Partnership with Ingress's Niantic Labs brings Pokemon to the real world.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/41127/pokemon-go-mobile-augmented-reality-game-in-development
A new mobile Pokémon game is under development by Niantic Labs in a partnership with The Pokemon Company, Nintendo, and Game Freak to bring an augmented reality game to mobile. A surprise press conference hosted by Pokemon president Tsunekazu Ishihara showed a sneak peak of the game.
Pokémon Go brings Pokémon to the real world, encouraging players to capture virtual Pokémon by visiting real life places. The game attempts to capture the feeling of looking for Pokémon while also getting people to explore the real world.
Niantic Labs was founded within Google in 2010 with the goal of encouraging people to explore the world in a fun way. Niantic was spun out of Google with the Alphabet reorganization last month. Niantic's first game, Ingress, is an augmented reality sci-fi game that has players visit real world locations as a member of one of two competing factions to take control of geographical areas. Pokémon's goal of bringing players together to explore and battle fits well with the Niantic mission.
As Pokémon Go is meant to get players to explore the world, an optional watch-like accessory called Pokémon Go Plus will be available, which has simple LED and vibration functions and pairs via Bluetooth Low Energy. The device activates to notify players to check their phones.
Game Freak's Junichi Masuda will be working with Niantic on various aspects of the game, including game design and music composition. Before his passing, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata had been working on the project, and Shigeru Miyamoto is also involved in developing the Pokémon Go Plus.
The game will launch next year on Android and iOS smartphones.