Oculus Brings ‘Slo Mo Guys’ 3D Mini-series to Quest and Go, but not Rift

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With the help of Oculus, YouTube sensation The Slo Mo Guys has launched an eight-part mini-series on Oculus Quest via Oculus TV. The mini-series brings the channel’s signature high-speed footage into the 3D realm.

In the latest example of Oculus’ unfortunately segmented ecosystem, Oculus has brought a new Slo Mo Guys mini-series to its mobile headsets (Quest, Go, and Gear VR) via Oculus TV, an app which unfortunately isn’t available on the company’s Rift headsets.

The footage is shot as 180° 3D video with segments captured at 1,000 frames per second for that sweet slow-motion action. The eight-part mini-series covers classic slow motion fodder like fire breathing, katana slicing, and colored powder bombs, as well as some lesser seen stuff like rubber bands around a watermelon.

Image courtesy The Slo Mo Guys

Below all of the episodes on Oculus TV are linked which allows you to use the ‘Save to VR’ button to bookmark the episodes to watch later on your mobile Oculus headset:

Anti-Fire Grenades
Betwixt the wood lies a fiery agent of destruction. You’ve heard of fighting fire with fire. Well, take a peek at The Slow Mo Guys’ most modern method to date: fighting fire with a grenade. Safety first!

Inside a Dome of Sparks
Under the cover of night, Gavin and Dan explore the beauty of the cosmos for a VR experience unlike any other. You could fool yourself into believing that this is some distant, twisting galaxy…

Katana Slicing
Revisiting the razor-sharp capabilities of the samurai sword, Gavin and Dan take another swing at those pesky water-filled bottles and gleefully show us the colorful results.

Fire Breathing
There’s a reason fire breathing is an art form, and not a sport. But Gavin and Dan have discovered the key to making it fun, competitive, and—just like all great sports—they’ve raised the stakes. In a flame-engulfing VR experience like nothing else you’ve witnessed, “The Slow Mo Guys Go Fire Breathing” is an unmissable episode.

Jelly Tennis Splats
Why buy tickets to Wimbledon when you can experience the thrill of the perfect serve with The Slow Mo Guys’ very own Jelly Tennis Tournament? It’s the same spectacle, better tasting, and stranger in sound.

Rubber Bands VS Watermelons
Ever wondered how many rubber bands it takes to cut a watermelon in half? Gavin and Dan have got you—and their lab coats—covered. You can’t quite catch the scent of summer fruits, but this VR experience will trick you into trying to dodge the splatter.

Rainbow Paint Bathtub Splash
Splashing around in a bathtub isn’t only for kids and rubber ducks. Witness Gavin and Dan’s return to recreate the legendary Inception scene with a wet, messy, and colorful twist.

Powder Paint Airbag Explosions
Please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle while we remotely detonate these airbags. Gavin and Dan discover what happens when you mix Holi powder, airbags, and a determination to turn destruction into decoration.

It’s a bummer that this content isn’t available more widely across Oculus’ ecosystem simply because the Oculus TV app isn’t available on Rift, but this is one part of a systemic division between the company’s mobile and PC headsets.

SEE ALSO
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We’ve seen Oculus repeatedly struggle to unite its headsets into a cohesive ecosystem by not offering consistent apps and functionality across all of its headsets. Similarly, we’ve seen how Quill Theater has brought curated VR artwork, animations, and stories to Quest but not to Rift. Same for Oculus Venues, which lets Oculus’ mobile headsets watch live events with friends. And not to mention the way that Oculus is rapidly pushing experimental features like hand-tracking to Quest while its PC headset remains mostly static.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • NooYawker

    How hilarious, exclusives between Facebooks own headsets.

    • Exclusivityception

    • Greyl

      You must be new to gaming if you find that hilarious. Was the norm for PSP, Vita, and Nintendo’s handhelds to have their own exclusives. if Nintendo continued to make 2 devices, they would still do things that way.

      • NooYawker

        So you think physical cartridges are the same as digital? Interesting

      • kontis

        There were usually valid reasons for that: differences in computing power or form factor / control scheme impacting gamedesign.

        • Greyl

          Take a game like Killzone Mercernary on Vita, for example; it could have easily be ported to PS3 at the time, but it was kept an exclusive to drive Vita sales.

