Niantic unveils NBA All-World mobile game for ‘real-world metaverse’
Interested in learning what's next for the gaming industry? Join gaming executives to discuss emerging parts of the industry this October at GamesBeat Summit Next. Learn more.
Niantic revealed a new mobile game dubbed NBA All-World that will let fans compete against other players in their own neighborhoods.
The game uses gelolocation to enable players to find other players and challenge them in a one-on-one multiplayer hoops game on a smartphone. It’s another title that expands the geolocation gaming genre that Niantic pioneered with Ingress and Pokémon Go. Niantic’s formula has been to create new geolocation games with famous brands such as Harry Potter or Pikmin, and it is also licensing its AR/geolocation platform to indie devs through a platform called Lightship.
San Francisco-based Niantic said NBA All-World is a first-of-its-kind game that will place NBA fans into the “real-world metaverse,” which layers computer animations atop the real world when viewed through augmented reality glasses or smartphones. NBA All-World is now in soft launch, with a planned global launch during the 2022-2023 NBA season.
Marcus Matthews, senior producer at Niantic, said in a press briefing that “real-world metaverse” means that instead of creating a virtual world that you explore, Niantic will overlay a video game environment on top of a map of the real world.
MetaBeat 2022
MetaBeat will bring together metaverse thought leaders to give guidance on how metaverse technology will transform the way all industries communicate and do business on October 3-4 in San Francisco, CA.
“And we want to use objects and items in the real world and locations in the real world,” he said. “And we can turn those into video game objects that you can interact
Read more on venturebeat.com
