Bigscreen, the social VR app which lets users connect in a virtual environment while retaining the ability to use (and share) their own PC desktop content, now supports Microsoft’s ‘Windows Mixed Reality’ VR headsets. In 2018, the app will offer cross-play with mobile users on Oculus Go, Gear VR, and Daydream, as well as PSVR.
Bigscreen is all about letting you do anything you can do normally on your PC—play games, watch movies, browse the web, and much more—but with your friends in VR. It’s a simple idea which is incredibly powerful given the depth of capabilities already available to your PC.
Having earlier this year made major strides in desktop streaming quality between users, and just recently debuting larger rooms that can support “dozens” of users, the company today broadened their offering to support the recently launched Windows VR headsets. Previously available on the Oculus store and Steam, Bigscreen is now also available on the Microsoft store. The app continues to be free, as it has been since launch.
Coming in 2018, Bigscreen is going to open its doors yet further. To start, sometime in Q1, the app will come to all major mobile VR platforms: Gear VR, Daydream, and the forthcoming Oculus Go headset. Following the mobile rollout, the app is also headed to PSVR.
But what to do on the mobile and PSVR versions of Bigscreen when those platforms aren’t backed by a Windows desktop from which to run PC games and apps? Fortunately, all versions will support cross-play, meaning the mobile and PSVR versions of the app will function largely as a means of consumption and communication—non-PC players will be able to join the rooms of PC players to chat and watch shared content; great for friends who just want to watch TV shows or movies together.
Speaking of movies, the mobile and PSVR versions of Bigscreen will also be able to tap into the platform’s forthcoming lineup of timed content screenings in the app’s cinema; in 2018, Bigscreen promises fresh weekly content being shown each week.
Up to today, Bigscreen tells Road to VR that the app has seen some 340,000 users across Rift and Vive.