German car maker Audi was quick to see the potential of VR and has been experimenting since the early days of VR’s resurgence to see how the tech could be used to enhance the car buying experience. Having introduced VR showrooms into dealerships as early as 2016, the company now has some 1,000 VR deployments in dealerships across the globe.
It’s no secret that Jaunt is stepping back from VR and re-focusing on AR, although we weren’t sure what the one-time cinematic VR company planned on doing with its recently defunct VR business. Now, it’s come to light that Jaunt is holding a massive online auction, serving up everything from monitors and workstation computers to a wide variety of VR headsets & peripherals.
More resolution in VR isn’t just ‘nice’, it’s a major contributor to immersion. ‘Retina-resolution’ displays, those which match the visual limit of the human eye, are the ultimate destiny of VR headsets but it’ll be years yet before they’re affordable and widely available. Varjo, however, is developing an enterprise-focused headset which offers a glimpse of this future, and it’s breathtaking.
StarVR, the Acer & Starbreeze owned startup behind the recently unveiled StarVR One wide field of view (FOV) headset, is going through a pretty rocky period after it was delisted from the Taipei stock exchange last month. Starbreeze today published an open letter to its developers notifying them the StarVR Developer Program is on hold until further notice.
Astro Bot Rescue Mission (2018), the VR platformer that’s still wowing PSVR users well after its October 2nd launch, took home the title of ‘Best VR/AR Game’ at last night’s Game Awards.
Prey: Typhon Hunter, the final update to Prey: Digital Deluxe and Prey: Mooncrash, is set to release December 11th on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, although VR users will have to wait a bit longer to jump into the 5v1 multiplayer prop hunting action.
VR shooters like Onward, Pavlov, and sport shooting game Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades are fun ways to blow off a little steam and put some lead down range, but if you aren’t already using a modular stock, and have access to a 3D printer (or at least $100 for a pre-built), then you might be missing out.
Try on an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive and one of the first things you’ll probably notice looking through the lenses are fine concentric circles, creating something many call ‘God Rays’—especially egregious when viewing high contrast scenes. A new Facebook patent has just come to light that aims to mitigate these sorts of visual artifacts with a new hybrid Fresnel lens design.
Park City, Utah is already preparing for next month’s annual Sundance Film Festival, and this time around 18 AR & VR films and exhibitions are set to debut at the festival’s New Frontier program.
Insomniac Games, the minds behind Rift titles Edge of Nowhere (2016), The Unspoken (2017), and upcoming open-world adventure Stormland, today released their first AR experience for Magic Leap One. Dubbed Seedling, the experience is AR headset’s first paid app.
Red Matter (2018), the retrofuturistic first-person adventure game previously launched on PC VR headsets, is headed to PSVR this month in North America and Europe.
Mozilla has just released an early developer preview of a web browser for the Magic Leap One AR headset.
Oculus recently opened a referral program that lets U.S. residents generate discount codes for friends, family, or anybody in else that wants to buy a Rift or Go at 10% off. That program proved to be extremely popular, at least for Rift, as the company had to put a temporary hold on Rift referrals due to high demand over the past few days. If you experienced an issue lately sending Rift referrals, Oculus says you can start sending again.
Steam is widely considered the de facto platform for PC games, VR or otherwise, but Unreal Engine creators Epic Games want change that with a new storefront that they say will leave more revenue to developers than Steam and other major digital distribution platforms.
