Sixense Entertainment, creators of the Hydra and STEM controllers, announced key enhancements to the Kickstarter for forthcoming virtual reality 3D modeling and printing software, MakeVR. Beta access, lower price points, and less restrictive conditions on collaboration bolster the company’s offering.
Backers interested in the software can now get MakeVR for a $95 pledge, down from a previous minimum of $169. Besides the price drop, a beta version will be available in August, and collaboration for up to 5 people will be included with all backer tiers that include the MakeVR software. Original MakeVR Kickstarter levels offered delivery in November, and the base $169 level did not include the collaboration feature.
For those interested in controllers and software, the base reward is now $295 for MakeVR (with collaboration) plus two STEM controllers and the STEM base. This is down from the previous minimum of $399. For comparison, two STEM controllers and the base retail for $299 on their own from the Sixense Store.
Further, a free MakeVR Viewer application will be released that allow up to two users to connect to the host and observe a modeling session.
If you are an original backer of a software-only reward (the $169, $199, or $259 levels), I would strongly encourage you to revisit your pledge and either revise it downward to $95 (where you can, for less money, get software sooner and include Collaborate3D) or upward to $295 so you can pick up two STEM controllers plus MakeVR and Collaborate3D for a great price. The only caveat would be if you like paying $74 for a T-shirt, since the $169, $199, and $259 levels include a MakeVR T-shirt. Then again, you could pledge at the $25 level using a separate account for that.
As of November, 3D printing is a $2.2B market, and forecasts call for 23% growth rate, with revenues reaching $10.8B by 2021. While there are some notable players in the 3D printing space — think Sculpteo, Thingiverse, i.materialise, and Tinkercad — the missing element in the chain is an approachable and easy-to-understand environment for creating models. MakeVR endeavors to fill this gap with an intuitive interface offering a seamless experience from sketch to print. I believe with the price reductions and inclusion of Collaborate3D that Sixense is a lot closer to reaching their goal. We’ll see how the next three weeks play out for their Kickstarter.
MakeVR with Collaborate3D was demoed at Silicon Valley VR Meetup #7, a portion of which appears below.
