For John Hanke, boss of the American studio Niantic, the end of the Cavid-19 pandemic showed that living “in a 3D world” was illusory. However, like others, he is interested in augmented reality.
by Vincent Fagot
The end of the Pandemic of Covid-19 would have been right for the popularity of the concept of metarers, an expression designating the future of the Internet, where users would be immersed in a virtual world for all types of activity ( Work, games, sport)? This is in any case the conviction of John Hanke, the boss of the American studio Niantic: “I think it was a by-product of confinements, but since then, life has returned to normal. We prefer to return to the office, Meet directly rather than on [the application of videoconference] Zoom. It was a wrong vision of thinking that we were going to spend our time in a world in 3D. “
The collapse of the Meta Stock Exchange Course (Facebook parent company), which is dreaming as a metal champion, is the symbol of this disillusionment: the action has lost more than 50 % of its value in 2022, and The attendance of its virtual universe, Horizon Worlds, is well below the forecasts of Mark Zuckerberg, with 200,000 users identified in October, far from the 500,000 initially hoped for the end of 2022.
However, many actors still express their interest in virtual reality. “This is clearly the future of video games, says Charles-Louis Planade, financial analyst at Midcap Partners. Even if it remains a niche market, he continues to grow strongly.” In 2023, we expect to see Sony and Apple each present a new virtual reality headset.
economies plan
However, for Mr. Hanke, “the future belongs more to augmented reality”, which allows, through a device (smartphone, glasses), to reveal virtual elements in real space. It is by relying on this technology that Niantic had its biggest success, with the game on mobile Pokémon Go. Seven years after its launch, in 2016, he exceeded 6 billion dollars in income (5.5 Billions of Euro’s). A success that society has failed to reproduce with its other games. She now hopes that success will smile at her more with her new title launched in January, NBA All World, who will try to seduce basketball lovers.
In the eyes of Mr. Hanke, if augmented reality is making its way to the general public, it still lacks a truly convincing model of augmented reality glasses. Niantic also collaborates with the Giant of Qualcomm electronic components to establish the basics of this new product, of which other manufacturers could seize.
In the meantime, the company is not immune to the turbulence that the video game sector is going through. In July 2022, she lifted the veil on a savings plan passing through the dismissal of 8 % of its workforce and the cessation of several game projects. Friday, January 20, Microsoft in turn announced the imminent closure of its social virtual reality platform Altspacevr.