During a discussion about Augmented Reality and gaming I was presented with a little movie on youtube that shows how a box of cereals is being used as a reference to project a 3d animation on top of.

The animation is executed very professional. It has a tremendous wow factor and it really makes one enthusiastic about the gaming possibilities Augmented Reality will bring.

But what this video in my opinion shows most is that the level of interaction with the augments still is too little to allow a mobile games developer to build a player friendly interface.

Aiming your phone at a reference (the cereal box) and at the same time trying to touch the augmentations on the screen is tiring and actually quite hard for we tend to move the phone quite a bit, causing the augments to move as well and causing us to click next to the augment, rather that on it.

It looks like Sharp is the first company to add a tool to the AR developer’s toolbox with it’s Aquos SH8298U. A new Android phone that comes with a 3D camera enabling developers to calculate distances in the camera’s line of view.

If more phone manufacturers are to follow Sharp’s example the future for AR games looks bright.