Pokemon GO brings Nintendo out of its financial slump

If you've been living on Mars over the weekend you probably missed the viral success of Pokemon GO, Nintendo's new monster hunting app. The free download basically turns you into a Pokemon trainer, so now everyone born in the 90s has been playing it for the last few days and Nintendo's servers can scarcely keep up.

It doesn't matter; connection issues aside, the app has positively dominated social media, and this means really great things for Nintendo's stock.

According to Nintendolife, the company's share value spiked to 24.52%, and $7 billion has been added to the company's overall value. Most of this cash is coming not from big spenders (like that one Candy Crush addict we all know) but occasional in-app purchases magnified across the massive install base the game has accumulated in just a few days.

I'll be honest, I still don't understand Pokemon. The Game Boy game, anime and card game were all getting big just as I was going into high school in the late 90s so I didn't really have time for it. But now even my girlfriend is addicted to Pokemon GO, and like me she didn't know a Garrados from a Squirtle until last week.

It frustrates me a bit that masterpieces like Metroid Prime or Zelda: Breath of the Wild will never make Nintendo the kind of bank that this goofy little AR app is. But then again, as long as Pokemon keeps Nintendo's pockets lined, they can keep making me Metroid and Zelda games, so it all evens out in the end. It's also getting millennials off the couch, out of the house and socializing on something besides Facebook, so in that regard Pokemon GO is doing God's work.

Source: Nintendolife