An internal email sent by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to senior executives offers a glimpse into the strategic thinking behind the company’s feet-first leap into XR following the 2014 acquisition of Oculus.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has since moved on to greener pastures after leaving Facebook in 2017, founding his own border defense firm Anduril Industries. That hasn’t kept him from mulling over some of the niggling issues with the now nearly three year-old Oculus Rift though. To him, and many long-time users, a weak point in the headset’s internal audio cabling has surfaced after prolonged usage—something he vows to help remedy by creating a repair kit for out-of-warranty Rifts suffering from the dreaded right-audio cutout.
Harmonix, the studio behind many rhythm game hits like Guitar Hero (2005) and Rock Band (2007), today announced what they’re calling a “VR rhythm shooter” that looks—to be frank—pretty freaking awesome.
Sony has officially announced that John Kodera has stepped down as president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), making way for previous SIE deputy president Jim Ryan to take the position.
Dark Slope, a Toronto-based VR/AR developer, today announced the studio has secured $1.5 million in seed funding, which will support the launch of its first location-based VR game Scarygirl Mission Maybee.
After revealing the newest upcoming exclusive from Oculus Studios last week, the team behind the game has revealed a snippet of new gameplay footage that delves into mechanics that go beyond the interactive combat shown in the announcement trailer.
Xing: The Land Beyond has come a long way since its 2013 Kickstarter days, releasing on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and traditional monitors back in late 2017. Today, indie studio White Lotus Interactive cuts another important notch on their belt as they bring the otherworldly puzzle-adventure to PS4 and PSVR— along with it some well-timed DLC to all platforms.
The first chunk of February came with good news for those with Windows VR headsets. On February 1st, Microsoft released a preview version of Windows which comes with a slew of new features including the ability to run regular desktop apps in VR; it’s been possible to run apps from the Windows Store with Windows VR headsets but, until now, apps from outside the store—like Photoshop, Spotify, Chrome, and others—were excluded.
Microsoft is teasing an upcoming press event at MWC on the 24th. A new video today all but confirms that we’ll be seeing HoloLens 2 (or whatever the next iteration is called) at that event.
Oculus Quest may not have a specific release date yet, although now that both the headset and its Touch controllers have undergone FCC testing, there’s little left standing in the way of the headset’s launch this Spring.
In an interesting case of software pushing the limits of hardware, Valve recently updated SteamVR Tracking code to account for the speed of high-level Beat Saber players.
Cinemark, a major US movie theater chain, this week welcomes the SPACES VR attraction to its Century 20 Oakridge theater in San Jose, CA. The attraction, which currently offers a Terminator Salvation VR experience for up to four players, is the now the face of the theater’s effort to expand its entertainment offerings beyond films.
It seems some cajoling from both the racing sim community and Oculus itself has gotten through to DiRT Rally (2015) studio Codemasters, because the upcoming sequel, which was once slated to release only on consoles and PC, is now coming to the Oculus platform this summer.
