Apparently, launching one VR headset this spring isn't enough for the folks at Oculus. In addition to the standalone Oculus Quest, the company announced today that it'll also be launching the Oculus Rift S. The Rift S brings back the tether, meaning you'll need a relatively beefy gaming PC to use it, but in return Oculus promises "access to the most immersive content that VR has to offer."
The HP Reverb VR Headset Pro Edition has 2x smaller LCD displays where most competitors have larger AMOLED. But the HP headset has more pixels per eye, a larger field of view, and a slightly lighter overall weight than HTC Vive Pro and Samsung Odyssey. This device weighs approximately the same as the current Oculus Rift headset, and works with both Steam VR and Windows Mixed Reality VR systems.
Don't be turned off by the VR-like imagery in this article - this goes way beyond games, VR, and AR. Qualcomm-made headsets are about to get simple, easy to use, and able to be utilized in a number of different ways. If what Qualcomm's got onboard with "Qualcomm Boundless XR for PC" is plausible, there'll be no need for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens, or mobile VR headsets of any sort. Those brands might just be using Qualcomm's tech to replace what they've got today with what's common tomorrow.
Last year, Facebook revealed the Oculus Quest, a new standalone VR headset that falls somewhere between the Oculus Go and Oculus Rift. Essentially, the Quest is Oculus's attempt to take standalone VR to the next level after introducing an entry-level standalone headset in the Go. Today, Oculus is celebrating a pretty major win, as it announced at GDC that Beat Saber has been secured as a launch title for the Oculus Quest.
Back at CES 2019, HTC announced a new initiative that turns Viveport into what is essentially the Netflix for VR games. Dubbed Viveport Infinity, this new subscription service will allow unlimited access to all of the VR games hosted on Viveport. By comparison, a standard Viveport subscription only allows access to five games per month.
It seems that Google is doing some Spring cleaning and it's not looking good for its employees and ventures. It was recently reported that Google was cutting down on the number of people working on its laptops and tablets and now something more drastic is happening on the VR front. According to a leaked email from Spotlight Stories executive producer Karen Dufilho, Google is shutting down the six-year-old studio that has become associated with the tech giant's VR marketing efforts.
February saw just over a dozen employees laid off from Valve, possibly the result of shifting plans for the game company's virtual reality division. Among the 13 people let go, a number are confirmed to have been working on VR-related projects, including the SteamVR platform, along with some that are believed to have been involved in new hardware development.
Years before virtual reality even became the thing it is now, Nintendo was already toying around with bringing VR to its portfolio. That ended up as a massive failure and the Virtual Boy became an example of how not to do VR. Times and technologies have changed, however, and now 24 years later, Nintendo is taking a stab at it again, this time with a more educational bent thanks to its Nintendo Labo cardboard platform and, of course, the Nintendo Switch.
Some might say that the VR market and even the 360-degree video market has already hit its peak. Things have seemingly slowed down and companies have grown a bit more silent. There are still some, however, who keep the fire burning. Having made the first consumer 360-degree camera way back in 2013, Ricoh continues to believe and invest in this market. Two years after its last flagship, the Theta V, a new torchbearer is long overdue and with the Theta Z1, Ricoh is raising the stakes in more ways than one.
Qualcomm showed up to MWC this morning with some pretty big news, announcing that the Snapdragon 855 will be at the center of a new extended reality ecosystem. Qualcomm’s XR ambitions have been out in the open for a while now, and while the company is working on its XR1 platform, it’ll also be partnering with various OEMs to create lightweight XR headsets that are tethered to 5G, Snapdragon 855 smartphones. Officially dubbed XR Viewers, these new headsets could make things like AR and VR more accessible for a larger segment of consumers - assuming, of course, that they have a compatible smartphone.
While many of us are probably interested in learning more about the VIVE Cosmos, HTC has announced another headset in its VIVE Focus line. The original VIVE Focus has only been available in western markets for a few months now, but that isn't stopping HTC from announcing the standalone VIVE Focus Plus today. As you might have already guessed from the name, this isn't so much a successor headset as it is a beefed up VIVE Focus.
Last month at CES, HTC announced the VIVE Cosmos, a new headset for its virtual reality line up. Though we had the chance to see the headset up close, there's still a lot we don't know about the VIVE Cosmos. Slowly but surely, HTC is beginning to pull back the veil and release some details, starting today with new information about its controllers.