It’s not the Pokémon you played as a kid. We’re approaching 4 billion smartphone and tablet mobile broadband subscriptions this year - a platform that is everywhere. Millennials grew up with it, watched by doting Gen X parents and baby boomer grandparents - it is a brand that is everywhere. So why has Pokémon Go been so successful?įirst, Pokémon has a treasured place in our hearts. AR/VR became a mainstream phenomenon in less than a week, and it did so years before the most bullish industry insiders thought it would (us included).

AR/VR is no longer the creature of industry insiders, innovators and early adopters (or TechCrunch readers). It would be fair to say that not even Pokémon Go’s developer Niantic did, as, despite their enormous success, the overwhelming demand from users led to reports of significant server downtime at launch (not helped by DDoS attacks).īut the great thing about Pokémon Go is that hundreds of millions of consumers aged 8 to 80 have played it worldwide, watched others play it with bemusement or read about odd experiences with it in the miles of column inches and vast numbers of electrons devoted to it by mainstream media. It isn’t space glasses from the future, it isn’t high tech, it doesn’t require new hardware and it’s free. Pokémon Go is the singularity for AR/VR that everyone was waiting for, but looks very different to what everyone expected. But who cares what you call something that is so successful? Just be glad it happened, and let’s figure out what it means for the AR/VR industry. “Stop calling Pokémon Go AR,” say the purists. VR/AR startup valuations reach $45 billion (on paper).Will Apple, Facebook or Microsoft be the future of augmented reality?.

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