High Fidelity, the social VR platform founded by Second Life founder Philip Rosedale, today announced it’s successfully closed a $35 million Series D financing round. The company says it’s using the funds to continue development on its global infrastructure for VR experiences, to accelerate hiring, and to open a new office in Seattle.
Bloomberg reported this week that the $500 million penalty levied at Oculus in last year’s case brought by ZeniMax has been reduced to $250 million. A motion seeking to prevent sales of Oculus products using code attributed to ZeniMax has been rejected, according to the publication.
HTC and China Mobile Communications Corporation today jointly announced a partnership to “accelerate the proliferation of 5G infrastructure and devices in China.” Further, China Mobile, the country’s massive state-owned mobile phone carrier, will help HTC push its VR devices into more retail channels.
Beat Saber developer Beat Games (formerly Hyperbolic Magnetism), has confirmed work on a competitive multiplayer mode for the popular rhythm game, which may in the future include custom avatars and sabers.
Rift owners still running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, beware. Oculus is changing both its recommended and minimum supported OS to Windows 10 on Rift, something the company says will come when Rift Core 2.0 is pushed out to the stable branch sometime later this year.
Oculus recently teased the next addition to the Marvel Powers United VR lineup, which included the cryptic message “all hail the king,” accompanied by the sound of a large feline growling.
Google’s Tilt Brush (2016) has shaped up to be a fully-featured VR creation tool since the app’s initial launch in April 2016 on HTC Vive, adding things like support for Oculus Rift, integration with Google’s other 3D VR creation tool Blocks (2017), and the ability to export creations to Sktechfab. Now, Google is making Tilt Brush easier with its new ‘Beginner Mode’ so newcomers aren’t so overwhelmed by the app’s growing tools and features.
COMPOUND, an indie VR shooter that launched in Early Access back in May, has received a new update adding a new map type and new music, with new enemies planned for future updates. The game’s sole developer has announced that he’s quitting his day job to develop Compound full time.
A quick PSA for anyone who owns the Logitech G POWERPLAY mousepad and a Vive headset: Valve today confirmed that the mousepad can create interference for SteamVR Tracking (used by the Vive, Vive Pro, and Vive Tracker). Valve says the companies are working together to address the issue.
Pinball FX 2 VR (2016), the VR pinball simulator, is getting a host of new tables in a paid DLC pack, brought over from its flatscreen sequel, Pinball FX 3 (2017). Tables based on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jaws (1975) and Back to the Future (1985) first became available on the Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, and Gear VR back in May, and are now available through the PSVR and SteamVR (Vive) versions of the game.
Multiverse Inc., the studio behind VR sci-fi shooter Seeking Dawn, today announced the single/multiplayer game is soon heading out of closed beta and launching on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows “Mixed Reality” VR headsets on July 12th. The studio says support for PSVR is slated to come “later this year.”
Los Angeles-based White Elk Studios, a team founded by former members of the God of War team, and Oculus Studios today announced a new co-op game called Covert. The couch co-op game is said to feature asymmetrical gameplay that will let one player play inside either an Oculus Go or Gear VR while the other user plays outside of VR.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since the SteamVR Knuckles controllers were first revealed using a demo of our game, Call of the Starseed (2016), at Steam Devs Days 2016. Now, at the reveal of Knuckles EV2 this summer, we’ve got a whole bunch more to talk about.
Announced back at Facebook’s F8 developer conference earlier this year, Oculus TV is the company’s latest first-party app that pulls a number of flatscreen video options together under one roof. The app is now available for free on Oculus Go.
