It looks like Google is bolstering its virtual reality talent as the company just acquired Owlchemy Labs. The studio is best known for its award winning VR hit, Job Simulator, as well as its most recent game, Rick and Morty VR. Both Google and Owlchemy Labs have confirmed the deal, …
Read More »Oculus is shutting down its award winning Story Studio
A lot of changes have been going on behind the scenes at Oculus over the last six months. Palmer Luckey is out, Brendan Iribe is no longer the CEO, Oculus won't be turning up to E3 for the first time in years and now, the award winning Oculus Story Studio …
Read More »Oculus will be skipping E3 this year
Over the last couple of years, Oculus has had a rather significant presence at E3, even jumping on stage to announce new VR games with publishers. Unfortunately this year, it appears that Oculus will be a no-show for the first time since 2014. Since 2014, Oculus has used E3 to …
Read More »Nvidia turns its attention to VR with new GPU bundle
It looks like Nvidia is turning its attention to promoting virtual reality as today, the GPU maker announced its latest games bundle, giving Pascal GPU buyers three of the best games VR has to offer. Starting from today, anyone buying a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, GTX 1080, GTX 1070 or …
Read More »Oculus seeks new trial for Zenimax case, says the jury got it wrong
It looks like Oculus's legal team is finally making its move, with the company now seeking a new trial for the Zenimax lawsuit. Oculus is under the belief that the jury's verdict went against the evidence shown and that the $500 million fine is excessive. By going back to trial …
Read More »HP is finally launching its vaunted portable VR system, the Omen X VR Backpack
Almost a year after the initial news broke, HP's foray into VR technology will finally reach shops come June this year, reports PC World. Little is known of the device's specs, however. HP has disclosed it will weigh 4.5 Kgs (10 lbs), include dual batteries for hot-swapping without powering down …
Read More »AR brings back an oldie-but-goodie: meet HoloLems
Globacore, a Canadian company specializing in creating unique AR/VR experiences, has dug deep in the ol’ chest of fond memories and converted a childhood favourite into a HoloLens game. Aptly named HoloLems, the AR adaptation is basically a tribute to the classic 90s videogame. Lemmings was a 2D side-scrolling puzzle-platformer …
Read More »AMD is getting into wireless VR headset technology
When AMD launched its Radeon RX 480 graphics card it promised to deliver VR for the masses, or at least the computing power to do so. And it did. Fast forward 10 months and while VR-capable graphics cards have become relatively the norm, the software (apps) and hardware (headsets) ecosystem …
Read More »The HTC Viveport subscription launches today, offers 5 free games per month
If you recently picked up a HTC Vive and need a way to kickstart your virtual reality games library, then you may want to check out HTC VIveport. The new subscription service offers up five games a month to Vive owners, giving you a cheaper way to try out different …
Read More »Samsung confirms plans for a standalone VR headset targeted at gamers
Earlier this month, we started hearing new rumours surrounding Samsung's long-awaited standalone virtual reality headset. At the time, various anonymous sources claimed that Samsung standalone headset would have a much higher resolution than current high-end PC offerings. Since then, a Samsung's VP of global marketing has confirmed the company's standalone …
Read More »Palmer Luckey is no longer working at Oculus/Facebook
After founding the company and helping it get to the point where it is today, Palmer Luckey has officially left Oculus VR and by extension, Facebook as well. This move has been somewhat expected for several months now, as Luckey has remained silent since September, when he was found to …
Read More »Oculus picks up former Apple design chief to lead hardware division
It looks like Facebook is shaking things up over at Oculus as this week, the company hired a veteran from Apple's product design team to head up the hardware division for Oculus VR. Michael Hillman was an employee over at Apple for 15 years as chief architect for Apple's consumer …
Read More »Apple may have been working on Augmented Reality glasses for longer than expected
Following on from earlier reports surrounding Apple's plans for augmented reality, new sources have come to light to reveal more about the company's own augmented reality glasses. Apparently, Apple has been working on its one Augmented Reality smart glasses for more than a year already, with plans to possibly unveil …
Read More »Samsung’s next-gen GearVR could feature a higher resolution than the Vive or Rift
While it may not quite live up to the likes of the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, Samsung has managed to carve itself a nice piece of the virtual reality market over the last few years with the GearVR. Unfortunately up until now, these headsets have also required a Galaxy …
Read More »Oculus wants to do away with the misconception that VR has no real games
When it comes to virtual reality, one of the more common misconceptions thrown around the web is that ‘there are no games'. While the rollout of games with larger budgets has been somewhat slow, Oculus is hoping to erase that misconception this year by releasing a big studio title every …
Read More »Nvidia’s FCAT VR performance analysis tool is now available
