Despite never actually saying it made Pokemon Go, and its logo appearing exactly nowhere in the app, Nintendo has been enjoying a huge uptick in market value since the app’s launch two weeks ago. It now appears that things are reversing course as — you can’t make this up — investors have finally figured out Nintendo doesn’t actually have much to do with the game.
Nintendo share prices dropped 17 percent on the Japanese stock exchange on Monday morning, reacting to a statement the company released on Friday reminding everyone that, no really, it didn’t make Pokemon Go. You have to admire the honesty of Nintendo here, not that it was anything less than transparent about its relationship with the Pokemon Company (which it co-owns) and Niantic (in which it invests and to which the Pokemon property was licensed to create the game) since the beginning. But going out of its way to release an additional reminder with the full knowledge it would probably affect the company’s market value? That’s Boy Scouts level of honorable, right there.
(You could make the counter-argument that investors would figure out the tenuous connection between Pokemon Go and the company eventually, so Nintendo might as well cover itself now. But I still maintain choosing to do so in this manner — late release of its statement on a Friday as markets were about to close aside — is still classier than the kind of behavior we expect out of most modern business entities.)
Before the market turn, Nintendo was briefly trading at a staggering $42.5 billion — higher than Sony, a comparatively much larger and more diversified company, which was at that point valued at around $40 billion. With Monday’s share price drop, Nintendo is now valued closer to $36.1 billion, which is still higher than it was before the release of Pokemon Go — but it’s worth noting that Japan’s stock exchange caps single-day share value changes at 18 percent, so it’s likely Nintendo’s share price will continue to decline before finally stabilizing again.
Meanwhile, Niantic is reportedly bringing in millions of dollars a day through the app, which recently peaked at 25 million daily active users in the U.S. alone. Pokemon Go only recently launched in Japan and just yesterday in Hong Kong, with South Korea and China — two major mobile markets — likely to follow.
Still confused about the relationship between Nintendo and Niantic, the makers of Pokemon Go? Zam’s own former “cloistered editor” Brandon Sheffield has produced this helpful diagram:
Via Brandon Sheffield on Twitter.
