Pokémon Go has been downloaded 500 million times

Pokémon Go has been downloaded over 500 million times since making its debut in July. Ever since Pokémon Go took the world by storm, the exact scale of its dominance has been the subject of much conjecture and estimation, but Niantic CEO John Hanke confirmed the actual number during the reveal of Pokémon Go on Apple Watch this afternoon.

In addition to that staggering number of downloads, Hanke revealed that players have walked over 4.6 billion kilometers in their pursuit to catch ‘em all. That’s nearly 3 billion miles, for the metric challenged out there.

The introduction of Pokémon Go on the Apple Watch should help to increase engagement with players who use it, matching much of the feature set of the Plus peripheral, coming later this month. Players will be alerted to PokéStops and nearby Pokémon; they'll also be able to hatch eggs.

Pokémon Go for Apple Watch will be released later this year. You can read our review here.