Pokémon universe returned like conquering heroes to Japan on Friday as the wildly popular Pokémon Go mobile game made a belated debut in the country that spawned the entertainment franchise two decades ago.
The game’s introduction in Japan — several weeks and tens of millions of downloads after it became an unexpected megahit in the United States and several other countries — was treated as a national event, with widespread media coverage and a cautious endorsement from the government.
It also introduced a new element to the smartphone-based game, a corporate tie-up with McDonald’s, that illuminates the moneymaking strategy behind Pokémon Go and other so-called augmented reality games, which fuse digitally created fantasies with real world locations.
Like old-time treasure hunts, such games unfold in real neighborhoods, and for every grumpy resident who wants to keep players off their lawn there is a business that is happy to attract them. Because the game’s creators decide where the treasure is hidden, they can charge business owners to steer potential customers their way.
Immediately after the Pokémon Go app became available on Android and Apple phones in Japan on Friday morning, players could be spotted hunting for “wild” Pokémon in neighborhoods around Tokyo. For many, it was a reunion with a gang of cartoon monsters they have known since childhood, but perhaps never expected to become a global phenomenon.
“I played Pokémon games and watched the TV show when I was a kid, and it’s amazing to see it take off like this,” said Takahiro Notoya, 33, a web developer who said he had captured five Pokémon midway through his lunch break in the crowded Shibuya neighborhood. As he walked by a McDonald’s outlet with a colleague, the chain’s red and gold logo popped up on his smartphone screen.
McDonald’s is making most of its 2,900 locations in Japan available as special game locations where Pokémon Go players can pit their monsters against the menageries of other players, or collect items that bolster their creatures’ power. The company hopes they will buy food while they are there, but does not require it.
McDonald’s and the creators of Pokémon Go — the American game developer Niantic and a consortium of Japanese game companies that included Nintendo — have not disclosed the terms of the sponsorship, which is expected to be extended to other companies and other countries. The association could give a needed lift to McDonald’s in Japan, which has closed restaurants and experienced rare financial losses after several food-contamination scandals in the past two years.
Niantic and Nintendo did not explain why the game was released late in Japan, though securing enough server capacity has been an issue in other markets. Many players said they had grown frustrated with the wait.
“I’ve been checking every day,” said Takehide Kunii, 45, an office worker.
Yoshihide Suga, the government’s chief cabinet secretary, said he was “very happy that content from our country is so popular around the world.” But, echoing authorities in other countries wary of potential nuisance and accidents by distracted players, he encouraged fans to “use their smartphones safely.”
And on Friday afternoon, the game’s developers posted on Twitter that it had already been downloaded more than 10 million times in Japan.
