VR Metaverse Company High Fidelity Raises $22 Million in New Funding
Uncovered among recent regulatory filings, VR metaverse company High Fidelity has raised $22 million in new funding.
Designing a VR Escape Room Puzzle Game with ‘I Expect You to Die’
VR escape room games are one of the emerging genres that are particularly well-suited for the affordances of VR, and Schell Games’ I Expect You to Die sets the standard for creating this type of puzzle game. I had a chance to catch up with game design director Shawn Patton at GDC in March where he shared some of the design strategies for I Expect You to Die.
What VR Headset Makers (not analysts) Have Actually Said About Sales Expectations
If you’re at all involved in the VR space, you likely recently saw a flurry of downtrodden headlines describing “slow,” and “modest,” holiday VR headset sales, with some even calling VR “the biggest loser this holiday.”
Get $100 in Free VR Games When You Buy an NVIDIA GPU and HTC Vive
Haven’t decided whether to pull out the credit card and buy the VR system of your dreams yet? Well, NVIDIA is making it that much harder this holiday season with a new bundle that includes three highly rated games for free when you buy a GeForce GTX 1080, 1070, or 1060 GPU and an HTC Vive headset.
Nikon Turns Attention Toward 360 Video with Expert Panel
Nikon’s foray into 360° video continued at the ‘Nikon Innovation Forum: The 360° Video Revolution’ event in NYC last week. There the company’s recently released KeyMission 360 action camera was the centerpiece among non-360° action cameras of the same series. In addition to the camera displays and examples of footage shot on Nikon’s KeyMission series, the event featured a 360° video-focused panel of accomplished industry folk and a brief address by Nikon’s President and CEO, Toru Iwaoka.
Deal: Buy an Oculus Rift and Get a $100 Amazon Gift Card
Black Friday has passed, but a few holiday VR deals remain. For a limited time, Amazon is offering a $100 gift card with every Rift purchase.
Now with Netflix, HBO, and NextVR, Daydream Rises to Top VR Platform for Video
Google’s Daydream Android VR platform just got a lot more watchable. Already the only place you’ll find the official YouTube VR app, Daydream just picked up more major content providers.
‘Grav|Lab’ Early Access Review
Grav|Lab, despite its Early Access status, might well be the surprise star of the Oculus Touch launch lineup. It doesn’t have the glitz and glamour of the bigger releases – and many of its rough edges are in need of smoothing – but its intriguing blend of fun, challenging, physics-puzzler gameplay is compelling.
Magic Leap CEO: “we are making mini-production test runs of our first system”
Following a bout of skeptical press, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz claims the company is already doing production test runs of their first AR “system,” which is said to be “small, sleek, cool.”
‘Arizona Sunshine’ Review
In the overcrowded genre of VR shooters, with quite a few of the zombie variety already out in the wild, Vertigo Games have a take on zombie slaughter that makes enough tweaks to the formula to ensure that Arizona Sunshine stands head and shoulders above the competition.
AxonVR Raises $5.8 Million Seed Investment for Advanced VR Haptics
AxonVR has announced the closure of a $5.8 million seed investment, which is claimed to be the largest secured by a VR haptics company to date. The company intends to use the money to build out their HaptX platform which will be licensed directly to businesses such as theme parks and VR arcades.
HTC Launches ‘Vive Studios’ for First-party VR Game Development and Publishing
HTC today announced that they’ve spun up an internal development and publishing group called Vive Studios.
Hands-on: ‘Pluto’ Makes Every VR App Social
Pluto is a new social app currently in alpha from the Seattle-based startup Pluto VR. Instead of taking its cues from multi-user spaces like AltspaceVR or VR Chat however, which provide users with various shared virtual environments and must be run to the exclusion of other apps, Pluto is focused on delivering the convenience of an always-on video messaging app like Skype or Google Hangouts. This means you can use any VR game or app you want and still be able to take a sort of ‘VR call’ from friends. To learn more about VR’s newest social tool, I popped into the app with Pluto VR co-founder Forest Gibson and Mad Scientist (real job title) Shawn Whiting, co-founder of early social VR space ConVRge.
AMD Adds ‘Asynchronous Space Warp’ and More in Huge Radeon Software Update
AMD have announced the release of their latest Radeon software suite, snappily titled “Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition” and, among many other features, the new suite brings with it support for Oculus’ newly introduced VR performance enhancement feature Asynchronous Space Warp plus VR focused rendering features ‘MultiRes’ and ‘MultiView’.
Microsoft to Debut VR Dev Kits for Windows Holographic in March
Microsoft has confirmed that development kits of VR headsets for their Windows Holographic platform are in the works and will make their debut at GDC 2017 in March.
