Category: John Hanke

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Watch: Pokemon Go HoloLens Demo Uses Microsoft Mesh For Multiplayer Battles

Microsoft and Niantic demonstrated a Pokemon Go HoloLens demo at Microsoft Ignite today.

Alex Kipman, Technical Fellow for HoloLens, was joined virtually on-stage by Niantic CEO John Hanke who hinted at a multiplayer battle alongside product marketing manager Veronica Saron. The video featured a number of different Pokemon hanging out in the real world in a way that went far beyond what’s currently possible with the smartphone-based game. This demo was purely proof of concept; Microsoft made it clear this doesn’t represent a consumer product at this stage. Check out the video below.

The demo was designed to showcase Microsoft Mesh, the company’s new platform for building multi-user online experiences that work across HoloLens and a variety of other devices. We got to try out the platform last week and came away impressed with the possibilities. In the case of Pokemon Go — which doesn’t yet have a native app on HoloLens — it allows players to battle online across the world as if they’re in the same space.

Pokemon Go HoloLens

It’s an exciting development, though AR headsets like HoloLens are still too expensive and too limited for full consumer adoption. A Mesh-powered Pokemon Go on a future consumer-oriented version of HoloLens would be an incredible draw and it is hard not to see the demos as a hint that Microsoft knows that’s the direction it should be headed.

Hanke also appeared alongside James Cameron to talk about a new collaboration with OceanX to produce a ‘holographic laboratory’ for the OceanXplorer research and exploration vessel that users from around the world could visit remotely.

Mesh will be rolling out in a preview phase first as Microsoft continues to add more features to the platform.

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Niantic CEO Suggests VR Could Be a Problem For Society

The head of the company behind phenomenally successfully augmented reality (AR) game Pokemon Go believes that VR is so good that it may cause a problem for society.

John Hanke, CEO of Niantic was on stage for the Mixed Reality Summit, which formed part of the London Games Festival. Hanke said that he preferred to concentrate on the benefits of AR and was concerned about the seductive nature of virtual reality (VR) as a form of escape from the real world, reports GamesIndustry.biz.

He said as part of his speech: “My thing about VR is I’m afraid it can be too good, in the sense of being an experience that people want to spend a huge amount of time in,” he said. “I mean I already have concerns about my kids playing too much Minecraft, and that’s a wonderful game.

“We’re human beings and there’s a lot of research out there that shows we’re actually a lot happier when we get exercise, when we go outside – and outside in nature in particular. I think it’s a problem for us as a society if we forgo that and spend all of time in a Ready Player One-style VR universe.”

Ready Player One is a book and upcoming movie where millions of people choose to escape the collapsing of their dystopian society by logging in to a VR MMO called ‘The Oasis’ – Ready Player One is itself getting VR tie-in experiences.

Hanke went on to encourage developers to look more closely at the advantages of AR, particularly as a means to encourage players to be outside: “With AR, there’s a huge amount of potential to do things that really do have a positive impact on people,” said Hanke. “There is research about the health impact of Pokemon Go in particular but you can expand that to apply to all AR games. These games can encourage people to be more active than they would normally be. As a parent, part of my motivation for building this kind of game was to try and get my kids out of the house. I think there’s a ton of good that can be done.”

VR has, of course, been proven to have benefits all of its own, such as allowing chemotherapy patients to escape the hospital environment.

During the interview, Hanke went on to mention that Niantic were working on a new version of Ingress, a mobile game that formed the template for Pokemon Go. The new version would add new features and social options. It remains to be seen if the new version will add AR functionality.

VRFocus will keep you updates on Niantic and other AR projects.