In spite of losing a massive 15 million active players since its July release, Niantic's Pokemon Go remains one of the biggest mobile apps to date, amassing a total of $400 million in terms of revenue and profit. Just like any other mobile game, players crave for new features.
Apparently, Niantic's CEO John Hanke, revealed juicy details on the future of Pokemon Go during TechCrunch's Disrupt event, implying that they're aware of the players' hopes and woes for the game. Not revealing much, he mused that this specific update "is something we talk a lot about. It'll probably make its way onto the roadmap, but I don't have a specific date."
A buddy system was recently added to Pokemon Go wherein players can choose a particular Pokemon to walk with to earn candies for powering up or evolving. The mobile app's players within the San Francisco area in the U.S. are able to use the nearby Pokemon feature which is still under its beta stages and is yet to be released to the public.
When asked about the game's current roster, Hanke attested they have already launched the Generation 1 of Pokemon at 150 or so, excluding Ditto, Legendaries Mew and Mewtwo, and the Mythical Birds Artikuno, Moltres, and Zapdos. Since there are more than 700 Pokemon species in the entire Pokemon universe, it's intention is to gradually add more over time to keep the game as fresh as possible and pump up players with new Pokemon.
In related news, the Pokemon Go Plus device was released recently. According to Darrell Etherington, the device makes "the entire experience of using it (is) pretty painless
A myriad of topics about the game's future features were discussed during the interview with Niantic's CEO John Hanke. VentureBeat has the complete transcript for the entire conversation on its website.
