After getting our hands on VR rhythm lightsaber game Beat Saber at GDC 2018 last month, we’ve been looking forward to more information on the game’s release date, which is now confirmed for May 1st. Last week developer Hyperbolic Magnetism revealed a new track, which will launch with the game’s Early Access version.
Plex, the media server software that lets you stream your own video, music, and photos to a bevy of devices, has landed on Gear VR with its latest app Plex VR. The app, which includes support for 360180-degree and 3D videos, first made its way to the Daydream platform earlier this year.
Sprint Vector (2018), the VR racing game that uses a unique locomotion system to send you speeding through the world’s Mario Kart-style tracks on your own two feet, is finally getting a free access weekend on Rift. Oh, and you might have the chance to win big at Oculus’ ongoing two-year Rift anniversary giveaway too.
For developers, it’s not easy grabbing a player’s attention when their game is getting a big update, or an important in-game event is about to happen. In effort to remedy this, Oculus is opening up Notifications on Gear VR to developers looking to draw wayward eyeballs back to their apps.
In the wake of Steven Spielberg’s latest film Ready Player One (2018) comes a new Netflix series set in the backdrop of a virtual universe. Called Kiss Me First, the psychological thriller takes place in a dark, ominous world where fully-immersive virtual reality is the norm.
Facebook is expanding its augmented reality platform to make it possible for developers to create AR content tied to physical objects such as logos, signs and posters.
Set to launch this week, on the two year anniversary of the original Vive, HTC’s Vive Pro shows the progress the company has been able to make on their VR headset in the same span, though it isn’t being positioned as a ‘Vive 2’. Bringing a number of welcomed improvements, but also a steep increase in price, the headset is only likely to make sense to enterprise and commercial users, and a tiny fraction of the VR enthusiasts that have already bought into HTC’s VR ecosystem. Even then, with SteamVR Tracking 2.0 base stations and controllers still not available to take advantage of new sensors on the headset, the value proposition isn’t yet entirely apparent.
You might know developer Abhishek Singh from his HoloLens version of Super Mario Bros. (1985) that went viral back in June 2017, or maybe his more recent AR recreation of the iconic scene from The Ring (2002) where the horrifying ghost girl emerges from the TV screen. Now, Singh has delved back into classic gaming with his latest project, a full AR recreation of Street Fighter II (1995).
2MD VR Football (2017), a room-scale quarterback game that first landed on SteamVR-compatible headsets last September, is making its way to PSVR this spring.
When you’re driving a car, you’re invested with a sense of purpose: stay alert, don’t crash, optimize your route for the fastest and most comfortable experience. But what about when self-driving cars become the norm, and we’re no longer involved in those tasks? You’ll probably want to catch up on work, or play a game to fight the inevitable boredom—two things Apple thinks will be done in VR in the near future.
HTC today announced they’re launching a hardware accessory bundle for $300 that will include all necessary bits for new Vive Pro customers starting from scratch (besides the headset, that is).
Mozilla, the non-profit company behind Firefox web browser, today announced a new cross-platform, open sourced web browser called Firefox Reality, something Mozilla says was built from the ground-up for standalone VR and AR headsets.
Facebook Spaces, the company’s social VR application which launched in beta one year ago, is getting an entirely new avatar system and customization tool, something Facebook says in a recent blog post was designed to make avatars “more expressive and customizable than ever.”
