Pokémon Go HoloLens demo shown at Microsoft Ignite conference

Niantic demoed a proof of concept Pokémon Go experience running on HoloLens 2 during Microsoft’s Ignite conference on Tuesday.

The demo, which doesn’t represent a consumer product, uses a newly announced mixed-reality platform called Microsoft Mesh, which “allows people in different physical locations to join collaborative and shared holographic experiences on many kinds of devices”.

In the demo, Niantic founder and CEO John Hanke and Veronica Saron, product marketing manager for Pokémon Go, met to battle in a shared mixed-reality session.

“Our part of this is the work of stitching the digital and physical worlds together, connecting the bits and atoms so these experiences can be possible using the Niantic platform,” Hanke said. “But social connections are really at the heart of everything we do, and Microsoft Mesh innovations just enrich that.”

Niantic’s CEO added: “Microsoft Mesh offers a whole new way of doing that. This notion of bringing my virtual friends along with me as I go out and walk and explore the world — I just love that concept and I’m really interested to see what we can do with that.”

Hanke said in February 2019 that Pokémon Go had been downloaded over one billion times since its launch in July 2016.