VR is so new that one of the regular activities of VR headset owners is introducing other people to the technology. Usually that means putting one person in a headset and standing around while they take their turn. But a few great VR party games let people both inside and outside of VR participate in the fun, and you only need one headset!
Road to VR recently visited Hardlight VR’s downtown Seattle office to take a look at the new Mark III version of their haptic vest. During the visit, Hardlight VR revealed a dramatically lower price point of $300. This is down from the previous price of $630 for consumers and $1,100 for businesses. Now both consumers and businesses (like VR arcades) will pay the same, lower base price, but businesses will pay an additional monthly license fee of $10 (or $100 when paid yearly).
Pico Technology, the China-based VR headset manufacturer, today unveiled their latest Pico Neo VR headset, a standalone device that offers 6DoF positional tracking and 6DoF motion controllers. Like HTC Vive Focus, Pico Neo will use the Vive Wave open source API and have access to a mobile version of Viveport in China; unlike Vive Focus though, which was previously destined for Western markets using the Daydream platform, Pico Neo is definitely leaving China along with Vive Wave, although it still isn’t certain which app store the headset will use.
Ahead of any official announcement, Lenovo’s upcoming Daydream standalone headset was recently approved by the FCC, suggesting the company is gearing up for launch soon.
The Swedish flat-pack furniture giant has made some impressive strides into virtual and augmented reality in the past few years, and to celebrate its success, the company is gifting VR headsets to its employees this year for the holidays.
While it may be too late to ship that shiny new VR headset to your home in time for Christmas, this may be the last chance to grab an HTC Vive at its Black Friday sale price. To sweeten the deal, HTC is also throwing in a $50 Steam voucher to start the new year off right.
More than three years in the making, Quentin Lengelé’s Blade Runner 9732 VR fan project is finally set to hit Steam on January 7th. The experience, which lets you stroll a screen-accurate replica of Blade Runner (1982) neo-noir protagonist Rick Deckard’s entire apartment, is coming to HTC Vive for free.
Described by Danish developer Decochon as a “revolutionary music sandbox for VR”, MuX features virtual, low-level synth components that can be connected together and adjusted to generate unique sounds. The various tools allow the creation of complex electronic instruments, which can be easily shared with the community.
For some games, VR locomotion is simply ends to a mean; getting you from point A to point B in an efficient manner so other game mechanics can take the spotlight. Not so in PvP battle arena Light Strike Array, which integrates a novel form of teleportation into the very heart of gameplay.
It’s been a fantastic year for virtual reality games, and with VR titles hailing from ambitious indie studios and well-established developers alike, the prospect of having truly great games in VR is decidedly here. We at the Road to VR editorial staff, having explored content across VR platforms over the last year, have deliberated over the past few weeks and have come to a decision on 2017’s top honors.
House of Secrets, the Amsterdam-based studio behind acclaimed real-time VR music videos Surge (2015) and Apex (2017), have released their first full VR game, a puzzle platformer titled KIN. Now available on Gear VR for $10, the game will also be headed to Oculus Rift in January 2018.
When we first saw KFC created a bizarre BioShock-esque VR training experience, we weren’t sure if it was the company’s next attempt at creating a brand engagement advert, or if KFC really intended on using the wacky chicken-frying escape room to train its employees. While the company says they’re actually using the KFC The Hard Way to train employees, they’ve also released the experience for free on the Oculus Store for Rift—making it a little less clear of the company’s overall intentions.
Jaron Lanier is a pioneer of the first commercially-available virtual reality systems with his VPL Research Inc startup that was founded in 1984. He has written a memoir called Dawn of the New Everything about his life leading up to and during his transition from a country hippie hacker to a over-stressed Silicon Valley CEO.
Go Touch VR, which is developing a simple haptic device that’s surprisingly effective, has raised €837,000 (approx. $1 million) in venture capital for ongoing development. The company has offered a look at the latest version of the VRTouch DK1 dev kit, which has come quite far from the 3D printed prototype we saw earlier this year.
