Amidst the tidal wave of announcements at this year’s keynote presentation at Oculus Connect, it might have been easy to miss a feature or two. Oculus Video is one such initiative, a movie streaming platform for Oculus devices which may have slipped under the radar. Well, it’s coming and the first major studio to sign up to the platform is 20th Century Fox whose Innovation lab is helping to bring some well known flicks to VR.
“VR Cinema is a new way of presenting our movies, and has the opportunity to bring in mass market consumers to Virtual Reality. With Oculus Video, we are leveraging the scale and flexibility of mobile, while continuing to deliver a powerful, emotional experience for consumers. “ –Mike Dunn, President Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
The studio is planning to have over 100 titles from the 20th Century Fox vaults available to stream inside virtual reality in time for the Oculus Rift’s launch in Q1 2016. Precise details details on how movies will be presented in VR aren’t yet clear, but it’s likely a similar style to the excellent Gear VR Oculus Cinema, is a good bet. Titles include Alien, Gone Girl, Birdman, Office Space and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Innovation Lab are a Fox initiative that “creates a collaborative environment for key technology partners to develop next generation entertainment experiences and distribution platforms,” and in this case, finding new ways to deliver their library of content to new users or indeed old users in new ways is something they’re extremely interested in.
“We are just scratching the surface of how Hollywood and VR will revolutionize entertainment by exploring innovative ways to develop immersive experiences as a new storytelling medium,“ says Dunn.
Innovation Lab are also hard at work bringing the Ridley Scott helmed sci-fi thriller The Martian, to virtual reality in a dedicated experience to promote the movie.
For Oculus it’s another entry in an ever more mature looking launch line-up. Its desire to generate or encourage different forms of content in VR is a great way to appeal to a potential sceptical market to educate them on the benefits of immersive entertainment.