Is today Pokémon GO release day? How you can play now

If you've been looking forward to the release of Pokémon GO, you probably woke up excited today to find the internet abuzz with word that the game is live. That euphoria also likely turned to crushing disappointment before too long, because if you live anywhere but Australia and New Zealand, Nintendo's first real mobile game is not out. Yet.

And because Nintendo and its partners at The Pokémon Company and Niantic are still being tight-lipped about how the roll-out of Pokémon GO is being handled, we don't even know for sure if the official North American launch will be sometime today, later this week or later this month. Still, where there's a will, there's a way, and you can indeed play Pokémon GO if you so desire.

The first thing you'll need is an iTunes account for the Australia or New Zealand App Store. Fortunately we've covered that ground before. It's not hard to do, and the only real limitation is that you won't be able to make in-app purchases -- unless you've got an overseas credit card around, in which case it's nice to meet you, Mr. Bond.

Once you've made your new iTunes account, you'll need to log out of your current account and log in with the new one. You can do that by heading all the way to the bottom of the App Store and tappng the button that says 'Apple ID.' A pop-up window will offer you several different options, and you want the one that says 'Sign Out.'

You'll see that the previous button now says 'Sign In." Tap that and select 'Use Existing Apple ID.' Enter the email address and password for your new foreign account. If you've done everything correctly, you will get a message informing you that the account can only be used in the Australia (or New Zealand, as the case may be) App Store, and you'll be taken there.

Then simply search for Pokémon GO as you normally would and you should be good to go, no pun intended.

We don't really get into Android too much here at 148apps, but if you're an Android user, you'll need a different trick to be able to download Pokémon GO immediately since Google Play isn't as easily fooled. Our friends and colleagues at Pocket Gamer are already all over that, and they can tell you how to get the game on Android.

Hopefully, this kind of subterfuge won't be necessary for long. It's a good thing that Pokémon GO has made it to soft launch, because it should be released officially before long. If even one more day is too long for you, at least we've given you some options.