It’s a good day for all Pokémon aficionados living in France and Hong Kong as the latest mobile hit game has recently rolled out in those two territories. While the French release was almost simultaneous with the game’s Japanese launch a few days ago, it wasn’t until today that Hong Kong mobile gamers could have started catching the most popular pocket monsters on the planet. While France was apparently supposed to receive Pokémon GO at the same time the other European countries did earlier this month, unofficial reports claim that the developer Niantic Labs didn’t want to launch the game while the country was still mourning over the victims of the recent massacre in Nice.
As soon as Pokémon GO servers went live in Hong Kong earlier today, industry reports claiming that the game has already passed the 50 million downloads mark emerged online. While unofficial, it’s worth noting that these estimates are not accounting for the players who are still running a sideloaded version of Niantic’s global hit. At the moment, the Hong Kong servers are running completely reliable and there have been zero reports of crashes and connectivity issues in the Far East.
In related news, Niantic Labs’ CEO John Hanke talked about upcoming changes to the game during a Comic-Con 2016 panel this past weekend. Among other things, Hanke announced that Pokémon GO will soon be updated with a trading system and more Pokémon while also revealing that the development team is currently discussing the possibility of including Pokémon Centers and customizable PokéStops into the game. The CEO of the San Francisco-based developer has also stated that there are plenty more yet undiscovered easter eggs hidden in Niantic’s latest mobile title and has assured players that his team is aware of every significant bug present in the current version of the game and is hard at work fixing it. Yes, that means Hanke has also acknowledged the already infamous three-step bug which makes tracking wild Pokémon without using external tools almost impossible. In any case, patience is the name of the game now and one can only hope that Niantic will deliver on its recent promise of bi-weekly Pokémon GO updates.