Niantic Announces Three New AR Features

Buddy Adventure, Sponsored PokeStops for Small and Medium Businesses, Occlusion coming to Niantic Real World Platform.

Niantic Wayfarer
Niantic Wayfarer

Niantic has just announced new details as to what they are planning to do with the their AR technology. There are 3 main goals they have put forth. Ultimately, these goals will help map out the world as our gameboard to broaden the horizon of augmented reality. Now let’s get into each of the goals and discuss the importance of them.

Sponsored PokeStops at Small and Medium businesses

Niantic recently released the Wayfarer program to allow players to help expand the gameboard within their respective areas. With this recent blog post, Niantic is now reaching out to small/medium sized businesses. These businesses will get an opportunity to add sponsored stops/gyms. As for trainers, this is a huge deal.

This will bring many more stops/gyms within the area they play. Maybe not at first, but overtime it’ll be a much welcomed addition. If you want to know more about the program, you can here. Last, but certainly not least, Niantic has opened up for other developers to also help map the world. Just like the businesses, the more firepower the better!

Right now, the program is limited to US and it will feature a selection process before your business gets approved.

Sharing Reality

Want more ways to interact with your Pokémon in Pokémon GO? Say no more! There’s a new feature coming to iPhone and Android that allows you to do just that. This feature is called Buddy Adventure. In the blog post, Niantic says the following:

“The Pokémon GO Buddy Adventure feature will not only allow you to interact with your own Pokémon via the AR camera, it will also provide Trainers with a shared experience of seeing their real world friends interacting with their Buddy Pokémon in real time. Buddy Adventure is also cross platform, so whether your friends are on an iPhone or Android device, you will still see them when the feature is enabled. Trainers worldwide can look forward to Buddy Adventure coming to Pokémon GO in the months ahead.”

We will finally have another fantastic way to interact with Pokémon via AR. Not only with ourselves, but with our friends as well! To put things into perspective, right now the most used AR feature is taking pictures. I’m very excited to try out this new feature sometime next year!

Understanding Reality

Occlusion is still the #1 priority in AR development for Niantic. Honestly, if they can master this, we might be able to go out and capture Pokémon in the real world through our phone cameras via AR. Not just clicking them on a map. Of course that’s my opinion, but the power of occlusion is phenomenal. Below is another look of this technology.

Niantic

Niantic has been working on the implementation of this technology for some time, and we’re excited to announce that it will be coming to the Niantic Real World Platform.

Conclusion

The near future is looking bright for Pokémon GO players. The fact that not only trainers, but businesses and other developers are now going to be allowed to add stops/gyms is a huge step in the right direction. Also, having more ways to interact and have fun with AR technology in Pokémon GO will literally bring the game more to “life”. Let’s hope AR battles for everyone to see in real time is another aspect of this amazing technology!

Full blog post article here.