‘Pokémon GO’ On Apple Watch Confirmed By Niantic After Fake Email Leaks

Niantic thrashes rumors that Pokemon GO on the Apple Watch has been cancelled and confirms that the product will roll out soon.

It’s been six months since Pokemon GO‘s phenomenal success and it seems its initial explosion is now waning into a weak flame. To keep Pokemon GO trainers from walking away from their devices, Niantic has been very active in bringing more content into the app, such as special events and rewards. Pokemon GO’s Halloween event has been particularly successful, Forbes reported, earning Niantic a huge 133 percent revenue boost throughout the event.

Pokemon GO’s Halloween event, although fairly straightforward, did encourage a lot of Pokemon GO trainers who have been straying away from the game to come back. But while these events prove that it will be in Pokemon GO’s best interest to keep holding special double XP events, these alone won’t hold out the game for too long. Public events such as those included in the initial Pokemon GO teaser, featuring special mechanics and gameplay to catch Mewtwo or the Legendardy Birds, have yet to be released by Pokemon GO. And we’re only at the sixth month mark, to boot. Surely, there are more surprises Niantic has in store for all the Pokemon GO trainers out there.

This is why after the Pokemon GO Plus’ immense success in September—a release that was met by immense demand, prompting the device to become sold out—it’s natural for Niantic to introduce a similar or even an updated version of the device.

Three months ago, at Apple’s iPhone reveal event in September, 9to5Mac reported that Apple announced an “unfinished” Pokemon GO port for the Apple Watch. This version of Pokemon GO for the Apple Watch will enable trainers to see how far they need to walk to hatch an egg, how much more XP you’ll need to level up, see earned medals, collect items from PokeStops, and even keep track of how much distance you’ve covered and how many calories you’ve burned. The Pokemon GO port on the Apple Watch will also let trainers see nearby Pokemon so that they will only really need to whip out their phones if they needed to capture a Pokemon.

The concept of the Pokemon GO port on the Apple Watch is a pretty nifty one for serious Pokemon GO trainers who found the Pokemon GO Plus quite lacking since there’s not much interaction that could be done with the accompaniment device. In more crime-prone areas, monitoring your Pokemon GO on your Apple Watch instead of on your smartphone all the time also diminishes the risk of accidents and theft. So when Apple announced their partnership with Pokemon GO, stating a tentative release date of “later this year,” serious Pokemon GO trainers would have been ecstatic.

But it’s December and 2016 is almost gone and we’ve yet to hear back from Niantic or Apple regarding the Pokemon GO port on the Apple Watch. In fact, this impatience from Pokemon GO trainers have prompted fake news such as this one fromReddit, which claims that Niantic has shelved the Apple watch development. The fake e-mail posted by hi1307 read as follows.

Trainer,

Thank you for your interest in Pokémon GO for the Apple Watch.

Unfortunately, the game port for the Apple Watch has been shelved. The Apple Keynote represented an unfinished port. However, as a company, we have decided to stop development of the port.

Although development has been shelved, if demand for an Apple Watch port increases, we will continue development of the port.

We’re sincerely sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. Please enjoy 5 free incense, in your backpack. Once again, thank you contacting Pokémon GO support and sorry for the shelved plans.

-NianticOpsLuke

GameSpot, however, has reached out to Niantic and has come back with good news. A spokesperson for Niantic confirmed that Pokemon GO remains in development for the Apple Watch with a comment of “We’ll have more news soon.”

In fact, earlier today, Pokemon GO made the confirmation via their Twitter page that Pokemon GO on the Apple Watch is still happening. Although its prior release date of 2016 looks glum now, there’s still a couple of weeks left before the year goes away for good. We might still get some great news from Niantic before New Years.

Pokémon Go for Apple Watch is coming soon. Stay tuned.

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) December 17, 2016

For the mean time, as we wait for Pokemon GO on the Apple Watch, you can still try pushing your luck to capture a Ditto, if you haven’t yet.

I’m freaking out! I caught a Ratata, turns out it was a Ditto! #PokemonGO pic.twitter.com/uXiPWqgwAZ

— Tim (@TimLikesCameras) December 15, 2016

[Featured image by Pablo Cuadra/Getty Images for Apple]