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This article was published on August 8, 2016

Pokémon Go goes live in 15 more countries, but leaves India and China on the waitlist


Pokémon Go goes live in 15 more countries, but leaves India and China on the waitlist

It’s been a month since Niantic unleashed its tremendously popular AR game Pokémon Go, but millions of players around the world still haven’t had a chance to try it.

However, the company’s slowing remedying the situation. Last Friday, the game launched in 15 more countries across Asia and Oceania: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau.

Niantic is certainly going to be busy monitoring its server uptime with the massive influx of new players that came online over the weekend. However, it hasn’t yet launched the game in three major mobile and gaming markets: India, China and Korea.

Releasing the game in those markets will likely help its flagging growth. But Niantic CEO John Hanke noted that it isn’t really as easy as flipping a switch. He told Forbes that regulations in China and limited Google Maps data for South Korea (owing to security concerns in North Korea) are holding his company back from launching the game in those countries.

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Hopefully, Niantic will be able to find ways to tackle those issues and make the game more widely available soon.

We’ve contacted Niantic to learn more and will update this post if there’s a response.

Via TechCrunch

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