'Pokemon Go' Augmented Reality Smartphone Game Announced for 2016!

[Mitja]

Well yeah, remember guys, this is going to be a free game with microtransactions, based on Ingress.

It's not going to be some groundbreaking VR-heavy game that will make smartphones do holograms and magic. I mean, the game will have to be very low on the data side and not drain your battery like crazy for this whole project to even make sense.

Imagine it more like a google-maps with a fancier skin and Pokemon events popping up. And then a selection of "battle scene" backgrounds that will try to resemble your current location (ie a park background when you are in a park), with the Pokemon showing up on your phone.
How complex it will actually get, is to be seen (actual battles? just pokeball throwing gimmick kind of stuff? mechanics from the core games or awful simplified "battles"? etc..), but it will be accompanied by probably nice music from Masuda.

 

[StarlightSearcher]

How complex it will actually get, is to be seen (actual battles? just pokeball throwing gimmick kind of stuff? mechanics from the core games or awful simplified "battles"? etc..), but it will be accompanied by probably nice music from Masuda.

The iPhone/Android phones have the capabilities to run a complex program for what we can possibly see with Pokemon Go, no?

 

[thegrovylekid]

Wait, you're telling me I could go out into the forest on the side of my house and catch a Pichu?



I'm getting this.

 

[peer]

I'm honestly rather upset by this game.

I have to leave my house twice as much now ;-;

On another note, My Ingress portals will take even longer to be validated, so I'm wondering how Niantic Labs / GoogleNiantic (Niantic, The developers of Ingress are a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.) will stack up and support both games. With the sheer amount of hackers/spoofers in the community now, what's the influx of pokemon fans gonna do to the games?
Me thinks there will be myriad of hackers playing this, and I'm gonna be watching with glee.

EDIT:

Well yeah, remember guys, this is going to be a free game with microtransactions, based on Ingress.

It's not going to be some groundbreaking VR-heavy game that will make smartphones do holograms and magic. I mean, the game will have to be very low on the data side and not drain your battery like crazy for this whole project to even make sense.

Hur hur hur won't drain the battery.

[FTR, I'm an Ingress player in Australia]

 

[Athena]

(Niantic, The developers of Ingress are a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.)

Actually, they aren't. Niantic split off from Google shortly after they restructured into Alphabet. (source)

 

[peer]

The internal start-up will spin off into its own company, which will be backed by Google and unknown investors. “We’ll be taking our unique blend of exploration and fun to even bigger audiences,” the company wrote on their Google+ page.

Google is still backing the company. (I've seen the hundreds of thousands those servers cost Niantic ) And I suspect They only split off to enable the partnership with Pokemon... Probably

 

[redsky22]

If pokemon makes an airline to get from point a to point b to catch them all after this gets released i'm done.

 

[TwistedTurtwig]

I'm honestly surprised by the amount of negativity about this announcement. As a dedicated Ingress player, this is by far one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. I love the location-based mechanic behind Ingress, and applying it too Pokemon will be quite the experience. It's definitely got potential, and I look forward to the next news we get on the subject!

 

[Doomdesirer]

Yay, an excuse to be outside! I may actually get a tan next year.

 

[Pokemon Trainer]

This looks cool! I'm looking forward to Pokemon GO in 2016! However there was something that sort of ticked me off in that trailer. Ticked me off so much that I can't watch that part in the trailer again...

 

[ArceusTrainer]

inb4 Arceus is catchable at top of mount everest.

 

[StarlightSearcher]

inb4 Arceus is catchable at top of mount everest.

Or deep in the Mariana Trench. Arceus catchable on either the world's highest point or at the world's deepest point.

 

[Mitja]

Nah, you have to go into orbit, at least 400km :^)

 

[StarlightSearcher]

Nah, you have to go into orbit, at least 400km :^)

So, you can wander up into space and see Arceus, Rayquaza and Deoxys arguing with each other?

Where do I sign up to see this?

 

[Zowayix]

I don't think I've gotten this close to feeling sick from a pokemon announcement before (oh wait, shuffle was close). Those usually bring joy :c

"Pokemon in the real world!!!"

No thanks. That is not what I want to see, at least not right now and definitely not on smartphones...
Gamefreak has been continuously creating a "better" or let's say utopian world specifically for Pokemon to inhabit. You can't just put Pokemon into this dump and call it a day.
I have that image in my head of a rich kid looking for an AR-pikachu that's hiding somewhere next to a homeless person, and the trailer only made it worse for some reason.
Granted, the trailer doesn't actually show us any worthwhile footage of the actual gameplay, so for all I know, they might have come up with clever execution of the idea.. but let's get back to what with DO see.

-Pikachu
Okay, sure, it's the mascot..
-Caterpie
Oh no, please don't..
-Chaizard
I know where this is going...
-Clefairy/Bulbasaur/Magikarp/Nidoran/Eevee..
Goshdarnit -___-
-Snorlax/Gyarados
inb4 Mewtwo I guess?
-Geodude/Blastoise/Arbok/Marowak
-Mewtwo
le epic wow showdown in times square

The level of genwun in this is outrageous.

Screw this smartphone casual genwun pandering nonsense.

I just hope the interaction with the main games has minimal consequences.

"The game is free to play but will have in-app purchases"
well, surprise surprise.

Masuda, Ohmori, get off your asses and finish the damn Battle Frontier.

I need to wash my mouth after this.

EDIT:

It's just been a matter of time though till they did something like this.
I mean, it's a huge marketing device and they've tested the waters with 2 F2P microtransaction games in the past year.

And sure, it's very profitable for them, but looking at "how much development necessary"-"how much money it makes" ratio too much, instead of prioritizing on making a great game, is what kills quality game development.

It's likely just the approach they went with for this specific trailer, but as a main-games core fan and fan of all generations, this sure as heck managed to make me feel alienated in my favourite franchise.

My sentiments exactly. I wanted to post something about this earlier, but you hit the nail on the head.

Bolded parts are my emphasis.

Let me also quote this post I saw on a different forum (OP, if you see this and don't want it copied here, just let me know):

Now, from Nintendo! The company that has yet to produce face recognition software that works with Pokemon Amie!

Pokemon Go, yet another attempt to make Enhanced Reality games a thing!

Trespass in places you have no business visiting with the express purpose of making throwing motions at what onlookers will perceive as nothing!

Wear a ridiculous wristband and become an even greater spectacle in your pursuit of an inferior version of our existing product!