          • NooYawker

            Sony didn’t port it and manufacture different cartridges for their different devices. What’s the reason to prevent the Rift from getting this software? There’s no need to port it. It’s not even a game, it’s videos.

          • Greyl

            Cartridges aren’t why Nintendo/Sony didn’t port games across their own platforms. Using KZ Mercenary as an example, the game could have been ported to PS3, either through Blu-Ray or via digital download.

            The short answer is: Sony and Nintendo wanted to have 2 separate platforms/markets, and not have one platform cannibalise the other.

          • NooYawker

            But there’s still a manufacturing process and port they would have to do and that cost money.
            What’s stopping these videos from being played on the rift? None whatsoever.
            So keep your apologist bullshit to yourself. You’re making yourself look dumber every comment

          • Greyl

            I mean, I’m literally explaining one reason why they wouldn’t port across both platforms – to not cannabalise the other, and so that the other has exclusive content of its own. You’re the moron, who thinks cartridges were a factor PS3 didn’t get Vita’s games. New to games, like I guessed.

          • NooYawker

            It’s a video you moron!!! There’s nothing to port!!

          • Greyl

            Regardless of what it is, it’s still content, which drives sale of one product over the other. Again, I’m explaining to you why companies do this, because you seem to be very naive and find it “hilarious”, etc, when it’s a common business practice.

          • NooYawker

            You think it’s common practice to actively prevent content on your own products.
            The example you gave required Sony to produce different cartridges. They chose not to.
            Facebook is ACTIVELY preventing the rift from playing videos that can are available on the quest. That’s a pretty huge difference. There’s no other example of any company do this.

          • Greyl

            It is common practice. And Again, cartridges and physical media had nothing to do with
            preventing Sony/Nintendo from porting games across their systems; it’s the same reason why console exclusives exist, to drive sales of a specific platform. In Sony’s case, they made Vita exclusives to drive sales of Vita, if everything had been on PS3, the Vita would have been even more of a commercial flop. Again, you sound very new to the video game industry if all this comes across as hilarious and shocking to you.

          • NooYawker

            It’s like talking to a wall. Sony did not actively block games. They just didn’t port them into a different cartridge.
            Name any example of a company ACTIVELY BLOCKING software from a different product.

          • Greyl

            What are you even talking about? Sony were not “blocking games” dumb ass, console exclusives was their corporate strategy for selling the Vita, as was Nintendo’s with their handhelds.

          • NooYawker

            Ok. It’s obvious what the problem is, you have no reading comprehension. I’m done. Have fun with Facebook’s bullshit, continue making excuses for them.

          • Greyl

            Ah, the irony of talking about reading comprehension, while misreading and misapprehending my explanation of why companies make platform exclusives as “making excuses” for Facebook. Meanwhile, that statement itself is hypocritical, since you’re literally making excuses for Sony/Nintendo, by using “cartridges” as your argument, Lol.

          • NooYawker

            Me: Sony did not actively block games.
            You: What are you even talking about? Sony were not “blocking games”

            We’re done.

          • Timothy Bank

            you are 100% correct. I am not sure who this NooYawker is, but he is just looking for to cause trouble. His ignorance is hilarious! I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time!

          • NooYawker

            The two of you are just making sad excuses for Facebook. Zuck was right when he said his used were dumb f***s.

  • I can’t find this even on Oculus Go, althouge maybe that’s because it’s region locked. I’m in Europe.

  • Mateusz Pawluczuk

    I found this format to work quite well when watching Tested VR series.
    But why Rift isn’t included, that I don’t know..

    • Timothy Bank

      Probably because it requires them to build 2 completely different programs. An Android App for the Quest/Go and a PC App for the Rift/Rift-S. With so many people jumping on the Quest and Go right now, it makes sense to release an Android App first then possibly release a PC one later (if at all.) Plus, they can test the waters with the largest groups first…makes sense to me.

      I typically prototype in Rift then do my first builds in Quest because of this.

      • NooYawker

        It’s a video, there’s nothing to build. Are you saying the Rift is incapable of viewing 180 videos?

