Server issues hold off Pokemon Go’s Japanese launch

The birthplace of Pokemon is still waiting for the biggest release in the series to arrive at its homeland.

Having launched in the US earlier this month and in the UK and much of Europe last week, there’s still no firm indication when Pokemon Go will celebrate its Japanese launch.

At present, the server capacity in Japan is not powerful enough,” CEO of co-developer Niantic John Hanke told Forbes. We are working hard with our partners in Japan to enable the servers to keep up with demand once the game goes online there. We expect it to be released by the end of July.”

Nintendo said in a separate statement that it hoped to launch in Japan soon, if not by the end of July”.

The aforementioned server issues rendered the game non-operable for large chunks of the weekend, although how much of it was down to sheer user volume and how much to hackers is hard to say.