Niantic picks up a fellow AR developer

Niantic, the developer behind Pokémon Go and Ingress, has posted a blog announcing they have picked up fellow AR developer Escher Reality, with CEO John Hanke having this to say on the subject.

"Today we are announcing the acquisition of Escher Reality, and welcoming the talented team led by Escher's co-founders Ross Finman and Diana Hu to Niantic. Escher's innovations focus on exploring the intersection of digital and physical worlds, augmented reality (AR), and computer vision. Escher's technology helps to build persistent, cross platform, multi-user experiences."

For their part, Escher Reality also seem excited about their future with Niantic as seen in a post penned by Ross Finman, CEO and Diana Hu, CTO:

"We are excited to develop the next wave of spatial computing in Augmented Reality at Niantic. Bringing technology we developed at Escher to the core of Niantic's AR Platform, we can enable the next generation of experiences together and realize our collective vision sooner and better."

While Pokémon Go could be seen as evidence of the potential of AR, it is also clear that we're very early in what might be a future where AR is a major part of gaming, particularly on mobile platforms.

Are you excited about AR technology and its application in games?