Pokemon Go developer Niantic have confirmed a brand new acquisition that’s bound to benefit the game in the longterm.
Posting the news to their official site, the AR specialists revealed that they had acquired Escher Reality.
The firm is known to specialise in shared augmented experiences, which could mean big Pokemon news in the future.
A recent demo shared by Escher shows two people playing an AR game together on two different devices.
This could open the door to players perhaps being able to interact in each other’s games, or perhaps something altogether more ambitious
“Escher’s innovations focus on exploring the intersection of digital and physical worlds, augmented reality (AR), and computer vision,” a message from Niantic explains.
“Escher’s technology helps to build persistent, cross platform, multi-user experiences.
“The addition of the Escher AR technology is incredibly exciting to us at Niantic as it significantly accelerates our work on persistent, shared AR as part of the Niantic real-world application platform.
“It’s our intention to make our cross-platform AR technology available more widely to developers later this year. Stay tuned for information on developer availability.
“At Niantic, we are committed to using technology to enhance our users’ interactions with the physical world, and we are excited to embrace the Escher team as we continue to evolve and grow our platform to support planet-scale AR.”
Escher have also commented that their longterm goal is to help to bring shared and persistent AR experiences to millions of people around the world, and further realize AR’s impact going forward.
Fans will have to wait and see what the full impact of this news is, with new features bound to be in the planning stages already for this new tech.
Fans are also waiting to see if the Pokemon Go Valentine’s Day event will be returning in 2018.
Niantic already have a community day announced for later in the month, and also have the Kyogre Raid ending at around the sametime.
However, there’s still plenty of room to have some kind of event run for the holiday, much like they did in 2017.
The Valentine’s Day celebrations in 2017 were available from February 8 to February 15 and included its own special bonuses.
Here’s the full description from last year, with Niantic explaining: “With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we couldn’t think of a sweeter time to double the amount of Candy you’ll earn every time you catch, hatch, and transfer Pokémon.
“Your Buddy Pokémon is also getting into the Valentine’s Day spirit and will find Candy twice as fast!
“Throughout the celebration, you’ll notice that Chansey, Clefable, and many other adorable pink Pokémon will be encountered more frequently in the wild.
“Cleffa, Igglybuff, and Smoochum will also be more likely to hatch from Eggs. And to help you paint your town pink this Valentine’s Day, Lure Modules will last for six hours for the entire duration of the event.”
Last year’s Valentine’s Day event wasn’t announced until February 8, so there’s still plenty of time for Niantic to confirm something.
So far, there have been no big hints that the event will be returning in 2018, so Trainers will have to wait and see.