Oculus Now Selling Replacement Rift Accessories
Earlier this year Oculus began offering additional Sensors for sale along with and their new Earphones. Now all the in-the-box accessories can be purchased as well.
‘Robinson: The Journey’ Launches on Steam with Critical Bug and Lack of Official Vive Support
After remaining a PSVR exclusive since its November release, Crytek’s gorgeous Robinson: The Journey recently popped up on Oculus Home and has now come to Steam. Following the unfortunate lack of VR controller support, a rocky Steam release has been met with a major bug preventing many players from launching the game, and no official support for the HTC Vive.
Sony London Studio Head Forms New VR Studio ‘Dream Reality Interactive’
Dave Ranyard, who headed up Sony’s London Studio throughout PlayStation VR’s development, has announced the formation of a new VR-focused game Dream Reality Interactive.
Bringing Conversational Gameplay & Interactive Narrative to ‘Starship Commander’
Developer Human Interact announced this past week that they are collaborating with Microsoft’s Cognitive Services in order to power the conversational interface behind their Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, interactive narrative title named Starship Commander. They’re using Microsoft’s Custom Recognition Intelligent Service (CRIS) as the speech recognition engine, and then Microsoft’s Language Understanding Intelligent Service (LUIS) in order to translate spoken phrases into a number of discrete intention actions that are fed back into Unreal Engine for the interactive narrative.
Watch: This Mobile VR Crane Simulator Showcases the Future of Industrial Training
Industrial Training International is readying their VR Mobile Crane Simulator for the March ConExpo Event in Las Vegas. The simulator uses an Oculus Rift headset in combination with a modular rig, in order to significantly reduce the costs of training, compared to both real-world and older simulator solutions.
Valve’s ‘Steam Direct’ to Replace Controversial ‘Greenlight’ Voting System
Steam Direct, a new sign-up system for launching games on the store, is due to replace Greenlight in Spring 2017. Currently, any developer or publisher new to Steam is required to submit their game for approval through Greenlight, which involves a small fee and community voting; the new system may have different implications for VR developers.
Valve’s Gabe Newell Expects PC VR Headsets to Have Integrated Wireless in 2018
Valve chief Gabe Newell is optimistic about the future of VR, considering the studio is in development of three VR titles—not mini-games or experiences, but “full” VR games—but what about the future of VR hardware?
VRGE VR Headset Dock Passes 50% Mark on Kickstarter with One Week Remaining
The impressively svelte VRGE VR headset dock has passed the 50% mark of its $30,000 Kickstarter campaign goal. With support for the Vive, Rift, and PlayStation VR (and their respective controllers), the dock appears to be a smart accessory for VR early adopters, but it won’t be a sure thing until the campaign is fully funded.
‘Project CARS 2’ Revealed with PC VR Support, PSVR in Development but Still Unconfirmed
Slightly Mad Studios has begun the promotional campaign for Project CARS 2, revealing a new trailer and some new details. Now due ‘late 2017’, the game has confirmed VR support for PC, while PSVR support is in development but not yet promised.
Ubisoft’s ‘Star Trek: Bridge Crew’ Delayed Again, but You’ll Be Able to Pilot the Original Enterprise
Ubisoft’s upcoming VR multiplayer game Star Trek: Bridge Crew is delayed again, this time to May 30th. The good news? Ubisoft is letting you choose the good ol’ NCC-1701 from ‘The Original Series’ (TOS) so you can play solo as captain, or as an officer in a crew of up to four online players.
Get a Taste of WebVR on Vive with ‘Puzzle Rain’ Running Directly in Your Browser
With the news that WebVR is now supported in Google’s official Android Chrome browser and Daydream-supported phones have the ability to pop into virtual reality experiences just by clicking on a simple hyperlink, we’re more impatient than ever for WebVR to make its way to the standard Chrome browser for PC. But did you know you can try out the magic of WebVR experiences on HTC Vive right now? Easily one of the coolest VR experiences to date may only be a click away.
Facebook Teases “breakthrough technologies” Coming to New Oculus Products, Tours R&D Lab
Following the recent unfavorable court decision which saw a $500 million judgement levied on Oculus and some of its founders last week, Facebook has shared a glimpse into what they call “the most advanced virtual and augmented reality research center and team in the world.”
Valve Confirms Development on “three full [VR] games, not experiments”
Valve has confirmed that the company is in development of not one, but three “full” VR titles being built in conjunction with their ongoing VR development.
Oculus Home Voice Search Now on Rift and Gear VR Makes Browsing Your VR Library a Breeze
Recent updates to Oculus Home on both desktop and Gear VR have added a Voice Search feature which makes zipping around your VR content library much easier than the old method of digging through menus and thumbnails.
WebVR Officially Launches on Chrome for Android with Daydream Support
Experimental builds of Chrome for Android have seen ongoing development of WebVR functionality, but today is a major milestone as WebVR comes to the stable branch of Chrome on Android—that’s the same version that everyone on Android sees in Google’s Play Store and the same version that’s been installed between 1 and 5 billion times. Now those with a Daydream supported phone and headset can step into virtual reality experiences directly through the browser.
