Possible footage of a Pokemon GO presentation by Niantic CEO John Hanke at South by Southwest shows what it's like to capture a wild Ivysaur in the game.

For Pokemon fans, the idea of encountering and capturing Pokemon in the real world sounds like a dream come true. That's why there was much enthusiasm when the Pokemon augmented reality game Pokemon GO was first revealed to the world six months ago, and why what appears to be newly leaked footage of the game should have fans excited.

Niantic, the company developing Pokemon GO, sent its CEO John Hanke to host a presentation at the annual SXSW event. Someone in attendance took the opportunity to film some footage of what appears to be Pokemon GO, which offers gamers one of their first real looks at how the game plays.

The footage shows a player encountering a wild Ivysaur, and indicates that Pokemon will be found in areas relevant to their type (Ivysaur is a grass-type Pokemon and is found in grass). The player then throws a Pokeball at Ivysaur, but fails to catch it. Humorously, the player's next resort is to use a Masterball to capture the wild Ivysaur, and afterwards, Ivysaur is added to the player's Pokedex.

See Ivysaur captured in Pokemon GO in the unofficial footage below:

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What's interesting about this footage is that it only appeared as though the player could toss Pokeballs at Ivysaur. There doesn't seem to be an option to do battle with it using a previously obtained Pokemon, which would be strange given that one of the driving forces of Pokemon games is leveling up captured Pokemon by defeating wild ones and doing battle with trainers. We do know that Pokemon GO will have gym battles, so it wouldn't make sense to prevent players from battling wild Pokemon in order to prepare their team for those tougher PvP fights.

One possible explanation is that this was the first Pokemon that the player encountered in the game, and therefore they didn't have any other Pokemon to do battle with. Alternatively, Niantic CEO John Hanke simply brought a tech demo of Pokemon GO to show to the crowd that wasn't representative of the fully-featured final game.

While this short video doesn't show a Pokemon battle in progress, fans shouldn't have to worry about Pokemon GO lacking features. After all, Nintendo, Google, and The Pokemon Company invested $30 million into developer Niantic, and the company is already planning Pokemon GO field tests to ensure that the game is of high quality before it is released to the masses.

For many, Pokemon GO is a dream game concept, and if it is a success, it could mean big things for augmented reality gaming. Nintendo has already said that Pokemon GO is part of its 2016 plans, and the game would be the perfect way to ensure success for the company's mobile gaming initiative. Here's hoping that Nintendo releases some official footage of the game and reveals more details sooner rather than later.

Pokemon GO is expected to release this year for Android and iOS mobile devices.

Source: IGN