Don’t know about you, but I always knew Pokemon Go had yet to take its final bow.   To be the very best, like no one ever was! That’s how one becomes a Pokemon Go master! After a long wait, following the almost dramatic fall after the AR game meteoric success, Niantic might finally be getting their act together. In some recent updates, Pokemon Go finally added the long awaited  in-tracking features along with some early Christmas surprises.  

Could this be Pokemon Go’s big comeback?

Open the app and take a walk to find yourself an adorable Pikachu wearing a festive holiday hat ripe for catching, along with a few previously unavailable second generation Pokemon.   Check out the YouTube video below to see for yourself.    

What’s New + Pro Tips:

  The biggest change, besides a great Christmas theme, is the ability to double the amount of XP you receive for catching and evolving your Pokemon characters or winning a match in the arena. This means you will have an easier time increasing the power of your leftover avatars from the summer months.   Another change is the ability to transfer more than one Pokemon at a time to the Professor (a huge time saver when trying to acquire candies). To achieve this all you have to do its hold a Pokemon to highlight it, then select your other Pokemon characters to transfer along with it.     In response to their tracking pains they experienced this summer, Niantic updated the “Nearby” feature, which now shows in the bottom right of your screen to show you which avatars are at your closest Pokestops.   AND just in time for Christmas, Pokemon is gifting us with 100 extra characters to try catch and even evolve some of your old favorites even further, PLUS some Christmas music to keep things extra festive. Ditto is one of the newer characters to be released, which is always disguised as another Pokemon before it is caught. It then acts as the ultimate wildcard in the Pokemon gym.   And baby if it’s cold outside, don’t worry, Starbucks has also partnered with Pokemon to feature their stores as Pokestops to keep you warm when the weather is frightful.      

A Sign For What’s to Come?

Always listen to and understand your audience. Upon release, it was quickly apparent that Niantic was not prepared for the response and instant popularity it garnered.   Upon its release, Pokemon Go was downloaded approximately 27 million times per day with 1 in 4 smartphones or tablets having the app installed. Currently that number is closer to about 700,000.   A glance at Google Trends shows a significant decrease in popularity as well, with 96% less interest in the month of November compared to July.   Niantic made the right move taking a step back, but it seems they were too slow to bounce back. Rather than bounce they crawled. Users got frustrated, impatient, and bored. Niantic lost much of their fan base due to a slow response. Lucky enough for them, Pokemon, as an already popular franchise, has kept the app alive.   With that popularity Niantic is now seeking retribution by giving the fans everything and more. With new pokemon and tracking features, I expect there’s plenty more to come in the near future. Hopefully promises for other features will follow.   Even something that climbed as record-breakingly fast as Pokemon Go can fall when mishandled. By listening to their user base Pokemon Go can still gain some of that popularity back. A company is dependent on their customers.   I’m off to catch myself a Christmas Pikachu before the clock hits midnight on December 29th. Gotta catch em’ all!