Nintendo’s new game could be what AR technology has been waiting for to become commonplace.
The Pokémon company has teamed up with Nintendo and the company recently separated from Google, Niantic Labs, in order to develop a game called “Pokémon Go” which will feature the use of augmented reality and that could be what the tech has needed to make it mainstream.
The companies are working together to make it possible for smartphone users to enjoy the game over real life.
The idea is that players will be able to use the augmented reality game to look for, duel, and trade their Pokémon in “real” life. This means that it will be possible to play the game everywhere from city streets to country fields. So far, there haven’t been too many details that have been released about this mobile game, other than a broad concept. There also hasn’t been a specific date set for the release of the game, though it has been indicated that it will become available in 2016.
The idea is that this massive mobile gaming franchise will bring augmented reality into the big time.
This brand and nature of the mobile game will already have appeal to players even before all of the details have been released, as the popularity of Pokémon is tremendous, and AR tech based mobile apps have been growing in use as the idea of overlaying digital content on the real world becomes better recognized.
In order to be able to play the mobile game app, there will likely be a great deal of demand on the device. For instance, while the game will be taking place on the device screen and not in reality, it will require that certain GPS components be active, and a relatively good data service will need to be accessible in order to interact with the game. Moreover, it will require that the player looks at the screen the majority of the time, so it could provide somewhat of a similar experience, in terms of actual game-play, to the Ingress augmented reality app, a previous product released by Nantic when it was still with Google.
