Niantic Labs CEO John Hanke just spilled the beans on what “Pokémon GO” Trainers can expect to see in the updates that will be rolled out this year. According to him, new functions will be added to the augmented reality mobile game. He also mentioned that next-generation Pokémon are coming soon.

Fresh from his appearance at MWC’s “The Content Gold Rush” conference, Hanke did an interview with el Periodico and further talked about the developments they want to implement in the app this year. Hanke revealed during the interview that “Pokémon GO” players should expect cooperative gameplay to arrive soon, because this new function will enable group competitions to happen. He said that this feature is something that worked in their other game, “Ingress,” so it’s just a matter of time until it gets implemented in “Pokémon GO.”

The CEO also teased about new Pokémon coming to the game, but he did not mention the schedule of this update. Two weeks ago, they rolled out the Gen 2 Update, which proved to be very helpful in luring players back to the game. “People seem very happy about the new Pokémon … It is noticeable in the number of users and the amount of income [we generated],” he said. “We have recovered users who had stopped playing.”

Though he did not confirm when can players expect the next-generation of Pokémon to arrive, he did mention during his speech at MWC that three major updates are scheduled for this year. All three are set for launch every quarter, so it’s possible that the Gen 3 Update could surprise fans at any of the remaining quarters.

Aside from gushing about what’s in store for fans, Hanke confessed that he was not expecting the kind of success “Pokémon GO” is enjoying at present. The game just celebrated 650 million downloads, and this is absolutely a big thing for the company that originally hoped to attract at least 10 million users a month.

“It was the worst prediction of my career,” Hanke, who admitted to playing the game with his kids, said. “We predict a tip of tens of millions of users a month, at the best time. That would have been a great success. But let’s say that multiplied by a lot in just a couple of days.”

“Pokémon GO” will soon hold group competitions according to Niantic Labs CEO John Hanke. Photo: YouTube/MrMobile [Michael Fisher]

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