CapitolaVR is the only developer so far that came up with a Pokémon Go version for the HoloLens which you can actually play.

In an interview with me, David Robustelli, CapitolaVR´s Co-Founder and Head of Digital has shared some of their experience. He also did us the favor to put their HoloLens game to the test outside – in the summer streets of Amsterdam.

CapitolaVR´s Pokémon version was the first of several intends to mimic the Pokémon Go experience by developing a playable HoloLens app. So it´s no surprise that their Pokémon Go HoloLens gameplay video from just five days ago has already been viewed more than 162,000 times.

There are some other Pokémon HoloLens demos on YouTube like this one, or this one here that came out just yesterday. What makes them different to the version from CapitolaVR is that those apps merely show some 3D models placed in the landscape. And as David Corbustelli has explained to me, this is a very simple task to achieve.

Pokémon Go is the game of the year

The Pokémon Go craze is really an unprecedented event for a video game. Since the first public version of the augmented reality game hit the market just two weeks ago, it has already become a global phenomenon.

Undoubtedly this will be the game of the year; its innovative real-life gameplay concept is just groundbreaking. Nintendo´s stock price has doubled in a matter of days and key figures of the tech-scene like Satya Nadella are praising the game as a killer app.

In an interview with CNBC, Nadella commented on the augmented reality hype caused by PokéMon Go and about HoloLens being the ideal platform for such kind of games:

“This Pokemon interest hopefully will translate into a lot of interest in HoloLens. Think about it, the game physics of that app are built for HoloLens. Of course the phone is great, the installed base of the phone is so enormous that it makes it possible. But think about what that game on HoloLens would mean. You’re not trying to use a phone when you can actually use your eyes to look through. It’s the ultimate computing paradigm and I am happy for Pokemon but I am happy for these industrial applications.”

It seems that Nadella ´s wish that the “Pokemon interest hopefully [would] translate into a lot of interest in HoloLens” is already becoming a reality.