Jaunt, the startup once focused on delivering cinematic VR, is laying off what the company says is “a significant portion of [their] staff” in a restructuring move that will bring the company’s focus away entirely from virtual reality to augmented reality.
With recent advancements in inside-out tracking on standalone VR headsets, the tantalizing possibility of ‘world-scale’ VR experiences—those unhindered by limited tracking volumes or even physical barriers—is coming into focus. A pair of developers have created a prototype VR game that’s played across an entire football field.
In his latest presentation at Oculus Connect 5, Oculus Chief Scientist Michael Abrash took a fresh look at the five-year VR technology predictions he made at OC3 in 2016. He believes his often-referenced key predictions are “pretty much on track,” albeit delayed by about a year, and that he “underestimated in some areas.”
Oculus Quest, the newly announced standalone 6DOF VR headset (ex-Project Santa Cruz), completely stole the show at this year’s Oculus Connect with the promise of offering some very Rift-like experiences in a mobile form-factor. There was a torrent of news surrounding the headset and its upcoming apps like SUPERHOT VR, but what seemed to fall through the cracks was the revelation that Oculus Quest marks the end of the company’s first-gen hardware.
Launched right on the heels of the Oculus Go earlier this summer, the Lenovo Mirage Solo, the company’s standalone Daydream headset, is currently selling for an $80 discount off the original $400 price tag on Amazon US.
Rec Room, the social VR app for PSVR, Rift, Vive, and Windows VR headsets, just got an update that a new activity to its list of games and multiplayer adventures. Dubbed ‘Lone Shoe Lanes’, users can get started now on perfecting their virtual bowling form.
PSVR exclusive ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission has been making waves among critics and players alike since its release at the beginning of the month. The game now ranks among PS4’s top titles—VR or otherwise.
No Man’s Sky, a game which has a history of calls for VR support since its 2016 release, could one day be explored in VR. Developer Hello Games is gauging interest in VR support for No Man’s Sky in a player survey intended to find out what the game’s community wants next.
Media Molecule, the creators of LittleBigPlanet (2008) and Tearaway (2013), have been working on their upcoming game/game-creation tool Dreams for PS4 for the past few years, and although we knew PSVR support was destined to come someday, as first announced at Paris Games Week 2015, we weren’t sure if PSVR users would get the chance to play at launch. Now, the studio reveals, PSVR owners can definitely count on day one support (see update below).
Rift’s new system software, previously known as Rift Core 2.0, is now rolling out to everyone, bringing with it a number of performance improvements, UI updates, and a more customizable Oculus Home area with support for up to eight people.
Tactical team shooter Firewall Zero Hour (2018) took the top spot again as the most downloaded PSVR game last month.
Magic Leap announced a number of consumer-facing apps and games coming soon to Magic Leap One, the company’s long-awaited AR headset which released back in August. Today at the company’s first developer conference, they detailed a few enterprise-facing apps that will help bring the device into use in businesses.
Insomniac Games, the talented game studio behind non-VR games like Spider-Man (2018) and VR games like Edge of Nowhere (2016) and The Unspoken (2016), today announced their first AR game called Seedling, coming to Magic Leap in November.
Today at Leap Con, Magic Leap spoke briefly about its software roadmap for the end of 2018 and into early 2019, indicating some interesting new features on the way to their AR headset.
