McDonald's Unit to Sponsor Poké mon Go in Japan

TOKYO—McDonald's Holdings Co. will participate in the introduction of the hit smartphone game Poké mon Go in Japan and will make its restaurants key locations for players, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The deal could be announced as soon as Wednesday along with the introduction of the game for players in Japan, these people said. It would be the first business tie-up for Poké mon Go, a game in which players search for virtual Poké mon characters layered over images of the real world.

Poké mon Co. and Niantic Inc., the creators of the game, declined to comment, while a representative of McDonald's Holdings wasn't immediately available for comment. McDonald's Holdings is the Japan unit of McDonald's Corp. of the U.S.

Poké mon Go is free to download, and the publishers earn revenue through small in-app purchases, such as incense to lure 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, the San Francisco-based startup, which was 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.

The Poké mon Go tie-up with McDonald's in Japan was earlier reported by media including TechCrunch. Shares in the fast-food chain's Japanese unit, which are traded in Tokyo, rose 5.3% on Tuesday, while those of Nintendo Co., which owns a minority stake in Poké mon Co., rose 14.4%.

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 19, 2016 10:15 ET (14:15 GMT)

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