When it comes to mobile VR and AR headsets, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips are dominating the space, with every major mobile headset launched so far this year built on the company’s Snapdragon 821 or 835 chips. And while those existing chips are also found in smartphones, Qualcomm today is announcing XR1, a new chip specifically built for AR and VR devices, which the company is calling its “first dedicated XR platform.”
Sony is getting ready to offer big discounts in their 11-day ‘Days of Play’ sale, which will see price reductions on PSVR bundles, controllers, games, and the introduction of a limited edition PS4.
South Korean tech giant LG Display and a team from Sogang University in Seoul have collaborated on a new AI-based content creation technology that’s designed to address the issue of latency and motion blur in VR headsets – well ahead of the mounting race for higher and higher display resolutions.
HTC has been making inroads into the education system in China with its startup VIVEDU, which centers around both University-level and K-12 education programs using HTC Vive and now HTC Vive Focus, the company’s 6DOF standalone VR headset. In a bid to go even further, the HTC-founded startup recently launched a new turn-key solution that packs in an impressive number of Vive Focus headsets into a storage locker.
In its first month, Beat Saber has sold 100,000 copies across Steam and Oculus, generating $2 million in revenue—another big milestone of success for a game still in early access and made by a three-person indie studio.
With shooters like PUBG (2017) and Epic’s Fortnite (2018) taking the traditional gaming world by storm as of late, many VR developers have seen the success of the battle royale games and attempted to replicate the winner-take-all game mode in virtual reality. While far from the first to do so, Against Gravity’s social VR game Rec Room (2016) is diving head-first into the battle royale genre with its newest activity, something they dub Rec Royale. It’s currently in open beta until the end of today for PSVR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows “Mixed Reality” VR, and is slated for full release on June 7th.
Budget Cuts (2018) is a room-scale VR stealth game from indie studio Neat Corporation. Launching on May 31st on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, we took the time to show you just what this objectively fantastic game looks like from the very beginning.
HTC launched the Vive Focus System Update 2.0 this week to add quite a few extra features to the headset. A new companion app for HTC smartphones also brings smartphone-to-headset functions to the Vive Focus.
At the Vive Ecosystem Conference (VEC) in Shenzhen today, HTC announced new VR initiatives in partnership with Major League Baseball (MLB) and McLaren Racing, the Formula One racing team.
SID Display Week played host to a number of big names in display technology showing off their respective high pixel density VR panels. UploadVR’s Ian Hamilton was on the scene, and managed to get a pretty good capture of both Samsung’s and JDI’s panels with his iPhone 8 camera.
HTC and Seagate have partnered to produce an external power & data storage accessory for Vive Focus, ideal for people using the headset for local media consumption.
While it’s exciting to start seeing 6DOF standalone VR headsets like the Vive Focus and Mirage Solo, both unfortunately include a 3DOF controller which in many cases functions as an immersion barrier compared to a fully 6DOF VR system. Today at its Vive Ecosystem Conference 2018 in China, HTC said that the 3DOF Vive Focus controller will see a 6DOF mode, and further said that the headset will soon include controller-less hand-tracking for gesture input.
Today at the Vive Ecosystem Conference 2018 in China, HTC announced that the Vive Focus standalone headset will be able to wirelessly stream PC VR content from both Steam and Viveport over a 5GHz WiFi connection.
