Kudos to the team that made that. I'm curious if they thought to approach Nintendo and if Nintendo would have been interested (I don't think they were into mobile yet).
FYI Pokemon Go is based on (and by the same people I think) as Ingress [1] which has been around since 2013.
Although, Pokemon the challenge of the app has been scaling it due to it's instant popularity. The "find Pokemon on an actual map" part is in my opinion not the biggest challenge.
As others have pointed out, Google also had something similar.
Here's a summary of what they built (in 36 hours) based on the demo video:
1. Pokemon-style map generation based on the
actual physical map
2. Pebble app listing nearby pokemon + pokemon
in roster
3. Battle UI + mechanics
4. Wit.AI (or similar API)-based voice commands
a. Tell your pokemon what move to use
b. Challenge another player
c. Open pokedex
d. Close pokedex
5. Myo armband throw Pokeball motion
6. Multiplayer: two players discover each
other via GPS and can battle (implemented
via Socket.IO)
7. Pokedex recording pokemon you catch
8. Leap Motion to pet your pokemon
Hackathons often have API prizes, which is why you see a lot of features that use APIs / hardware (Wit.AI, Myo, Leap Motion). What I really love is that the integrations were very natural: throwing Pokeballs, voice commands.
FYI Pokemon Go is based on (and by the same people I think) as Ingress [1] which has been around since 2013.
Although, Pokemon the challenge of the app has been scaling it due to it's instant popularity. The "find Pokemon on an actual map" part is in my opinion not the biggest challenge.
As others have pointed out, Google also had something similar.
1. https://www.ingress.com/