The supply chain slowdown due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected a few notable VR companies, including Valve and Facebook with their respective flagship headsets. Now it seems HTC is experiencing similar issues with its upcoming SteamVR External Tracking Faceplate for its recently released PC VR headset, Vive Cosmos.
Oculus Link allows Oculus Quest to become a PC VR headset by tethering to a VR ready PC. While Oculus sells its own (quite expensive) Oculus Link cable, any appropriately high performance USB 3.0 cable will work. Here’s an option for a cable and extender which can get you even more length than the official cable at less than half the cost.
Magic Leap, the multi-billion dollar AR startup, could be exploring the possibility of a sale, a Bloomberg report maintains, citing people familiar with the matter. Other options reportedly under consideration are potential partnerships and a stake sale.
E3 2020, the major games industry conference, has been cancelled over Coronavirus concerns. The cancellation is the latest in a string of disruptions to conferences that are important touchstones for the VR industry. The organization that produces E3, the Entertainment Software Association, says it’s exploring options for an “online experience to showcase industry announcements and news in June 2020.”
The Panzer Dragoon series for Sega Saturn, enshrined as an early 3D classic back in the mid-90s, is coming to VR. Japanese studio Wildman Inc. is looking to revisit the series in a VR shooter, tentatively called Panzer Dragoon Voyage Record.
Varjo, makers of high-end enterprise focused VR headsets, is adding real-time green-screen (aka chroma key) and marker tracking features to its XR-1 headset to make mixed reality applications more seamless.
After making new Index stock available today after more than a month of the hardware being sold out, most regions saw the headset and other hardware quickly backordered by eight weeks or more.
The recent coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) has stymied many of the industry’s most important conferences and expos this year. To avoid this, HTC today announced it will be holding its next Vive Ecosystem Conference (VEC) from within virtual reality.
Valve is working on a ‘Single Controller Mode’ among its accessibility options for Half-Life: Alyx so that players who can only operate one controller can complete the game in its entirety.
With the re-introduction of the company’s Cosmos VR headsets with four different variants, HTC’s Vive lineup has become a confusing mess with 11 different headset packages to choose from. Even when just considering the Cosmos lineup itself, the company’s approach to ‘modularity’ makes little practical sense.
