Other than that, it seems like they're making a Pokemon GO clone with Minecraft mobs (collect passive mobs and fight hostile ones).
W.r.t to your "Pokemon Go::SW Christmas Special" you're absolutely wrong, while the initial popularity didn't stick around, the game is at a very strong and profitable point and the ideas introduced in the GO app have moved into actual Pokemon titles, notable the "no fight, just throw to catch pokemon" mechanic was ported to Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee Switch remakes of Gen 1. Basically the opposite of the SW Xmas Special!
As a (modded) Minecraft player there's a lot to be excited about in this concept, but my suggestions would be
* Allow players to explore the virtual-real-world that they've visited with the phone app from a console or computer. So you can "tag" your local park, a cool bit of a forest, etc, then go home and explore a digital version.
* Allow players to build at home
The point here would be that you go out side, collect building materials, catch some passive mobs you want, then go home to take advantage of these collected goods to start a pretty build.
This would also fix UX issues because the goal of using the phone app would be moving around, collecting, interacting, NOT standing still and building.
I'd play the heck out of that, it'd be another reason to get out of the house and an interaction between phone game and console/pc game could be huge.
Which is why I won't be buying the Let's Go series... I might as well be watching TLC reality TV shows all day for all the intellectual stimulation I'm getting out of swiping pokeballs with my finger.
I'm mainly curious as to how team Mojang plans to solve multiple builds in the same location. Ranked by popularity? Swarm mechanics like Niantic?
Idk. I could see myself getting some good wows from this after a few years when the most talented builders have come by and placed some cool stuff. I don't think it's bad, it's experimental tech which continues to break new ground in a game I've enjoyed for a good decade.
Sure, they'll probably bumble it just because this is unexplored space and Daddy Microsoft is at the table, but I think Mojang is just excited to be in a position to try something so interesting.
Wild battles were never especially intellectually stimulating anyway? Even trainer battles are only sometimes of any particular interest beyond grinding, and those are still in Let's Go completely unchanged.
Maybe this Pokémon flees if attacked or frightened. That's OK, use Bind with a high-speed starter. Needs a particular status condition? Can't get their health too low? Only a particular grade ball works? Only a special ball made out of fruit by some weird creep in the neck of the woods? They only come out at certain times? You have to track their migration patterns? Hold certain items? Complete certain tasks?
Little to none of these nuances carried over to the Let's Go series in their fleshed-out form. Sure, a lifetime of grinding out wild battles makes them feel a bit stale, but it doesn't mean the nuance isn't there. It just becomes routine for experienced players. These experienced players feel like they have nothing to do or think about when the entire strategy is just repeatedly flicking a Pokéball with their thumb.
Ultimately, design choices like this meant to bring in the casual audience are cheap and non-cognizant of veteran fans. You think Nintendo would have learned from this after failing to recapture most of the transient market acquired during the Wii run once they attempted to usher in the Wii U.
You can't tell stats or nature with much detail until after it's caught, but you never could. Move rarity isn't a thing in wild battles in any generation as far as I know; every individual of a species has the same learnset and known-moves for wilds are determined by level. You can see the species and whether it's shiny from the overworld, without going to a battle. There's never, ever been any "only a particular ball works", though some will be more effective, but that's still in Let's Go. Fleeing is almost completely exclusive to a few legendaries, none of which appear in Let's Go. Not sure about whether Let's Go has time-of-day or swarming, but at least in principle there's no reason why it couldn't.
Minecraft's controls for building stuff is very simple - you just point and click to place or remove stuff depending on your active item. Here you can point (via gyroscope, etc) and tap and you could even "scrub" to remove stuff. This could be done with just a hand (the phone in portrait mode, you tap/scrub with your thumb).
Seems a no-brainer.
Who wouldn't want to put a fortress around your house that everyone on the "inside" could see?
This could also be a pretty great starting application for AR goggles, Magic Leap, HoloLens, etc. Kinda pricey to play Minecraft but bootstrapping via phones isn't a terrible idea and would get the tech in the hands of more people.
All of this is clearly an optimistic interpretation of what could happen, but good on them for trying something ambitious. I hope it jumpstarts the AR future we've all been promised.
The big wildcard, as others have pointed out, are a bunch of penises everywhere. Very hard to actively moderate.
"oh god steve dropped a giant penis on my front yard AGAIN, fuck it lemme drop a bunch of TNT on it"
What is really hard to believe is that one can recapture the experience or something close to it and that this is not just the expansion of a brand into a new product. Like Pokemon Go, this will likely be Minecraft's equivalent to the Star Wars Christmas Special but without the "so bad it's good" quality.