TriplePoints of Interest – Week of July 18

The Pokémon craze continues to hit the United States — and now in several countries including Germany, United Kingdom, and Japan!

This week in TPOI we’ve recapped, at a high level, some of the most positive and unique Pokémon GO milestones generating publicity. In other key industry news, Microsoft has announced the Xbox One S release date, Telltale has debuted a first look trailer at its upcoming Batman title and we’ve learned GDC submissions for 2017 are now open.

Pokémon GO

On July 15 at around 7:45 PM EST, hundreds of people are gathered at Central Park to capture a Vaporeon says Vox. Highly cited, raw footage of the stampede was posted on Vimeo and currently has five million views.

The growing popularity of Pokémon GO has triggered an overwhelming demand for vintage games, toys and overall Pokémon merchandise reports USA Today. According to Adobe Digital Insights, as of last week Pokémon-related merchandise rose 91 percent over the last month — even before the game picked up in popularity. Walmart says Pokémon searches on its website have doubled. Additionally Target has seen an uptick in interest in Pokémon products.

Mashable shared data from Apple, stating that Pokémon GO was the most downloaded app on its App Store during the first week of release ever. Additionally Pokémon Go was the fastest mobile game to reach over 10 million downloads.

 

Microsoft’s Xbox One S has a release date
Microsoft announced that the Xbox One S will make its debut August 2nd. The Verge says that the August 2nd date is significant in that it coincides with the release of Microsoft’s Anniversary Update for Windows 10 and the Xbox console. Unveiled earlier this year at E3, the Xbox One S is 40 percent smaller than its previous generation, and features a built-in power supply, three easy-to-access USB ports, and an IR blaster for greater accessibility.

 

The official Batman: The Telltale Series trailer is here
Developer Telltale Games debuted one of its first trailers at San Diego Comic-Con on July 19, says Inverse. Fans at Comic-Con got the chance to see Batman: The Telltale Series for themselves at a special event before the first episode of the five part series launches on Tuesday, August 2 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and compatible mobile phones.

 

GDC 2017 Submissions are now live
Gamasutra reports that the organizers of the Game Developers Conference, the UBM Tech Game Network, are now accepting submissions to present lectures, roundtables, panels, posters and tutorials through Thursday, August 18th. GDC 2017 will take place Monday, February 27 to Friday, March 3, 2017 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.

 

See you next week!