Epic‘s Bullet Train was one of the highlights of last month’s Oculus Connect developer conference, being one of the first triple-A titles to demonstrate ground-up support for Oculus’ new VR controller, ‘Touch’. This short film charts the final stages of development preparation in the run up to Connect and features commentary from Epic’s Ray Davis and Nick Donaldson and an appearance from Tim Sweeney.
Jesse Schell has been involved in virtual reality for over 20 years, and he’s also the author of the popular The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. He was able to combine his background in VR and game design at Schell Games to create the very popular I Expect You to Die, which has been the top-ranked experience at Oculus for the last three months. It also took home three Proto Awards including the top prize for Best Overall VR Experience, Best Gameplay and Best Interactive Design. I had a chance to catch up with Jesse at Oculus Connect to talk about some of VR design principles that has helped I Expect You to Die to do so well.
Hot on the heels of US game retail giant GameStop’s CEO Paul Raines announcing that “We’re going to be the destination for VR”, come news that the company has also cut a deal with Valve to stock the forthcoming wave of new Steam hardware, probably to include SteamVR’s flagship VR headset, the HTC Vive.
Connect 2, Oculus’ developer conference held last month, witnessed a focus on their new VR input system Oculus Touch, including a flagship title built from the ground up for the devices from Epic Games named Bullet Train, a virtual reality first person shooter. The title impressed all who tried it and Epic have now announced the game will see it’s public debut at the forthcoming virtual reality event SEA VR, held in Washington on October 28th. Register now to try it for yourself.
Arthur van Hoff is the CTO of Jaunt, and I had a chance to catch up with him at Oculus Connect 2 to go over some of the most important specifications for their Jaunt ‘ONE’ 360-degree camera, formerly known as ‘Neo’.
On stage at Microsoft’s Windows 10 event today, the company showed gameplay of Project Xray, a mixed reality shooter for HoloLens which has players using a “wearable hologram” to blast aliens that are bursting out of walls.
Nicole Lazzaro is the founder and president of XEODesign, Inc., and she has twenty years expertise in Player Experience Design for mass-market entertainment products. She’s recently started developing a VR game called Follow the White Rabbit and consulting on a number of different virtual reality projects.
At today’s Windows 10 device event, Microsoft executive VP of operating systems Terry Myerson took to the stage to release date and price info for the developer edition of HoloLens, the company’s untethered AR headset.
At Microsoft’s ‘Windows 10 devices event’ today, it was revealed that a HoloLens development kit, the company’s augmented reality headset, will be available for purchase in Q1 of 2016 for the hefty price of $3,000.
We’re excited to announce that the Voices of VR podcast by Kent Bye will now be syndicated through Road to VR. Kent began his journey in May, 2014, seeking to catalog the insights of experts working in the core of the virtual reality industry. With more than 200 episodes released, Kent’s podcast is an ever-growing repository of VR knowledge.
VR Launchpad, presented by SVVR and Road to VR, is the startup showcase for virtual reality companies. Applications for startups and entrepreneurs have been extended to October 7th. Apply today for an invitation to pitch before a crowd of investors and media in Mountain View, CA.
Microsoft have just dropped word of a special Windows 10 event focussing on devices built around the new OS, stating that “We have some exciting news to share”, seemingly about their augmented reality device, HoloLens.
It’s perhaps easy to forget that Project Morpheus, now known as PlayStation VR, would be ‘just another VR headset’ were it not for the vision and talent of Sony’s UK game developers and designers. It’s appropriate then that they’re now set to keynote at the UK’s VRTGO conference in Gateshead on November 12th.
DeathTolls VR experience is a chilling visualization of the enormity of human loss created through various violent conflicts and disasters throughout the world, and aims to help quantify this loss by presenting the user with a field of the deceased.
The NFL seems to be acquainting itself with the idea of VR in their new video for NFL Next, the association’s name for the bevy of technology they’re adopting to help revolutionize the game. The second promo reel was released as somewhat of speculative head-scratcher that makes us wonder if there might be some NFL VR content around the corner.
