Niantic Inc, a leading augmented reality technology best known for Pokemon Go, has partnered with Sony to combine Niantic’s real-world Augmented Reality technology with Sony’s audio technology with the aim of providing users with an unparalleled AR experience.
The first part of the collaboration will see Sony and Niantic working together on Ingress, a popular game from Niantic in order to create a more immersive Augmented Reality sound experience.
Hiroshi Nakamura, Head of Mobile Product Business Group at Sony Corporation stated, “We are very pleased to start collaborating in the AR (Augmented Reality) field of sound with Niantic, which highly values the role of sound in the AR gaming experience. By linking Sony’s Spatial Sound technology with Niantic’s game content, we aim to deliver astonishing experiences that fuse reality with games through headphones. We look forward to various future initiatives to enrich the experience of headphones such as the new product, “LinkBuds,” announced by Sony today.”
Vice President of Niantic, Setsuto Murai also commented, “Sony is a global brand with a wide range of audio products, and excellent audio technology. By combining Sony’s audio technology with Niantic’s AR technology, we believe that we can offer a new level of AR experience, beyond just what you can see. We look forward to providing a more immersive AR experience in the real world.”
The results of a collaboration between two such behemoth companies is one to eagerly anticipate. More details will be announced in the coming months.
We flagged Niantic as one of the top companies to watch when it comes to the metaverse; They recently raised $300 million to develop a real-world metaverse, and have made their AR toolkit, Niantic Lightship, public to developers to encourage AR-tech adoption.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
