Who's Not Making Much Off of Pokemon Go: Nintendo

Investors dump stock when they realize Nintendo doesn't make game, company suffers $6.7B loss
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 25, 2016 8:35 AM CDT
Who's Not Making Much Off of Pokemon Go: Nintendo
In this July 18, 2016, photo, a "Pokemon Go" player shows his mobile phone while walking through the Boston Common, outside the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston.   (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

With the smashing success of Pokemon Go, one would think Nintendo must be happier than a Jigglypuff. But in a statement Friday, the company says that even though its share price initially spiked, it's not going to reap great financial rewards from the game and that the impact on its bottom line will be "limited," Mashable reports. That's mainly because it doesn't actually make the game: Nintendo is the publisher of the original Pokemon games made for the Game Boy system, but a San Francisco-based company named Niantic developed the new augmented-reality game in conjunction with the Pokemon Company. And Nintendo only owns about a third of the Pokemon Company, which wields the intellectual rights to all things Pokemon, the Verge notes.

Investors appeared to be spooked by this revelation, dumping stock Monday—shares fell nearly 18%, the Tokyo Stock Exchange's daily max—and leading to a $6.7 billion loss for Nintendo. But Nintendo's stock price is still at least 60% higher than it was before the game launched earlier this month, and some analysts believe Nintendo is being "disingenuous" about its Pokemon Go prospects, per Reuters. "The market has overreacted to the Nintendo statement," a senior analyst with Macquarie Securities Group says. "I believe that Pokemon Go will be material in the company's earnings given the current trends for the game." Nintendo also has plans to start selling a Pokemon Go Plus smartwatch peripheral, though the company says projected financials from that have already been factored into its forecast. (More Pokemon Go stories.)

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