Trainers,

We just revealed how we’re bringing Pokémon GO to Apple Watch on stage at the Apple event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.

As you know, Pokémon GO is about blending gameplay and imagination with getting exercise and exploring the real world around you. Apple Watch will add a seamless way to interact with the game through easy trackers, haptic notifications and quick taps to keep playing. Additionally, the Pokémon GO app for Apple Watch encourages workouts with summaries of your activity, which fits in nicely both with Niantic’s mission to get you moving as well as with the way many people already use their Apple Watch. Pokémon GO will come to Apple Watch later in the year so stay tuned.

In other news, we have also revealed a cool milestone for Pokémon GO. In the last eight weeks, Pokémon GO surpassed 500 million downloads around the world and players have collectively walked 4.6 billion kilometers, which is the distance from Earth to Pluto. That’s pretty far out. What these numbers really show are the power of an emerging genre of new games we call “real world games” and the appeal, of course, of the beloved Pokémon universe.

Today the game is played in more than 100 countries and we are working hard to bring the game to many more. Most inspiring for us as we rolled out the game internationally has been the response from people of all ages and lifestyles describing how Pokémon GO has been a force for good in their lives. Thanks for sharing those stories, keep them coming.

It’s GO time!

—The Niantic team