Find out how Pokemon Go’s tech actually works

From the folks at Digital Foundry

I’ve seen a lot of confusion as to how Pokemon Go works, and some people think it relies on a pedometer tracker of sorts. Well, no, it’s pretty much all GPS-based, and that even includes the egg hatching mechanic, which for sure seems like a pedometer thing. Digital Foundry helps break down an array of concepts with this short, easy to digest clip.

Most of you probably knew that Niantic previously worked on Ingress, but some of you likely aren’t aware that all of the data that was gathered on that project was essentially dumped onto Go. So if you played Ingress in your small rural hometown and set up a bunch of markers highlighting random local art, you’ll reap the benefits in Go.

Surprisingly, Digital Foundry does confirm that climate changes and terrain matter (this is something the community has noticed, but always feels like a rumor mill type thing). So yeah — hopefully they can get the servers settled (I haven’t been able to play for 12 hour blocks for the past two days), because they’re really onto something here with the perfect storm of existing tech and the 20th anniversary of Pokemon.