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What is Augmented reality? Blurring the lines between reality and digital

Winning with AR is simpler than you think

Published on
November 19, 2018
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Imagine if you could enhance the world around you with a digital layer that added text, sound, images and even 3D-rendered objects. This is Augmented Reality (AR) and it has enormous potential to alter the user's view of their real-life environment. It is distinct from virtual reality, which works by completely immersing users in a virtual world, replacing their environment all together. None of this is new, but finally someone has figured out a way to get AR into the mainstream.

Many have tried and many have failed to penetrate the consumer market with AR. Despite the valiant efforts of Google and Microsoft to accelerate AR adoption, their focus on hardware improvements came at the expense of a pleasing user experience. On the other hand, Nintendo leveraged existing smartphone technology and partnered with a 3rd party company that specialised in AR. The focus here was user delightfulness rather than sophistication. So came the release of Pokemon Go! - one of the most successful app launches in history adding over $9 billion to Nintendo's market capitalisation, and most importantly, catapulting AR into the mainstream and realising its infinite possibilities.

Our point of view

User experience is key - as many have pointed out, Nintendo's big break came when they realised they weren't a hardware company, but a "fun" company. This is a good lesson for all organisations; distill down to your core capability then leverage existing technologies such as APIs to enable innovative delivery channels. Ironically, even though the Google Glass headset failed as an AR product, it's highly likely that their Maps API is propping up Nintendo's smash hit.

Stick to what you're good at, and focus on making your offerings as delightful as possible - that's what really counts.

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