While software development company Niantic, Inc. first hit the mainstream in 2012 with its augmented reality game Ingress, its popularity absolutely skyrocketed with the release of Pokemon GO in 2016. Upon its debut, the game became a worldwide phenomenon, bringing Pokemon fans both old and new the monsters they know and love in the real world, with the game maintaining an even larger dedicated player base today.
Since 2016, Niantic has captured the hearts of Harry Potter fans with the AR game Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, which also sees a faithful player base, not to mention a recently-announced partnership with Nintendo to bring fans an official AR game based on the Pikmin franchise. Now, it seems that the CEO of Niantic may be teasing the company's next big step, and it looks like it could be huge.
Over on Twitter today, Niantic CEO John Hanke tweeted a photo of what looks to be Niantic-brand augmented reality glasses. Along with the photo, Hanke expressed excitement over the "progress we’re making to enable new kinds of devices that leverage our platform..." While nothing was officially announced by the company or CEO, it seems clear that Niantic is looking to break into new markets by creating its own hardware.
As a company focused primarily on augmented reality technologies and entertainment, AR glasses certainly seem like the next logical step, especially after establishing such strong relationships with massive companies and franchises like Nintendo, Pokemon, and Harry Potter. Of course, this isn't the first the public has seen of AR glasses, as Google launched its Google Glass device back in 2012. While many considered it an interesting novelty, it never took off for a variety of reasons, such as its high price-point and bulky design. While not a whole lot can be discerned from Hanke's teaser photo, Niantic's glasses appear to have a rather slim design, with speakers and some sort of adjustable strap.
Since Pokemon GO's release, Niantic has been hard at work perfecting its AR technology. Over a year after the game's initial release, Niantic introduced players to the AR+ feature, which worked to use Apple's ARKit framework to bring fans an even more realistic Pokemon GO experience. Now, the company has been hard at work to bring fans a new Reality Blending feature and more.
Pokemon GO remains as popular as ever, with a constant flurry of events, updates, new monsters, and more being added to the game regularly. It will certainly be interesting to see if Niantic plans to use its new device to enhance the Pokemon GO experience even further.