After turning walking into a game, franchise now aims to ‘reward good sleep habits as part of a healthy lifestyle’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Pokémon Company has announced a new game in line with its hit Pokémon Go, called Pokémon Sleep, which aims to “turn sleeping into entertainment”.

The new game involves tracking a player’s sleep patterns to affect gameplay, and was announced during a press conference which covered topics as varied as the franchise’s official expansion into China and Pokémon-branded dress shirts coming to the west.

The aim is to “reward good sleep habits as part of a healthy lifestyle” and is being developed by Select Button, which previously collaborated with the company on the smartphone app Magikarp Jump. Niantic, the developers of Pokémon Go, is also assisting.

Pokémon Go remains one of the world’s most successful smartphone games, with millions of active users still playing every month.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kazuhiro Maruyama of Nintendo’s Hardware Development Group holds up a Pokémon Go Plus+ during a Pokémon Conference on May 29, 2019. Photograph: The Pokémon Company

Introduced alongside the game concept is a new device called the Pokémon Go Plus+ (pronounced the “Plus plus”), which is likely to be worn on a wrist strap or lanyard. The device works as a pedometer and game interface, and also functions as a sleep tracker via the accelerometer, communicating the data to a smartphone via bluetooth.

The device is being developed in association with Nintendo, who had previously made brief forays into “quality of life” hardware research, though the division was reportedly shelved in early 2019 according to the Nikkei.

The initial online reaction to the game – slated for release in 2020 – was mostly disbelief, with some anticipating the intrusion of Pokémon into other aspects of daily life.

Other announcements included a Detective Pikachu game sequel slated for the Nintendo Switch, an Android and iOS game called Pokémon Masters produced in collaboration with DeNA, and Pokémon Home, a cloud-based Pokémon storage and trade system that will work across various games.