Samsung confirms 5+ million Gear VR headsets are now in use worldwide, announced at their CES 2017 keynote. The Gear VR headset launched in November 2015, and was the first high-quality VR solution for smartphones.

In his opening speech at CES 2017 this week, Samsung Electronics America president Tim Baxter announced that the company now has “more than 5 million” Gear VR virtual reality headsets in use. Designed in partnership with Oculus, the Gear VR hardware platform delivered the first high-quality mobile VR solution back in November 2015 (beating the consumer version of the Oculus Rift to market) and has only recently received notable competition in the form of Google’s Daydream platform.

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Baxter also highlighted the success of Samsung’s Gear 360 camera, which ‘empowers people to create their own 360 videos and images’, and revealed that consumers have viewed over 10 million hours of video in VR.

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In a wide-ranging keynote that covered Samsung’s major products, services and partnerships for 2017, including Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), Quantum Dot TVs, home appliances, and wearables, this brief mention of existing ‘Gear’ products was the only reference to VR in the entire presentation.

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There was no sign of their standalone VR headset, which was confirmed to exist at the Samsung Developer Conference 2016, however its rumoured ‘Odyssey’ name did appear in the reveal of the company’s very first gaming laptop range, called the Notebook Odyssey. While GPU specs for the 17-inch version have not been finalised, it is likely to be VR-capable. This marks the beginning of a new line of Odyssey-branded gaming products, so there is still potential for an Odyssey VR headset.

The full Samsung press conference can be watched here.

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The trial version of Microsoft’s Monster Truck Madness probably had something to do with it. And certainly the original Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. A car nut from an early age, Dominic was always drawn to racing games above all other genres. Now a seasoned driving simulation enthusiast, and former editor of Sim Racer magazine, Dominic has followed virtual reality developments with keen interest, as cockpit-based simulation is a perfect match for the technology. Conditions could hardly be more ideal, a scientist once said. Writing about simulators lead him to Road to VR, whose broad coverage of the industry revealed the bigger picture and limitless potential of the medium. Passionate about technology and a lifelong PC gamer, Dominic suffers from the ‘tweak for days’ PC gaming condition, where he plays the same section over and over at every possible combination of visual settings to find the right balance between fidelity and performance. Based within The Fens of Lincolnshire (it’s very flat), Dominic can sometimes be found marvelling at the real world’s ‘draw distance’, wishing virtual technologies would catch up.
  • David Herrington

    As much as I want to be impressed by Samsung’s effort, I can’t help but think this is a bad thing. Whenever I talk to any non-VR enthusiast who has tried a Gear VR, they think that the Gear is the full VR experience and have no idea what a Vive or Rift is.

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