Niantic, the company behind Pokémon GO, the Lightship AR SDK, and more, announced this week that it has acquired 8th Wall, creators of AR development tools designed to run through web browsers with wide reach across devices.
Tundra Tracker, a SteamVR Tracking puck born out of a successful Kickstarter last year, was sold to the general public for the first time yesterday, March 10th. Tundra Labs says that all available stock was sold out in only three minutes after launch.
Tundra Labs announced in a tweet that their “very limited inventory” of trackers sold out in just three minutes yesterday.
Like many companies, Tundra Labs says it’s suffering from key component shortages, and as such has been forced to buy some parts from third-party brokerages instead of directly from the supplier, which it says is due to larger companies getting priority.
Tundra Labs says its first wave of orders will ship “approximately 8 weeks after purchase,” with inventory tentatively scheduled for May 10th, 2022. The company hasn’t mentioned when it plans to open up orders again for its pint-sized SteamVR tracker, however in a previous update a 4-6 week lead time was quoted, which would put the next availability window sometime in April.
Tundra Labs says it’s opening up sale of a limited number of Trackers starting March 10th. The company hopes to pace availability every 4-6 weeks thereafter.
Here’s the initial March 10th release schedule below:
Bundles have changed somewhat from the original Kickstarter. Now a three tracker bundle costs $360 and a four tracker bundle $480. Read more on Tundra Labs blogpost for additional details on pricing and availability.
Though shipments for the Tundra Tracker have slipped from their initial estimate of September, the campaign has seen an incredibly quick turnaround compared to most hardware-based crowdfunding projects which often take years to complete; the latest estimate from Tundra Labs is that the first shipments should begin in early November, which would be just over five months from the completion of the Kickstarter campaign. Here’s the current shipping estimates from the company:
Tundra Labs says the delay from the original September estimate was in part caused by electricity shortages in China which impacted manufacturing. However, the company says that a “very small” number of Tundra Trackers have already been shipped to some ‘early bird’ backers in China.
For those receiving their Tundra Tracker after today, the device should be ready to go right out of the box thanks to a SteamVR update which has added official support for the tracking puck to the main branch of the software in SteamVR version 1.20.4.
Additional reporting by Scott Hayden.
Virtuoso bills itself as a “music creation sandbox” but that may be selling it a little short: it’s actually a very intuitive set of training wheels for someone who’s never made digital music before while at the same time being a fun way to make music. You’ll need to go deeper into the practice of music creation if you want to get pro results, although if you’re just looking to just mess around, or pursue a new hobby making music, Virtuoso has plenty of smartly-designed tools to get you started recording your own tunes in no time.
Oculus Move is Quest 2’s onboard activity layer that tracks just how much you’re moving during gameplay. Now the company says its baking support for Move into both Apple Health and the Oculus App itself.
Coatsink, the studio behind the Esper and Jurassic World Aftermath series, is finally bringing Shadow Point out of Quest and Rift exclusivity, as the stylish story-driven puzzle adventure is headed to PSVR this month.
NERF Ultimate Championship is an upcoming VR arena shooter that’s getting ready to launch into closed beta later this month. If you’re looking to go hands-on, there’s still time to sign up for your chance to wall-run and blast your way to victory.
A new photo of Magic Leap 2 appears to show the device’s controller equipped with cameras for inside-out tracking which would be the first time we’ve seen the approach employed in a commercial XR headset.
ByteDance, parent company to TikTok and VR headset creators Pico Interactive, announced at MWC 2022 that it’s partnering with Qualcomm, something that could help the chipmaker better diversify as the XR industry continues to expand.
Google’s Owlchemy Labs, the VR studio behind Job Simulator (2016), announced that its upcoming game Cosmonious High finally has a release date for launch on PC VR and Meta Quest 2.
Townscaper is a clever little town-building experience that gained fame back when it first launched on Steam Early Access in 2020. Now developer Oskar Stålberg has taken interest in VR design, showing a prototype of the pint-sized town creator running in VR.
Out-of-home VR attractions were among the worst-hit during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which put many fledgling startups on the ropes. Now, one of the early pioneers in location-based VR entertainment appears to be making good on its comeback after it briefly slipped into the void.
MarineVerse Cup, the VR sailing simulator first launched on Steam early access in 2019, has left App Lab and made its way to the official Quest Store.
