Oculus quietly released their first foray into virtual reality interaction last week when Oculus Social appeared for the Gear VR. However, the initial release was region locked to North America. Oculus has now announced that it has now launched the application worldwide.
Oculus Social is a more important milestone for the Facebook owned virtual reality company than perhaps many may perhaps realise.
On one hand this first alpha release is limited in scope and features, allowing you to create avatars from a small selection and only allowing interaction with other people in a single application. On the other, it’s the first glimpse of a development path that Oculus has been planning for some time, a path that their owners will doubtless have a keen eye on from here on in. The bottom line here; being with other people in VR is amazing, and will arguably become the most compelling aspect of this brave new technology.
So, after an initial launch to the US of the early Alpha of Oculus Social last week, it’s refreshing to see it so quickly become available to the world so that those with Gear VR’s living on non US soil can access the app. Without having to resort to VPNs, as our roving euro-reporter Scott Hayden did last week for his hands-on.
See Also: Video Hands-On with ‘Oculus Social’, Enabling Shared Experiences on Gear VR
For those without access to a Gear VR, check out Scott’s video hands-on and his impressions above and for a discussion of what this release means for Oculus and VR as a whole, check out Ben Lang’s recent guest spot on TWiT TV, discussing the Oculus Social launch – starting around 14m.