Nintendo shares tumble as investors realise Pokémon Go isn’t actually made by Nintendo

Vaughn Highfield July 25, 2016

Pokémon Go is a huge global phenomenon. So huge, in fact, that more people were searching for Pokémon Go than “sex” and, within days of its launch, it overtook Tinder and Twitter for app installations. As you can imagine, Nintendo’s investors were over the moon, with shares skyrocketing and the company’s valuation rising to a crazy $42.5 billion.

Nintendo shares tumble as investors realise Pokémon Go isn’t actually made by Nintendo

Unfortunately, these seemingly savvy investors hadn’t really done any research into what Pokémon Go is and, now Nintendo has explained the situation, shares are beginning to fall rather sharply. Seeing as Pokémon Go is actually a product tie between The Pokémon Company and app developer Niantic, Nintendo only stands to gain around 32% of whatever split TPC benefits from Pokémon Go.

While 32% of an absolute tonne of money is still a tonne of money, that’s not good enough for many investors, as Nintendo stock fell 17% in value – that’s around $6.4 billion according to Bloomberg. Interestingly, Tokyo stock exchange rules prevent share prices fluctuating more than 18% in a single day, so Nintendo’s stock could continue to fall over the coming days.

This case just goes to underline how much stocks and shares are based on little more than conjecture and market opinion. At no point has Nintendo ever claimed to make or have a relationship with Pokémon Go. Nowhere in the app is Nintendo’s name or logo mentioned or used and, since its announcement last year, Nintendo has been clear on the fact it had nothing to do with it beyond its TPC links.

Nintendo is, however, working on mobile apps with Japanese mobile developer DeNA. Having already released the puzzling lifestyle Miitomo app, Nintendo also plans to bring Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem-based games to mobile too. While it’s unlikely either of these will be as resoundingly successful as Pokémon Go, they should hopefully prove interesting to investors.