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The Pokémon Company has partnered up with Tencent’s Timi Studio Group to develop a number of new Pokémon games. Beyond confirming the collaboration, however, the announcement – which was made on China’s social media micro-blogging site Weibo – shared no further details about the projects.
As GI.biz rightly points out, this is the latest in a number of recent partnerships The Pokémon Company has confirmed, including Japanese outfit DeNA and Chinese tech firm NetEase. The former is working on Pokémon Masters, a new mobile title scheduled to release by April 2020, whilst the latter is working on Pokémon Quest for Chinese players. They are also working together to bring a localised version of Pokémon Go to China, too.
On the subject of Pokémon Go, developer Niantic recently launched a new gameplay system, Adventure Sync, that enables players to count their steps in-game without needing to keep the app open. Unsurprisingly, Niantic’s first implementation of the system was for Pokémon Go, helping players hatch eggs and earn candy without draining their phone batteries.
“This key feature unlocks a wide variety of gameplay opportunities on the Niantic Real World Platform, serving as an efficient and phone-friendly high-engagement tool that inspires players to head out into their local communities,” said Niantic CEO John Hanke at the time. “We’re looking forward to finding new and exciting ways to implement it in our other games in the future.”
Niantic also teamed up with the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) to enhance global tourism and develop “innovative tourism experiences through real-world games”. Described as “the leaders in mobile augmented reality (AR) experiences”, Niantic has been tasked with curating “unique campaigns to foster exploration and build awareness of destinations around the world”.
