On my way out to cover VR at Sundance this week, I had a chance to try out THE VOID, one of the most advanced out-of-home VR systems today in an industrial park in the middle of Utah. The VOID goes beyond room-scale with their minimum 60×60′ stage which employs ‘redirected walking’ techniques in order to trick you into thinking you’re walking in an even larger physical space.
Oculus says that getting the Rift into “broad retail around the world” is going to be critical to the success of the Rift headset and VR in general. The company plans to have a retail presence starting in April.
According to a recent report by Digi-Capital, investors have injected some pretty big bucks into companies focusing on augmented and virtual reality lately. A total of $686 million in 2015 alone. The most interesting bit: they aren’t counting Magic Leap.
Czech developers Dreadlocks, the company behind crowd funded RPG Dex, have launched their latest Kickstarter campaign for Ghost Theory, a VR focussed horror title that casts you as a clairvoyant paranormal investigator.
Apple has reportedly hired a highly respected virtual reality researchers Doug Bowman, as it continues to trail behind other major company’s in the virtual reality race
Eric Romo is the founder and CEO of AltspaceVR, a company aiming to make virtual reality social. He shares his story of how he got interested in the potential of social VR long before the 2012 Oculus Kickstarter.
Crytek recently announced a new initiative that they’re calling VR First. The goal is form so-called ‘VR First Labs’ within academic institutions to act as ready-made centers for a wave of future VR developers.
Since publishing his popular DIY VR headset guide back in 2014, Austin “Ohaple” is back with his latest refinements to the project, allowing you use use your DIY headset (or an off-the-shelf viewer like Google Cardboard) to play PC games by streaming them to your smartphone.
David Bowman is Director of Production at Crytek, and he gave me the inside story of how VR went viral within Crytek to the point of having well over 50 developers and multiple triple AAA quality VR projects in development for the Sony PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive. He’s been doing game development for over 20 years now, and he’s never seen this much excitement internally about a new technology. There were developers who were willing to work for free on VR because they were so excited to help discover the new game mechanics and emotions that were only possible within VR. I caught up with David at the VRX conference where the told me about integrating VR into the CRYENGINE as well as Robinson: The Journey and their latest Back to Dinosaur Island 2 tech demo.
When it comes to the virtual reality industry today, the way people are looking at VR is very natural, but also very wrong. While we all incessantly talk and freak out about experiences like flying over the grand canyon in VR, it’s actually user-generated content in VR and new original voices that are set to emerge and lead the coming revolution.
Bespectacled Gear VR owners know the drill: smash into the headset for as long as your temples and poor nose can stand, and hope that you’re not crushing or scratching anything in the process. VR Lens Lab, a German-based crowdfunding project, wants to change that with their prescription lens holders that pop into the headset and let you go glasses-free.
I sit down with Valve Writer, Game Developer and seemingly omnipotent VR Evangelist Chet Faliszek to discuss the new Vive Pre, Valve’s focus on a safe VR experience, expectations for the upcoming VR content showcase and his startlingly sneaky cat.
UK theme park Thorpe Park has revealed that a virtual reality ghost train experience in development for some 3 years will finally open to the public this year, powered by the HTC Vive VR headset.
