Pokemon Go surpasses 1 billion downloads worldwide

Newsbrief: Niantic’s mobile AR game Pokemon Go has officially been downloaded more than 1 billion times since its launch a little over three years ago, according to a Japanese trailer spotted by Serebii.

At least half of those downloads came during Pokemon Go’s first few months out in the wild. Niantic previously said that the game cleared 500 million downloads back in September 2016, just months after its mid-July launch.

While the back half of its now 1 billion downloads took a bit longer to collect, more recent posts from Niantic suggest that the game still maintains a strong following. While Niantic has been quieter about numbers since, the developer did note last year that new features and in-game events helped it boost active player counts by 35 percent in just a few months.