First ‘Beat Saber’ Music Pack DLC to Launch Next Week
Beat Games, the indie studio behind block-slashing rhythm game Beat Saber (2018), announced that the long-awaited first music pack is headed to both PC and PSVR platforms on March 14th.
Facebook is Developing Enterprise Versions of Oculus Quest & Go
Facebook has been pretty hands-off when it comes to providing VR solutions for enterprise, although that may be changing with the entrance of bonafide enterprise versions for both Oculus Quest and Oculus Go.
ESL & Oculus Announce Esports VR League Season 3, Biggest Prize Pool Yet
ESL, the world’s largest esports organizer, and Oculus announced that season three of the VR League will kickoff on March 24th. A prize pool, which is touted as the league’s largest yet, tallies a total of $250,000.
HTC is Giving Away 1 Month of Viveport Infinity for Free
Viveport Infinity, HTC’s unlimited Netflix-style game delivery service for Vive & Rift, is set to launch on April 2nd. To celebrate, the company is giving a one-month free access code to anyone who fills out a quick user survey.
Batman “Mixed Reality” Demo Shows VR Cloud Gaming Still Has a Long Way to Go
At this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) it seemed every mobile network operator on the planet was hocking the next hotness in data connectivity, the magical alphanumeric ‘5G’. It’s true 5G is slated to make way for plenty of changes in how users consume mobile content thanks to a dramatic increase in bandwidth and lowered latency, but if you’re salivating over the possibilities for what that means for VR gaming in the near future, you may want to step back a bit.
Rift and Windows VR Continue Growth Streaks at Expense of Vive in Latest Steam Survey
The latest data from Valve’s Steam Survey shows the Rift and Windows VR headsets continuing growth streaks in their share of monthly-connected headsets on Steam, snatching share mostly from the Vive and Vive Pro.
Stress Level Zero’s New Game ‘Boneworks’ Revealed, Striving for “Hyper-realistic” Physics-based Interactions
Indie VR studio Stress Level Zero has been quietly working on their new title, Boneworks since going into stealth development after showing off an intriguing tech demo last year which featured rich, physics-based interactions. Today the studio is revealing Boneworks as a full game, due for launch in 2019.
‘Kingdom Hearts’ PSVR Experience Finally Comes to North America & Europe
Kingdom Hearts: VR Experience was supposed to launch on PSVR sometime around the holiday season last year, and while it may have missed its mark, the franchise’s first official VR experience is now available for free in North America, Europe and Japan.
Magic Leap Announces First Round of Independent Creator Program Grant Recipients
Magic Leap is giving away serious cash to developers this year through their Independent Creator Program, which has earmarked an “eight-figure” number destined to fund app developers working in gaming, entertainment, collaboration, productivity, and more. Now, the company has released a list of its first round of recipients which was whittled down from over 6,500 applicants.
Hands-on: Vive Focus Plus Brings 6DOF Controllers, New Lenses & Better Comfort
Announced just last week, Vive Focus Plus is HTC’s next iteration of their standalone VR headset that adds a pretty big missing puzzle piece, namely a replacement for its predecessor’s single 3DOF controller (rotation only) for the new 6DOF controllers. But that’s not exactly all there is to Vive Focus Plus.
Oculus to Enforce More Strict Quality Bar for Quest Content
Oculus has always taken a curated approach to VR content, being the first and last word on what VR content can and can’t be offered through their platform. But now the company plans to further tighten its grip on Quest content by imposing a higher quality bar, the company says, to ensure that the headset offers customers rich experiences while raising the likelihood of developers success (for those allowed in).
Hands-on: LetinAR Brings a Larger FOV & Depth of Field to AR with ‘Pinhole Effect’ Optics
LetinAR, a Korea-based startup developing optical solutions for AR headsets and smartglasses, showed off a new implementation of their ‘pin mirror’ optical tech at Mobile World Congress (MWC) this week, bringing a sharp image quality, a large range of focal depth, and a field of view (FOV) that rivals many of the bigger players who instead use waveguide-based optics.
Microsoft Significantly Misrepresented HoloLens 2’s Field of View at Reveal
To significant anticipation, Microsoft revealed HoloLens 2 earlier this week at MWC 2019. By all accounts it looks like a beautiful and functional piece of technology and a big step forward for Microsoft’s AR initiative. All of which makes it unfortunate that the company didn’t strive to be clearer when illustrating one of the three key areas in which the headset is said to be improved over its predecessor.
Medieval Brawler ‘Undead Citadel’ Coming to Vive, Rift, & PSVR
If you’ve been honing your skills in a VR combat simulator but have been waiting to test your skills against swarms of the undead, your wait may soon be over with Undead Citadel, a zombie-filled action adventure title coming to SteamVR, Vive, Oculus and PSVR headsets at an unannounced time this year from developer Dark Curry.
