SPHERES, a three-chapter space experience from Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures, was just bought by VR finance and distribution firm CityLights in what Variety describes as a “seven-figure deal.”
Following their appearance with a new “8K” prototype at CES 2018, Pimax’s latest update says that backers won’t see their finished headsets until Q2, delaying the initially expected delivery date by several months.
Ahead of the 2018 Game Developers Conference in March, the organizer, UBM, has released their sixth annual State of the Game Industry survey, offering insight into the thoughts of some 4,000 game developers. While many developers may not be ready to bet on VR as a foundation for their game dev business, 33% of developers are ‘most interested’ in VR headsets over all other platforms, beating out interest in mobile and even the Xbox One (and One X).
Orange Bridge Studios today announced that End Space (2017), the single-player space dogfighter for Gear VR, is headed to Oculus Rift January 25th. The Steam version for HTC Vive and Rift is slated to arrive sometime next month.
U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association, the national governing body for Olympic skiing and snowboarding, announced a partnership with Menlo Park-based STRIVR Labs to use VR to help prepare for and recover from World Cup and Olympic events.
Last year marked HTC’s very first Vive Developer Awards (VDAs), which saw tens of thousands of dollars go to VR app developers across a number of categories. Now, submissions for this year’s VDAs are open, spanning more categories than last year, including Entertainment, Education, Arts & Culture, Enterprise, and Location-based Arcade games.
Up until now, developers wishing to get their VR app on the Oculus Store had to submit to a manual review process by which their game or experience was washed through two stages; a tech review to see if the app passed minimum standards and a content review to determine it was a complete and polished experience. Now, Oculus has developed a tool called ‘VRC Validator’ that at least lets developers test to see if their app is technically up to snuff before sending it off for the full review.
Vive Focus, HTC’s first standalone VR headset, has officially launched in China. Based on HTC’s new mobile VR platform, which includes a mobile version of the Viveport content store, the headset debuts with more than 40 apps.
Facebook announced this week the open-sourcing of Detectron, the company’s platform for computer vision object detection algorithm based on a deep learning framework. The company says that its motive for opening up the project is to accelerate computer vision research, and that teams within Facebook are using the platform for a variety of applications, including augmented reality.
Cubism is an upcoming VR puzzle game from indie developer Thomas Van Bouwel that challenges you to think in 3 dimensions. Inspired by puzzles like the Soma cube, or a cube composed of smaller Tetris-like geometric pieces, Cubism tasks players with assembling increasingly complex shapes in what results in a real brain teaser.
Eric Romo, co-founder and CEO of AltspaceVR, is joining Facebook’s Social VR team.
Gallopin’ Gorgons! An updated version of the Harry Potter Universe game for Daydream, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them VR Experience, is arriving today. Not only that, but owners of Vive, Rift and Gear VR will finally be able to get in on the magic-casting fun too, as the game lands on their respective app stores.
With VR’s strengths for cockpit-based games, you’d think that there would be more quality mech titles available to today’s headsets. Alas, a killer VR mech game hasn’t reared its head just yet; Vox Machinae, a promising VR mech combat game that has been running silent on development for a long time, has reappeared, now set for release in 2018.
Onward, the tactical multiplayer shooter for Vive and Rift, is getting another free weekend – this time for Rift players on Oculus Home.
