Ultraleap, the company behind the Leap Motion hand-tracking controller, has released a Developer Preview of its hand-tracking engine Gemini. By many accounts, Ultraleap’s latest software overhaul dramatically increases the ability of the company’s camera modules to do more precise and stable two-handed interactions.
Adding to a growing number of data points showing why Facebook has shifted its attention away from Oculus PC is the difference in momentum between the two platforms as revealed by game review counts over time. This month, the number of reviews across all Quest games has exceeded the number of reviews across all Oculus PC games.
GORN (2019), the single-player arcade battle simulator, is finally coming to Oculus Quest today.
Fast Travel Games, the studio behind Apex Construct (2018) and Budget Cuts 2 (2019), are bringing their ‘World of Darkness’ horror game Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife to all major VR platforms this spring. Now the studio has served up a fresh gameplay video featuring the mysterious ‘Shadow’ who guides you.
Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap, is starting on a new path after his departure as CEO of the well-funded augmented reality company last year. Abovitz just unveiled his next project, a startup called Sun and Thunder, which aims to build what he calls “synthetic beings.”
HaptX, the company building high-end haptic VR gloves for enterprises, launched its latest model, DK2, which is now available for purchase. The new version is said to have improved haptics, force-feedback, size, comfort, and manufacturability.
During Facebook’s Q4 2020 earnings call today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Quest 2 is “on track to be the first mainstream virtual reality headset,” noting that the device drove a 156% increase in the company’s non-advertising revenue.
Canon previously announced its next AR/VR headset MREAL S1 back in October. Now, the Japan-based company has shown off the enterprise-focused device in a new video.
Love them or hate them for it, Bethesda’s games offer up a great opportunity for modders to get under the hood of impressively large-scale virtual worlds and summarily fix whatever messes the studio left behind. The same goes for Skyrim VR (2018), which for all its charms, is still obviously in need of tweaks to make it more like the VR-native game it should have been when it was first released on PC VR headsets in 2018. Now there’s a mod for that.
Schell Games today announced that its breakout VR spy adventure game, I Expect You to Die (2016), is getting a sequel sometime this year.
Google announced it has stopped active development on Tilt Brush (2016), the company’s VR paint app. All is not lost though. As the team pivots to creating immersive AR experiences, Tilt Brush has officially gone open source, allowing anyone to modify or even clone the app in its entirety.
While Oculus doesn’t offer much publicly in the way of understanding how well individual apps are performing across its VR storefronts, it’s possible to glean some insight by looking at apps relative to each other. Here’s a snapshot of the top 20 Oculus Quest games and apps as of January 2021.
Pistol Whip is a VR rhythm shooter which has made its mark as one of the best and most rated games on Oculus Quest. Almost one year to the month after its launch, the game saw its most ambitious update yet; the Pistol Whip ‘2089’ update packages a slick synthwave soundtrack as a sort of mini-campaign that brings subtle but meaningful tweaks and new challenges to the gameplay. Launched first on PC and Quest, the free Pistol Whip ‘2089’ update is now available on PSVR.
Gravity Sketch is a 3D modeling software that supports PC VR headsets and Oculus Quest. Up until now, the consumer app was priced at $25, but now the studio has just made it completely free for individual users.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners (2020), Skydance Interactive’s hit single-payer zombie shooter, now has a revised release date for the Oculus Quest release of ‘The Trial’, its wave-based mode.
