The Game Developer Conference hits San Francisco beginning March 17th. The VR Collective will be there to cover what promises to be a pivotal show in VR’s meteoric rise.
12 Months is a Long Time in Virtual Reality
GDC has become the boutique gaming event of the gaming calendar, with 1000s of Game Developers descending on San Francisco’s Moscone centre from March 17th. It’s a place for the industry to gather, talk about and share new ideas.
A year ago, Road to VRs Ben Lang reported from the show and covered a string of new projects which had seemingly been rejuvenated in the wake of Oculus Rift’s enormous Kickstarter success, the previous year. He was one of the first to go hands on with Sixense’s now legendary Tuscany / Razer Hydra demo as well as a very early version of MakeVR. Tactical Haptics’ Reactive Grip was also present in an early (and much larger) guise.
The VR Collective Descends on San Francisco
This time though, Ben’s not alone. He’ll be joined by Cymatic Bruce and Brian Hart, meaning we’ll be able to cover even more of the VR news you all care about and also to get different perspectives on the week’s events.
But what can we expect from this year’s show? Well, the last few weeks have been peppered with speculation on various sizeable events that may occur at GDC.
What we know for sure is that Oculus VR are present and providing two talks centred around (surprise, surprise) virtual reality. As we mentioned recently, one talk may well indicate the presence at GDC 2014 of the long awaited second developer kit (DK2). The new developer kit is likely to be close to the consumer Rift’s feature set and capabilities and as such is a tantalising prospect for VR fans. The latest summary of Oculus’ intriguingly titles talk recently hit Gamasutra:
The session will offer an overview of the latest Oculus Rift prototype, a technical breakdown for engineers, and a discussion about VR game design based on the new features incorporated into the latest Rift headset. Mitchell and Antonov also plan to talk a bit about the future of Oculus VR, and where they think the Rift headset is headed as we get closer to the release of the consumer version.
And of course, those rumours surrounding a Playstation 4 VR Headset refuse to die. We’ve provided possible insight as to what might we might expect from the PS4 VR Headset in a couple of recent articles. And it seems TechRadar are now fairly confident Sony will finally go public with their new virtual reality plans at GDC this year. This has the potential to be enormously impactful on VRs ability to crack the mainstream commercial market. But not necessarily for the right reasons.
Let the Speculation Commence!
We don’t know for sure what VR surprises there are in store for us until the show begins. But, just for fun, here are a couple of stories we’d really love to be covering when the conference gets underway:
– Oculus VR Announces Developer Kit 2 (DK2) – OLED 1080p Low Persistence Panel with Optical Positional Tracking and Front Mounted Stereo Cameras. To be available from April for $400. Shipping priority given to original Kickstarter backers.
– Sony’s PS4 VR Headset to Launch December 2014 for $300 with PS4 Eye Camera. Sony PS4 Exclusive DriveClub to Feature Full Support For New Headset.
..ok, perhaps some wishful thinking there, but these are both realistic (if not actually very likely) given our most recent information.
Will You Be at GDC 2014? We’d Love to Hear from You!
If you’re attending GDC this year and think you might have something to share that’s of interest to Road to VR, drop us a line at paul@roadtovr.com or ben@roadtovr.com and we’ll try to set up a meeting.
GDC 2014 could well prove to be a pivotal event in what already promises to be the greatest year in virtual reality history. We very much look forward to bringing you the stories as they happen.
What about you? What are you hoping for from GDC 2014? Let you’re imaginations run wild and let us know in the comments section below.
