'Pokemon Go' Nearby Tracker Still Being Tested; Niantic Removes Spawns & Sightings When Driving [VIDEO]

Niantic's "Pokemon Go" took the mobile gaming realm by storm when it debuted earlier this year. Bevies of new features have since been introduced to help players capture Pokemon. The "nearby" tracker is expected to be one such feature.

The "nearby" tracker was announced a couple of months back and has already been released in San Francisco. Zealous fans of the hit augmented reality game outside San Francisco have been restlessly waiting for the feature to be released to everyone.

Unlike the "Sightings" panel, the "Nearby" panel points players directly to Pokemon that are currently at nearby PokeStops. No prizes for guessing as this makes tracking process and lot easier.

Every time Niantic Labs rolls out an update, players hope that it will include the nearby tracker, but much to their dismay, it never does. In fact, it looks like a wide release of the San Francisco tracker won't be in the offing any time soon.

According to a Niantic representative, the company does not intend to release the game tracker everywhere in near future. The representative told Polygon that the tracker is still being tested, and is geo-locked to San Francisco. Regrettably, no estimated timeline has been revealed for a potential roll out.

Avid "Pokemon Go" players are disappointed that Niantic restricted players from accessing all third party tracking tools for the game, and did not replace it with anything better.

Amidst the fiasco surrounding the tracking system, a new bug or feature has appeared in "Pokemon Go" where when a player exceeds the driving speed when playing the game, his/her "Sightings" nearby list shuts off completely.

Some players initially reported seeing less Pokemon spawning while driving at these speeds, but many now claim that the Pokemon are totally gone, and the Sightings readout along with it. In other words, players will never know when a creature is near them while moving, Forbes reported.

Probably, by limiting access to the "Sightings" nearby feature to a specific driving speed, Niantic is trying to stop players from playing the game while driving for potential liability reasons.