Niantic Labs, the San Francisco-based developer of location-based games, has opened up a studio in Tokyo.

The firm, established by Google Earth creator John Hanke and formerly owned by Google, originally made its name with the lore-heavy AR game Ingress.

In the spotlight

Then, in 2015, it made headlines firstly by getting the nod to develop Pokémon Go - the series' first mobile outing - before receiving up to $30 million investment from Nintendo, Google, and The Pokémon Company.

Niantic's new Tokyo office will assist with the development of Pokémon Go, while - somewhat less predictably - working on what is said to be a platform based on AR and mapping.

Indeed, when we spoke to Niantic's product marketing manager Anne Beuttenmüller in July, she commented that "we need to open the platform for game developers to come up with their own ideas."

It seems that the Tokyo office is likely to be where this happens.

[Source: Serkan Toto]