McDonald's Japan Unit Plans Poké mon Go Tie-Up

TOKYO—McDonald's Holdings Co., the fast-food chain's Japanese unit, said on Wednesday it plans to tie up with popular smartphone game Poké mon Go.

"McDonald's Japan plans to collaborate with smartphone game Poké mon Go in the near term," the company said.

The restaurant chain didn't mention when the tie-up would happen or when the game would launch in Japan.

It would be the first business tie-up for "Poké mon Go," an augmented-reality game in which players use smartphones to search for virtual creatures layered over images of the real world.

Poké mon Co. and Niantic Inc., the creators of the game, declined to comment.

"Poké mon Go" is free to download, and the publishers earn revenue through in-app purchases, such as "incense" to lure the child-friendly Poké mon characters. Niantic has said the company would seek sponsorship deals for the game as additional sources of revenue, and Niantic's chief, John Hanke, said over the weekend in Tokyo that the game would be available "real soon" in Japan.

Niantic, a San Francisco-based startup spun out of Alphabet Inc.'s Google last year, has already struck similar partnerships in Japan with major companies including McDonald's, SoftBank Group Corp. and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. for an earlier game it produced called "Ingress."

"Poké mon Go" was first introduced two weeks ago and is now available in many countries including the U.S., Canada and many European nations. The tardiness of the game's arrival in Japan, birthplace of the Poké mon characters, has irked some Japanese fans.

Write to Takashi Mochizuki at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 20, 2016 08:25 ET (12:25 GMT)

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