Facebook is soon to launch the invite-only beta of Horizon, on Quest and Rift, the company’s latest attempt at creating a first-party social VR experience. We previewed the beta and got to see several user-created mini-games and explored the built-in creation tools.
Qualcomm and Ultraleap today announced a “multi-year co-operation agreement” that will bring Ultraleap’s controllerless hand-tracking tech (formerly of Leap Motion) to XR headsets based on the Snapdragon XR2 chipset. Ultraleap claims to have the “fastest, most accurate, and most robust hand tracking.”
After six annual Oculus Connect conferences, Facebook is rebranding its XR developer event with the name Facebook Connect. This year the event will be held online on September 16th.
Iron Man VR, the PSVR exclusive superhero game which launched last month, has received a free update with an iron fistful of improvements.
VR games are difficult to market, especially when they don’t fit obviously into existing genres. Here’s 12 gems you may have overlooked but are well worth your consideration.
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 Rift games and apps as of August 2020.
First debuted at Sundance 2019, Emergence is a short VR experience from indie studio Universal Everything that, with its unique crowd simulation, raises some interesting questions about life, society and how we connect to it all. You can now download the experience on Steam for free.
If you wondered why yesterday’s news stirred such a significant reaction from the VR community at large, it’s not just because Facebook doesn’t have a stellar reputation on privacy, it’s also because the company specifically promised it wouldn’t force users to log-in with a Facebook account to use their Oculus headset.
InXile Entertainment, the studio behind The Mage’s Tale (2018) and The Bard’s Tale series, are getting ready to move to closed beta for their upcoming team shooter, Frostpoint VR: Proving Grounds.
Take one part Soviet retrofuture, add in the swinging locomotion scheme from Marvel’s Spider-Man, and dust it liberally with the cel-shaded visual style from Borderlands and you might just have Yupitergrad, an upcoming VR game that promises to let you swing through adventure, puzzles, and plenty of opportunity for self-deprecating slavic humor.
As Oculus becomes increasingly merged with parent company Facebook, new users will soon be required to sign into their headset with a Facebook account. Existing users will be able to use their separate Oculus accounts until the end of 2022, after which “full functionality will require a Facebook account.” Facebook says the changes are being made to make it easier for users to find and play with friends in VR and to enhance moderation.
If you were alive and sentient in the early ’90s, you might have had you first VR experience with a Virtuality SU 2000, an early pod-like VR system for arcades. If you’re looking to relive those low-poly glory days, the current IP holder of all SU 2000 and SU 3000 games, VirtuosityTech, is actually looking to port them to modern headsets.
Facebook has signed a multiyear deal with the National Basketball Association (NBA) which makes Oculus an official marketing and VR headset partner of the NBA, Women’s NBA (WNBA) and NBA G League.
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 August 2020.
Getting into modular synthesizers can require a real investment in time, patience, and not to mention money. Although if you’re interested in messing around with synths and teaching yourself the basics, SynthVR is a tool currently in open alpha that’s so far an awesome way to dip your toe into an otherwise expensive but ultimately really cool way of making music.
