When revealing the upcoming Index headset, Valve was clear that their goal was to move the bar forward for VR fidelity, even if that meant a premium pricetag. The company said that its internal game developers working on “AAA VR content” pushed to VR hardware team to reach the fidelity they wanted.
Valve this week released an update to SteamVR which finally brings Motion Smoothing to AMD graphics cards, a feature which aims to maintain comfortable visuals even during performance bumps. SteamVR Motion Smoothing launched first for NVIDIA graphics cards in November 2018.
With Rift S right around the corner, a bunch of people are about to find that the headset’s on-board audio is lacking in quality and that the face gasket will make it difficult for some to get the lenses into the ideal position for maximum clarity and field of view. Luckily there’s a path forward—the Rift S design is relatively modular, allowing both the headstrap and the face gasket to be removed, meaning that Oculus could (and should) offer accessories to improve the experience.
Tilt Five is creating a tabletop AR platform aimed at fusing traditional board games with the benefits of augmented reality. This week the company showed off a glimpse of what users can expect from the system.
HTC introduced its ‘5G Hub’ product back in February—a 5G mobile hotspot mashed up with a media streaming device and a digital assistant. And still “coming soon” is a “cloud-based virtual reality” feature which promises to stream VR content directly to the Vive Focus, ‘no PC required’. Sounds great, and all you’ll need to wait for is the launch of a consumer version of the headset and hopeful deployment of massive new connectivity and cloud infrastructures.
Tactical Haptics, creators of the ‘Reactive Grip’ controller are due to begin taking dev kit pre-orders on May 29th. Targeting the enterprise and LBE sectors, the company expects pricing to start at $650 per controller, with a release date due in Q4. Since the initial introduction of the controllers years ago, the company has steadily improved performance and introduced a smart redesign that makes them highly modular.
Racket Fury: Table Tennis VR has been a solid VR ping pong offering for existing headsets since its release in 2017. The game is confirmed to be launching alongside Oculus Quest, which brings with it some interesting advantages which make for a very compelling VR ping pong experience.
First Contact Entertainment announced that Firewall Zero Hour (2018), the tactical team shooter for PSVR, is getting what they call their “biggest update yet” next week.
HTC opened up orders in Europe today for their latest VR headset, Vive Pro Eye, a version of the company’s enterprise headset with integrated eye-tracking. HTC also opened up pre-orders in China too, with launch slated for May 24th; there’s no word on when to expect it in North America though.
Vive Studios has released its ‘feature-length’ immersive film titled 7 Miracles. On the surface, the immersive film is a reenactment of the Gospel of John in the Bible that specifically centers around the seven miracles of Jesus Christ. Under the surface, however, it uses advanced filmmaking techniques such as photogrammetry and volumetric video capture to achieve 8K imagery.
DigiLens, a creator of waveguide optics and related manufacturing technology today announced the closure of a $50 million Series C investment, adding UDC Ventures and Samsung Ventures to its list of investors.
Beat Games today announced that their hit black-slashing rhythm game Beat Saber (2018) is finally headed out of Early Access on PC. To boot, the studio is also releasing the long-awaited official Level Editor.
Survios, the studio behind Creed: Rise to Glory (2018) and Raw Data (2017), today unveiled a new VR game based on AMC’s TV series The Walking Dead.
Taiwan-based display and electronics maker AUO plans to showcase a range of new displays this week, including a 2.9-inch 3.5K × 3.5K display with HDR capabilities for VR headsets.
As the VR market is poised for a handful of new headsets launching in the coming weeks, the latest Steam Survey unsurprisingly shows Vive and Windows VR making some gains after Oculus discontinued the Rift ahead of the launch of the Rift S.
