Collaboration in the auditory AR field for headphones with Niantic, developer and provider of AR mobile games

- Creating a game experience that utilizes sound augmented reality (AR) -

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Feb 15, 2022, 12:00 ET

TOKYO, Feb. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony has signed an agreement with Niantic, Inc (Niantic), which develops and provides augmented reality (AR) mobile games, for joint collaboration in the area of auditory AR for headphones.

Sony is developing products and technologies that allow you to enjoy the sound of the virtual world from headphones while capturing the sounds of the real world. Niantic owns game titles such as "Ingress," "Pokemon GO" and "Pikmin Bloom," which utilize AR applications for mobile devices, and is expanding its services widely around the world. Through this contract, we will combine the technologies of our companies and aim to implement a gaming experience through headphones that features auditory AR, rather than just visual. We plan to collaborate together on the development for application software for auditory AR, as well as for promotion activity in the auditory AR field.

For our first initiative, we aim to release "Ingress" within 2022, which will allow you to enjoy auditory AR with our truly wireless headphones, "LinkBuds," announced by Sony today. The LinkBuds link you to the real and the virtual world for a "Never Off" wearing experience.

With this agreement, both companies will further accelerate new development efforts in the AR gaming field toward implementing a more immersive gaming experience combined with headphones.

Setsuto Murai, VP, Niantic, Inc.
Sony is a global brand with a wide range of audio products and has excellent audio technology. By combining Sony's audio technology with Niantic's AR technology, we believe that we can offer a new AR experience that could not be created with conventional visual AR alone. We look forward to providing a more immersive AR world within the real world.

Hiroshi Nakamura, Head of Mobile Product Business Division, Home Entertainment & Sound Products Business Group, Sony Corporation
We are very pleased to start collaborating in the AR (Augmented Reality) field of sound with Niantic, which highly values the role of sound in the AR gaming experience. By linking Sony's Spatial Sound technology with Niantic's game content, we aim to deliver astonishing experiences that fuse reality with games through headphones. Please look forward to various future initiatives to enrich the experience of headphones such as the new product, "LinkBuds," announced by Sony today.

* LinkBuds is a trademark of Sony Corporation.

* Other company names and product names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of each company.

SOURCE Sony Group Corporation