        • Timothy Bank

          No, Oculus TV is an App that plays the videos and lists them like Netflix. If you don’t have the App, you can’t get access to the content. They have to build the Oculus TV app in the Rift ecosystem for you to be able to watch it. Might sound easy, but it is a bit of work.

          There are plenty of video players for Rift/Rift-S.

          • NooYawker

            Which part of “its a video“ escapes you?

          • Timothy Bank

            You are correct, it is a video. The Quest’s OS is Android based and Oculus has been rolling updates to it on a fairly regular cadence. One of the updates was the addition of Oculus TV which allows users to have access to a nice collection of VR viewable content.
            Oculus has not yet rolled out a similar update to the Rift/Rift-S OS. That means the Rift has no way to access the same content until they add Oculus TV to the Rift OS.

            It is like trying to watch Hulu videos on Netflix.

          • NooYawker

            “It is like trying to watch Hulu videos on Netflix.”

            No, because Netflix and Hulu are two different companies. Facebook runs oculus TV, the quest and the rift. It would be like Samsung creating an app that runs on 65” TVs but not 75” TVs. Make sense?

          • Timothy Bank

            How about I type very slowly so that you can understand what I am saying and use small words. Your comparison is wrong. Samsung uses the same OS in both TVs (that is short for television, BTW.) That would predicate the use of the same App on both TVs.
            Oculus has two very different ecosystems for the Quest and the Rift. One is mobile on Android, the other is tethered to a PC and runs the Windows operating system. Opps! I’m using big words again….sorry.

            You are correct! Netflix and Hulu are two different companies. They are also spelled differently and one will require that you not use a proxy service if you are using a smart TV on your local WiFi, but that is beside the point (that you have missed from the beginning.)

            Oculus has a proprietary delivery system for their content. This delivery system is similar to Netflix. It requires an App to browse, access and then view the content (which might be Video, 3D images, experiences, you name it.) Oculus has to develop two (2) completely separate Apps that integrate into two (2) very different ecosystems. They chose to release the Android App first (who knows why, but we can speculate it has to do with market penetration and the tides in Menlo Park.) One can’t simply “open” a video on the Rift from this system because there is no way to access it…just as it would be impossible to open a movie on Netflix without the Netflix App.

            I would suggest that you just leave it at that. You are only making yourself look foolish and ignorant. I must say that you did make me laugh, so if your intent was to humor me…you succeeded!

          • NooYawker

            That’s the joke! Facebook has, like you said, TWO ECOSYSTEMS! That you and your other clown don’t understand. That is the problem. It’s hilarious that they are creating a walled garden within their own walled garden.
            But for you and dinky there that’s ok. And that’s what really wrong.

          • Timothy Bank

            Ok, then let’s assume you are correct. With all your wisdom and knowledge of VR development and deployment, how would you merge 2 very different pieces of hardware, built on very different platforms so that they show the same experience?
            I’m not looking for a smart come-back, show me that you actually know what you are talking about. Please elaborate on the challenges and how the systems and requirements differ. Feel free to get as technical as you want. This is your chance to impress us all. I eagerly await your explanation. :)

          • NooYawker

            I’m not a dev. I’m a consumer. And like I said before you think this is ok but it’s not. It’s the same reason sidequest exists. Because Facebook is preventing quest users access to all the software that’s perfectly capable of running on the quest but for some reason or another is not allowed to. So your bullshit that it won’t work is just that, bullshit.

          • NooYawker

            And I have to say if you, a dev find porting a video app from the oculus to the rift a monumental task you must be a very incompetent dev.

      • benz145

        Especially for such a comparatively simple app, this seems like a really lame reason for a company which encourages developers to deploy their games on both Quest and Rift. I don’t buy it.

  • Glenn Ennreich

    Oculus TV was excluded from Rift because, I assume, people only want to watch TV while wandering blindly about their home and can’t be tied to a cable.
    Anyone who buys a Facebook product expecting a reasonable amount of support will be sadly disappointed.

  • Im getting very, very tired of the lack of platform parity on Oculus. come on, that’s one of my favorite channels, Facebook!

  • Matteo Valles

    Excited to watch these!

  • NooYawker

    It’s like I’m in bizarro land.

  • Patrick Hogenboom

    Monumentally disappointed in SloMoGuys for participating in this walled garden project.