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Why Nintendo (still) believes in crossing the barrier between in-app and IRL

From StreetPass to Pokémon Sleep, Nintendo has piloted the blue oceans of apps that require IRL actions.

Daley Wilhelm
UX Collective
6 min readFeb 1, 2025

The Nintendo 3DS, Pokemon Pikachu device, Pokewalker pedometer, and the icon for Pokemon GO
From hardware to software, Pokemon has been a part of Nintendo’s crossover between IRL and in-app.

For many people, the summer of 2016 is fondly remembered as “The Summer of Pokémon GO.” Players of the new AR app rushed out and into their neighborhoods on a quest to catch ’em all. Combining the near-universal appeal of the ever popular Pokémon and the novel location-based gameplay led to a huge, diverse player base that made headlines.

(Okay, so maybe some of those headlines were about trespassing.)

This was not the first time that Nintendo lent its IP and power to a social, location-based service, nor would it be the last. The company, historically known for testing out new innovations like VR and motion controls, has seen value in combining gameplay with IRL actions.

Is there still value in this kind of user experience? What can we learn from Nintendo’s continued fascination with apps like Pokémon Sleep?

A history of Nintendo’s IRL experiments

Pokémon Pedometers

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Daley Wilhelm

A fiction writer turned UX writer dedicated to crisp copy, inclusive experiences, and humanizing tech.

Responses (5)

What are your thoughts?

Able to be present both digitally and physically, through the product as well as in physical reality, it was daring, but they did it, and I think the crowds turned out like never before in recent decades!
Nintendo has a crazy fan base, but also knows how to engage the most loyal while being able to resist virality.

1

I feel like not enough companies innovate in this space! There's so much room for experimentation here. Street Pass still garners such a strong emotional response in people who used it. I think there's an opportunity for rewarding loyalty and…

1

Loved this post. Thanks for writing about it! I also love integrating IRL into my activations.

1