Following mostly silence about the headset from the company after the reveal in January, HTC has confirmed that Vive Cosmos is due to launch in Q3. Vive Cosmos dev kits are now on their way to developers.
One of the most anticipated Oculus exclusives, Lone Echo II, has been delayed from 2019 to Q1 2020.
After years in development, VR stealth action game Espire 1 has a release date set for August. Developer Digital Lode confirmed that the game will be available on Rift, Vive, Index, PSVR, Windows VR, and Quest.
Survios today revealed the first public gameplay footage of their upcoming shooter The Walking Dead Onslaught, showing off some of the mechanics in action that aim to immerse players in the show’s zombie-infested world.
Cloudhead Games, the studio behind The Gallery and Aperture Hand Labs, has revealed Pistol Whip. In what appears to be a significant (and quite intriguing) departure from their previous works, Pistol Whip is described as “part first-person shooter, part rhythm game […,] an action-hero sensory trip.”
Ready at Dawn’s Echo Games today announced at UploadVR’s E3 VR showcase that Echo Arena (2017), the zero-G sports game exclusive to Rift, is coming to Oculus Quest.
Beat Games today announced that Beat Saber (2018) just dropped a ten-song DLC music pack featuring the music of Grammy Award-winning rock band Imagine Dragons. The studio is also showing off a new ‘360’ level mode at E3 this week, which promises to change up the game by throwing blocks at you from different directions.
With the curious case of Microsoft initially announcing VR support for Xbox One X and then later pulling the plug before launch, it wasn’t clear if the company would use its next console as its opportunity to finally jump into VR. Today at E3 2019, Microsoft revealed its next-gen Xbox ‘Project Scarlett’ but had nothing to say about VR on the console. Meanwhile, Sony has already confirmed support for PSVR on PS5, and hinted at plans for a next-gen headset.
While we offered our initial hands-on impressions with the Valve’s new Index headset last month, we’ve now had many more hours inside the headset, and an opportunity to put it side by side with others. Here’s a deeper look at Index ahead of a full review still to come.
Valve’s monthly Steam Survey has long offered useful insight into the share of VR headsets in use on Steam. But the figures provided are relative to the non-static Steam population, which obfuscates the actual adoption trend of VR headsets on the platform. To demystify the data, Road to VR has developed a proprietary model which derives actual headset counts by correcting for Steam’s changing population. The latest data shows that monthly-connected VR headsets on Steam have surpassed 1 million for the first time.
Primitive represents one of the most interesting use-cases I’ve seen for VR so far—it creates 3D visualizations of source code that can be collaboratively explored and analyzed in VR. It’s creators believe that bringing a spatial understanding to otherwise flat code enhances the development process of complex code created by distributed development teams.
Apple is taking advantage of a recent iOS feature called AR Quick Look to allow potential customers to see the company’s new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR at scale in augmented reality right from Apple.com on an iPhone. The ease of use, rendering, and tracking quality make it surprisingly compelling.
Though Oculus touts the Rift S as its “most advanced, PC-powered gaming headset,” the headset is notably trailing other Oculus headsets (including the original Rift) in customer ratings on Amazon. Meanwhile, Quest has taken the lead as the most favorably rated Oculus headset, ranking as high (or higher) than major game consoles.
At the company’s annual WWDC developer conference today, Apple revealed ARKit 3, its latest set of developer tools for creating AR applications on iOS. ARKit 3 now offers real-time body tracking of people in the scene as well as occlusion, allowing AR objects to be convincingly placed in front of and behind those people. Apple also introduced Reality Composer and RealityKit to make it easier for developers to build augmented reality apps.
HTC’s VR app storefront, Viveport, is looking forward to welcoming a host of new VR users with the entrance of Valve Index and Oculus Rift S. To that tune, the company is giving away two free months of Viveport Infinity, its Netflix-style unlimited subscription service, to anyone with a Rift, Rift S, or Index.