Back when Nvidia began showing off the GTX 1080Ti, the company also announced FCAT VR, its newly developed tool for properly benchmarking virtual reality titles. Up until now, benchmarking VR games has been a bit of an issue but with FCAT VR now freely available, GPU reviewers and VR enthusiasts …
Read More »Valve’s statistics show Rift users on Steam have doubled since Touch launch
The HTC Vive and Oculus Rift have both been on the market for almost a year now and during that time, Steam's own statistics have consistently shown the Vive well ahead of the Rift in terms of users. However, a lot of this gap was simply due to the fact that …
Read More »Judge dismisses ‘breach of contract’ lawsuit against Oculus
It looks like Oculus has one less lawsuit to worry about as this week, a judge dismissed a breach of contract suit levied against the company by Total Recall Technologies. We first learned about the lawsuit back in 2015, when TRT claimed that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey had violated a …
Read More »John Carmack is firing back at Zenimax with a lawsuit of his own
Over the last couple of years Zenimax and Oculus have been embroiled in a lawsuit, with Zenimax making allegations that Carmack had stolen company information prior to making his move to Oculus back in 2014. Zenimax did win that lawsuit, with Oculus having to pay up $500 million but it …
Read More »Valve plans to refocus its efforts on software, next wave of games inbound
Now that virtual reality is out there and in consumer hands, more companies are choosing to invest in it. In fact at GDC right now, LG is showing off its very own SteamVR-supported competitor to the HTC Vive. So with all of this new hardware coming in, Valve plans to …
Read More »Oculus has dropped prices just in time for Epic Games’ Robo Recall launch
Back in October when Oculus first announced the launch date for its new Touch Controllers, Epic Games briefly took the stage to announce Robo Recall, a full-blown VR game designed around the touch controllers. This was set to be one of virtual reality's first ‘killer apps' and after several months …
Read More »Sony has sold close to 1 million PSVR headsets
It looks like Sony's efforts to bring virtual reality to consoles has been paying off as close to one million PlayStation VR headsets have been sold since launch back in October, despite bouts of stock shortages over the holiday season. In total, Sony has sold 915,000 PlayStation VR headsets as …
Read More »ZeniMax files injunction against Oculus, could heavily impact Rift and GearVR
A couple of weeks ago, ZeniMax was awarded $500 million in its lawsuit against Oculus VR after a jury found that Palmer Luckey and others had violated an NDA agreement by showing a prototype version of Doom 3 running on an early Oculus Rift prototype. This wasn't the exact outcome …
Read More »European Hardware Association research shows declining interest in VR
This week, the European Hardware Association presented its 2017 buying trends research report, giving us a hint at what Europeans are most interested in tech-wise in 2017. While there has been growth and plenty of buyer intent as far as CPUs and GPUs go, it looks like interest in virtual …
Read More »Valve announces Steam Audio, aims for more realistic spatial audio
A while back, Valve acquired Impulsonic, a peculiar move for a company that doesn't delve into sound all that much. However, now we know why as today ‘Steam Audio' was announced, which is intended to usher in a new generation of spatial audio. Steam Audio has been in development for …
Read More »First gameplay footage of Ark Park shows Jurassic World roots, dino interaction
The first in-game footage of Snail Games' Ark Park, the educational dinosaur VR title that makes use of ARK: Survival Evolved assets, shows just how detailed and interactive the safari park can be. Players start out in a holographic visitor centre reminiscent of Jurassic World, before heading off into the …
Read More »Valve brings SteamVR support to Linux
While things have been a little quiet on the SteamOS front for a while, Valve is still a big supporter of Linux and other open standards, which is why this week the company is releasing the SteamVR for Linux beta, bringing virtual reality support to those outside of the Windows …
Read More »Valve ditches $3,000 tracking course requirement for SteamVR developers
Valve has announced that it is ditching the requirement of a $3,000 training course to become a SteamVR tracking partner, meaning just about anyone can make SteamVR enabled hardware. While the course and in-person training will still be available for those who want it, Valve is also making much of …
Read More »Bethesda’s Fallout VR is ‘going great’ but there is still no set release date
Last year, Bethesda announced that it would be reworking Fallout 4 and DOOM for virtual reality and while things have been fairly quiet on that front since, this week, Todd Howard opened up a bit more about it. It turns out that right now, the entirety of Fallout 4 is …
Read More »Microsoft reportedly scraps Hololens 2 in favour of skipping to Gen 3
Microsoft first revealed its Hololens augmented reality headset around two years ago during the build-up to Windows 10 and since then, most of us have been waiting on some form of upgraded version. Now, it seems that while a second gen Hololens was in the works, Microsoft may be scrapping its development …
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