Oculus Go, the company’s $200 standalone headset, is finally here. While the headset retains much of the basic functionality of Samsung Gear VR, including access to the communal Oculus app store, there’s a few neat ergonomic updates to the headset that aim to set itself apart. Case in point: Oculus Go drops Gear VR’s focus wheel, and provides a few ways to use your own glasses.
Following today’s Oculus Go launch announcement at Facebook’s annual F8 dev conference, the company also revealed that Rooms, the social VR space first launched on Gear VR, is getting revamped to inaugurate Go. The company announced two upcoming apps as well: Oculus Venues – a previously teased social event viewing app for Go and Gear VR, and the newly revealed Go-exclusive Oculus TV – a big screen TV environment and launchpad for other streaming apps like Netflix and Hulu. A new gallery app is also coming from Oculus, aptly named Oculus Gallery.
Beat Saber (2018), the unbelievably slick VR rhythm game that tasks you with slicing blocks in mid-air with a pair of lightsabers, released today in Early Access. We’ve got our Early Access review here so you can learn more about the game, but what about the heart-pumping soundtrack behind it?
Facebook’s F8 developer conference is getting ready for its two-day event starting today. Here’s how to catch the keynote livestream.
Beat Saber is a single player rhythm game in Early Access that puts two lightsabers in your hands and tasks you with one of the funkiest, most stylish Jedi training regimes this side of Alderaan. Slicing incoming blocks to the beat, it’s hard not to dance a little bit too in this intuitive, but ultimately difficult-to-master game that some consider a cross between Guitar Hero and Fruit Ninja.
Facebook’s annual developer conference F8 starts today. While the company launched the long-awaited $200 Oculus Go standalone headset there this morning, it wasn’t certain if the rumors were true, that F8 attendees would be receiving a headset for free. Spoiler alert: they did.
Oculus Go, the company’s upcoming standalone VR headset, may already be waiting in the wings at Amazon distribution centers—they’re certainly already on Best Buy shelves, as both retailers are gearing up for what appears to be an imminent launch.
A giant robot looms over the outskirts of Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province in China. The new VR park, named simply ‘Oriental Science Fiction Valley‘, has now opened its doors; within them reside a bevy of VR attractions and rides that hope to capitalize on China’s steadily growing VR industry.
Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby VR will let you step into the box and swing for the bleachers. The game, first trialed at All-Star FanFest back in June, is now heading to a total of 10 ballparks for the 2018 season, and also to consumers on PSVR and SteamVR-compatible headsets including HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
Standalone VR headsets represent a new headset segment that sits somewhere between smartphone-based VR devices, and tethered, high-end VR systems, while offering some notable advantages over both. In this article we compare three standalone VR devices which will be available worldwide this year: the Oculus Go, Lenovo Mirage Solo, and HTC Vive Focus.
Lytro, the company that pivoted to enterprise-focused applications of its light-field technology after leaving its commercial camera business, is shutting down after a reported $40M acquisition by Google. Now the company is apparently winding down its business by reducing its site to a support page covering its consumer hardware and software solutions.
Odd Raven Studios’ first major title is the VR puzzle-platformer Carly & the Reaperman – Escape from the Underworld. While there is a single player option, it has been designed as an asymmetrical co-op experience, with one player in VR acting as the helpful ‘Reaperman’ in VR, and the other moving Carly in third-person using a standard display. The game is set to launch on June 19th, with support for the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows VR headsets via SteamVR.
A number of standalone VR headsets will be hitting the market in 2018, but so far none of them offer positional (AKA 6DOF) controller input, one of the defining features of high-end tethered headsets. But we could see that change in the near future, thanks to research from Google which details a system for low-cost, mobile inside out VR controller tracking.
In the Echo Arena update this week a blocked off section of the new lobby says ‘Echo Combat – Under Construction’, suggesting that the upcoming zero-G VR FPS would remain an expansion of Echo Arena rather than a separate game. Oculus has indeed affirmed this is the case, and says to expect more details at E3 in June.
