I hated the Pokémon Go Plus at launch. It did very little, counted steps poorly and never lived up to the promise of being able to play Pokémon Go without being tethered to your phone. Over time, the device got some improvements and became slightly better, but it was still nowhere near what it could have been. Nintendo and the Pokémon Company might be trying to rectify that by releasing an entirely new device.
In an interview with Nikkei, the Japanese business newspaper, Pokémon Company president, Tsunekazu Ishihara, said that the potential dangers Pokémon Go players had out in the real world were always of concern to them. "We intended to make a game for people to play outdoors, instead of at home," Ishihara said. "The potential that players could become too involved in playing the game [that they could walk into danger] was already an issue at an early stage.”
“Together with Nintendo, we are thinking of developing a new device that can be played more safely" Ishihara said. The Go Plus could have been an amazing experience, imagine pretending to throw Pokeballs into the real world to help you catch a Pokémon in-game. That’s what the original PoGo video sold the device as, and the actual Go Plus underperformed on that fantasy.
