Road to VR

‘Alice VR’ Review

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Virtual reality is a fitting medium for adventure games. When the atmosphere is right and the scene is set, you start to think about the world in a way that taps deep into your reptilian brain, the same one that thinks “I exist here. Everything here is important to me.” When done right, you’re just there. This is where I took issue with Alice VR. At moments I easily snapped into the game’s mysterious adaptation of Alice in Wonderland with all the requisite futuristic set pieces of any sci-fi adventure worth its salt, and at other times felt stuck inside of a conventional PC game that didn’t respect me as a VR player.

HTC to Roll Out Hundreds of Official ‘Vive VR Cafes’ in China Next Year

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Oct 26, 2016

vive-x-accelerator-investment-htc — Image courtesy HTC

HTC opened their third officially branded ‘Vive VR Cafe’ last week, this time in Shenzhen, China, the country’s Silicon Valley of hardware. In an interview with Haptical, HTC China’s President of Vive Alvin Wang Graylin confirms the company will be rolling out hundreds of these Shenzhen-style Vive cafes in 2016 and 2017 in China.

Microsoft Reveals VR Headsets Coming From Top Manufacturers, Starting at $299

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Oct 26, 2016

microsfot-vr-headset — image courtesy of MSpoweruser

The number of big-name manufacturers getting into VR is going to increase substantially with the entry of Microsoft VR hardware partners, revealed on stage today at Microsoft’s hardware-focused event.

Ubisoft Pushes ‘Star Trek: Bridge Crew’ Release to March 2017

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Oct 26, 2016

Star Trek: Bridge Crew, Ubisoft’s upcoming collaborative space adventure, sadly won’t be here for the November 29th launch date as promised, so if you wanted to give that special someone a Trek-themed Christmas present, you may need to rethink your options. The game is now slated to release on March 14th, 2017.

SteamVR Tracking Courses Begin, Already Completed by 50 Developers

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Michael Glombicki

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Oct 26, 2016

Valve opened up their SteamVR tracking technology for third-party development in August, and since then, 50 developers have completed the mandatory training course provided by Synapse, the first company to enter the field.

The VR Version of ‘Obduction’ is Coming to Rift on Halloween

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Oct 25, 2016

obduction-house — Image courtesy Cyan

Obduction, the highly rated first-person adventure game from Cyan, the makers of Riven (1997) and Myst (1993), has been available on traditional monitors for quite some time now, but what virtual reality enthusiasts have been salivating over is the pre-release VR version we got our hands on back in late August. Now you can rest easy, because Cyan has just announced on their Kickstarter page that the Oculus Rift version of the game is coming on the 31st of October, the 19th anniversary of the release of Riven.

Xiaomi Unveils Low-Cost, Low-Latency VR Headset with Controller

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Oct 25, 2016

Xiaomi today unveiled a low-cost VR headset alongside their Mi Note 2 smartphone at the company’s Mi Product Launch Event in Beijing. Much like Samsung Gear VR, Mi VR features a built-in dedicated motion sensor for low latency head-tracking and only works with a select number of the company’s phones.

Google Acquires Eye-tracking Company Eyefluence, Reportedly Building VR Headset With Tech

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Oct 25, 2016

Just what Google has brewing in their skunkworks, we can’t say for sure, but with their most recent acquisition of Eyefluence, a company that builds eye-tracking technology for VR headsets, it seems Google is getting ever deeper into what’s largely considered ‘the next generation’ of dedicated VR hardware.

VR Analytics for Playtesting & Optimization with Cognitive VR

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Oct 25, 2016

Cognitive VR is an VR analytics platform that has an impressive system for visualizing a player’s movements and gaze within a 3D representation of a VR experience. Their SceneExplorer tool translates the 3D geometry from a Unity or Unreal experience into a WebGL mesh that can be shared within a web browser. It allows VR developers to quickly and intuitively visualize how players are moving around and what they’re looking at, but also helps to identify performance bottlenecks based upon a wide range of different hardware configurations.

‘ABE VR’ Creators Are Making Survival Horror Game ‘Syren’ – Teaser Trailer Here

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Oct 24, 2016

Hammerhead VR, the creators of the splendidly creepy ABE VR, a short VR film that puts you at the mercy of a robot gone awry, today revealed a first-person horror game called Syren.

Meet Drew Carey, Reggie Watts, Janeane Garofalo, and Many More This Week in AltspaceVR

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Oct 24, 2016

Getting into a live show with your favorite celebrity isn’t that tough if you live in the entertainment epicenters of L.A. or New York, but this week AltspaceVR, the social VR platform, is bringing the entertainers to you. Like all AltspaceVR performances and meetups, you’ll be able to join with Gear VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and traditional monitors using PC or Mac.

Oculus on Platform-exclusive VR Content: ‘it’s the only viable way to jumpstart the market’

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Oct 22, 2016

oculus-rift-pc — Photo based on images courtesy Oculus

Earlier this month we saw a slew of new Oculus Touch game announcements. Many of these new VR titles, which benefit from funding or publishing (or both) by Oculus, will launch exclusively for the Rift and Touch. And while the company has come under fire for that practice in the past, Oculus’ Head of Content defends the decision as the right approach to get the VR market moving.

An Inflection Point for WebVR and the Open Metaverse

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Oct 22, 2016

There’s been a couple of key developments in the evolution of WebVR during the month of October. First, Nate Mitchell announced during his Oculus Connect 3 keynote that Oculus will be supporting the WebVR ecosystem with the React VR framework and a VR-enabled browser called Carmel. And then on October 19th and 20th, there was a historic W3C Workshop on Web & Virtual Reality where all of the major VR players gathered in San Jose to hash out the WebVR web standards for delivering VR and AR applications over the web. Some the participating companies included Mozilla, Google, Samsung, Oculus, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Valve, Sony, Yahoo, Unity, Intel, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, HP, Dolby, High Fidelity, JanusVR, and Sketchfab. With Oculus’ public support and the gathering momentum around delivering VR over the web, WebVR hit an inflection point of buy-in and momentum such that the future of the metaverse will more likely be based upon the principles of the open web rather than driven by a more closed, walled garden application ecosystem.

Battlezone PSVR Dev Diary #3: The Art of Battlezone

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Oct 22, 2016

In our final developer diary from the team behind Rebellion’s PlayStation VR launch title Battlezone, Lead Artist on Sun He reflects on how they developed and executed on the artistic ethos behind the game.

PlayStation VR Search Interest Blows Past Rift and Vive Amid Launch

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Oct 21, 2016

It’s been a long time coming, but PlayStation VR is finally here. As the least expensive option among the top three contenders, not to mention a 40+ million install base of PS4 owners, many think that PSVR could be the best selling VR headset of 2016. As far as search trends are concerned, consumers seem highly interested amid the headset’s launch.

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