Niantic's handling of Pokemon Go is driving demand for Pokemon, but not fulfilling it. And some of that unfulfilled demand is going to Nintendo, whose product does deliver a Pokemon experience, and is already sitting in thousands of stores all across America today.
"Sales of Pokémon X and Y, which were first released in October 2013, were up a huge 200 percent compared to their sales in July of last year." -- https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/nintendo-3ds-sales-up-80-y...
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> Pokemon Go does very little to advance the Nintendo games - there's literally zero upsell involved (or even any cross-advertising).
It doesn't have to advertise Nintendo's products, it only has to advertise the brand.
Coca-Cola ads drive demand and sales for Coke, even though they rarely upsell the actual product. Coke advertisements can drive sales without explicitly saying "12 packs are $3.99 at your local Wal*Mart".
I don't understand how that follows. How did Niantic give any of its userbase over to Nintendo? Pokemon Go does very little to advance the Nintendo games - there's literally zero upsell involved (or even any cross-advertising).
You could say that the Pokemon Go brand might sell some extra copies of Sun & Moon in November, but I'd argue that the effect runs mostly in the other direction. Pokemon Go was successful because of Nintendo's Pokemon brand. And to at least a degree, that capital is finite (people's appetite for Pokemon-related games is a finite resource, and it's possible that overexposure to Pokemon Go could make them less excited about the upcoming 3DS games).