Bethesda’s VR version of Skyrim (2011) is nearly here, launching on PSVR Friday this week. If you’re itching to see more gameplay before pulling the trigger on the full-priced game, Bethesda is running a live stream starting Monday, November 13th at 12:30pm ET (your time here) so you can get another peek at what’s poised to be an instant fan favorite.
Onward (2016), the popular VR FPS known for serving up its ‘no-frills’ squad-based action, is now in Early Access on the Oculus Store. The tactical mil-sim shooter, which aims to appeal to fans of traditional shooters like Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or Counter-Strike, now features cross-play between both versions of the game—purchased through either Oculus or Steam.
In a study lead by Eisuke Fujinawa at the University of Tokyo, a team of students created a procedure for designing compact VR controllers that feel physically larger. Exploring the concept of ‘haptic shape illusion’, the controllers have data-driven, precise mass properties, aiming to simulate the same feeling in the hand as the larger objects on which they are based.
Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment has announced plans to join EA, one of the world’s largest and most influential videogame publishers. The acquisition of Respawn, which will cost EA up to $455 million, won’t impact the studio’s recently announced VR title, says Oculus.
UK-based studio nDreams, the minds behind The Assembly (2016) and producer of Bloody Zombies (2017), and Near Light today announced that its upcoming tongue-in-cheek shooting game Shooty Fruity is slated to simultaneously launch on PlayStation VR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift on December 19th, 2017.
With major US retailers already greasing the wheels of their shopping carts in preparation for the yearly scramble we call Black Friday, Sony today announced on the US PlayStation blog that it’s temporarily lowering the price of all PlayStation VR bundles as well as the PlayStation 4 1TB console, each by $100.
Niantic, the minds behind Ingress and the smash hit Pokémon GO, have partnered with Warner Bros and WB Games to bring a new location-based Harry Potter-themed AR game to mobile phones. Called Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, the game will let you battle fantastic beasts in the same sort of world-scale arena as Pokémon GO.
Walmart just published their Black Friday deals, and while the actual selection of VR devices isn’t Earth-shattering, you might just be able to stitch together your new VR system with the help of one or two of the company’s big discounts.
Croteam, the minds behind the Serious Sam franchise, has released its fourth Serious Sam-themed VR game: Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE (2017) for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
VR Coaster and Sensics today unveiled RideVR, a new all-in-one VR headset built especially for use on high-flying theme park rides.
It’s not every day you get to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) on a movie theater-sized screen, but the developers at the social screen mirroring VR app Bigscreen have written a handy guide on how to play Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, or PlayStation 4 from the comfort of your own virtual theater.
HTC announced a new multi-million dollar VR initiative aiming to support content, creators and institutions that embrace VR not only as an artistic medium itself, but as a way to better immerse users in all forms of art. The company aptly calls the program VIVE Arts.
With the release of iOS 11, hundreds of millions of Apple devices gained the ability to perform basic augmented reality functions, albeit viewed through the screens of iPhones and iPads. While capable of providing some pretty useful and interesting apps, the next logical step for this early development of an AR app ecosystem invariably points to the future ahead: an Apple AR headset. According to a report by Bloomberg, that future might not be so distant.
Using a single camera and a 3D-printed dodecahedron decorated with binary square markers, the so-called ‘DodecaPen’ achieves submillimeter-accurate 6DoF tracking of a passive stylus. Lead by National Taiwan University PhD student Po-Chen Wu during his internship at Oculus Research, the work presents a low-cost tracking and input solution with many potential applications in virtual and augmented reality.
TPCast, the eponymous company producing a wireless VR transmitter, is now offering its HTC Vive-specific device for pre-order in US and Canada.
