Pokemon GO: Niantic talk Pokemon evolution and future expansion
POKEMON GO has yet to be given an official release date from Nintendo, the Pokemon Company or Niantic but it appears that the new augmented reality smartphone game is set for an exciting future.
Having seen the game start out as an April Fools between Google and the Pokemon Company, the team at Niantic have spelled out their vision for the upcoming Android and iPhone title.
The market for games like Ingress and Pokemon GO is set to expand and with it the games themselves, that according to president of Niantic Japan Setsuto Murai and regional marketing manager Kento Suga.
"In about 2-3 years from now, we think game apps that can only be done in smartphones will become the mainstream," Murai explained to Famitsu.
"By including location features on existing IPs, more people will be able to enjoy it, and thus we should be able to make a mechanism that can expand the market even further."
"By inserting the location feature in Pokemon, we wonder what kind of chemical reaction will occur. That’s one of the points we’re excited about with Pokemon GO."
Suga added his own thoughts, revealing how he thought Pokemon GO could be the first in line of many titles that will take on location technology.
"Actually, there is also a concept of location in [current conventional] games.
"In RPGs you walk around maps, but what if that were real-life places… For example when you turn in the corner, you may feel a change in your heartbeat, wondering if a Pokemon may come out.
"Which means, even in conventional games, adding location features would add new charms to them."
Pokemon GO is set to be a big title in 2016 and possibly a very important one for both Nintendo and Niantic.
It has been predicted that this new AR game could be part of a new line created from an expanded Nintendo and Niantic partnership.
It would fit into the recent reports that the Nintendo NX handheld could employ a level of AR support, while other industry analysts have shared their own thoughts on the subject.
“In a quote, John Hanke (CEO of Niantic proper) says the platform is a new business he wants to see developing quicker through his company’s Japan operations,” Dr. Serkan Toto states in his Kanten Games blog.
“Generally speaking, Japanese gaming companies (I mean Nintendo in this specific case) love going vertical by becoming platforms if any opportunity to do so opens up: so it might very well be that Pokemon is not the only Nintendo mobile game that will make use of AR and GPS going forward.”
