Extended Reality (XR) - Page 39

Facebook is making a new $200 mainstream wireless VR headset, something that's planned for next year, and something the social media giant is hoping to have the same effect Apple did with the original iPhone to the world, with its new $200 headset.

Oculus will be making the headset, with the news of the $200 wireless VR headset breaking days after Oculus slashing the price of the Rift + Touch bundle for $399. The new codenamed "Pacific" headset is reportedly smaller than the Rift, and lighter than the mobile-based Gear VR from Samsung. The final design might change, but those with details on the new headset said it will be easy enough to pull out of your bag and start watching movies on the plane or train.

Inside, we should expect a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor of some sort, with gaming performance somewhere in the vicinity of the Gear VR - but not the full-blown Rift on the PC. The new Facebook VR headset will be released next year, and with a $200 price point, we might see some fierce competition in the mobile VR space.

inXile Entertainment, a developer known for games like Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera, has secured a big multi-million dollar investment to help fund a new ambitious project.

inXile's $4.5 million investment from games publisher Gumi Inc. will be used to make a new open-world survival VR RPG, possibly pushing the current fledgling market closer to a HMD-selling "killer app." Not much is known about the project, but inXile is currently developing The Bard's Tale IV as well as Wasteland 3, and will leverage the investment from Gumi to help build a foundation for the new RPG. The developer states that the VR game will "launch on all platforms," likely meaning it'll see release on PlayStation VR, the HTC Vive, and Oculus' slow-selling Rift headset.

"Gumi shares my passion for creating deeper virtual reality games and I'm fortunate to have a partner to work with in this spectacular new medium. We've had incredible feedback from our first game, The Mage's Tale, and we want to continue to build on our experience and reputation. I've always been fascinated by the social dynamics of the open world survival genre and experiencing that in virtual reality will create powerful and terrifying moments. We'll also be bringing our storytelling and RPG experience to the table to help enrich the genre," said Brian Fargo, CEO, inXile Entertainment.

As the sales rift between Oculus' VR headset and its competitors continues to widen, Facebook slashes price in an attempt to spark sales growth.

Facebook-owned Oculus recently slashed the price of its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset for the second time in three months. The Oculus Rift now comes bundled with its Touch controllers for $399, down 33% from the headset's current $599 MSRP. Oculus asserts the price drop will last six weeks.

Although the company hasn't said so publicly, the consensus is that the price drop, which puts the Oculus Rift square up against Sony Corp's console-powered PlayStation VR competitor, will boost flagging sales and pull more gamers into the Rift ecosystem.

Oculus has just changed the VR landscape with a massive drop in the price of its Rift headset, which is now being bundled with the Oculus Touch for just $399 at all stores. This will include in-store, Amazon, Best Buy, and others.

At just $399, Oculus is fighting the good fight with mainstream consoles that are priced at under $400 like the Xbox One S and PS4. You'll need a PC or a good enough gaming laptop, but slashing $200 from the price of the Oculus Rift on its own - at its old price of $599, is a big deal. The other piece of this VR puzzle is the Oculus Touch controllers which used to be $200 on their own, are now bundled at a cheaper price than the Oculus Rift was just yesterday.

Oculus were offering a bundle for the Oculus Rift and Touch for $600 recently, but now Oculus is a massive $400 cheaper (half price!!) than the HTC Vive which sells for $800.

We know that Samsung is working on its own standalone VR headset, but now VR eye-tracking company Visual Camp, has teased Samsung's secret new standalone VR headset prototype called Exynos VR III.

Samsung's purported Exynos VR III headset is powered by a 10nm SoC with Mali G71 graphics, and can power dual "WQHD+" displays (2560x1440 or so) at 90Hz, or a single 4K panel at 75Hz. Samsung's secret new VR headset sports gaze tracking, as well as hand tracking and facial expression recognition. With enough sensors, Samsung could have inside-out motion tracking which is the bleeding edge for new mobile VR headsets.

What exactly does the gaze tracking do, you ask? Well, Samsung's new headset - and I'm sure Qualcomm and others are working on similar tech, is actually foveated rendering. This means that with gaze tracking, the headset will push rendering power to where your eyes are focused. You can see in the image above, the gaze point is to the upper right - so why should the headset render everything to the left and under it in 100% quality... that's not how your eyes work, so rendering power saved is a huge win.

One of the greatest bands of all times, if not the greatest, has been around for decades. Even after the tragic death of legendary Freddie Mercury in 1991, Queen has stuck around, and their songs are still highly popular even with the younger generations.

A couple of years ago, the band started performing again with Adam Lambert, selling out the shows around the world.

Now, the band's fans can experience a live performance by the band in virtual reality. The band has released a virtual reality concert named VR the Champions, which contains Queen's most popular songs, such as We Will Rock You, Radio Ga Ga, and We Are the Champions. Unfortunately, Freddie isn't featured in this VR movie, but let's hope that someday we will be able to see the legend itself in VR.

According to research firm IDC, shipments of VR and AR headsets are set to climb in a big way over the next 5 years. IDC expects VR and AR shipments to reach 100 million by 2021, with under 10 million headsets shipping in 2016, this is a big uptick in HMD shipments.

Jitesh Ubrani, Senior Research Analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers said: "The next six to 18 months will further stimulate the VR market as PC vendors, along with Microsoft, introduce tethered headsets and high-end standalone VR headsets also enter the market".

VR headsets are expected to outsell AR headsets, with the likes of HTC, Oculus and Sony enjoying strong sales of VR headsets. IDC explains that AR is "harder to achieve", as in AR headsets are more complicated to not just make - but build, and sell. Google Glass wasn't cheap, and neither is Microsoft HoloLens... maybe we'll see Apple hit the premium this year or next with their own AR headset, something the likes of industry awesome guy Robert Scoble predicts.

E3 2017 - Sony revitalizes its commitment to its PlayStation VR headset at E3 with a smattering of new virtual reality content.

At it's E3 2017 showcase, Sony revealed more PlayStation VR games than it did new PS4 titles, sending a clear signal: Sony Interactive Entertainment isn't giving up on its console-powered VR infrastructure. Since it's launch in October 2016, Sony's PlayStation VR headset has sold 1 million units to date. While that might seem an impressive number, the $399 premium VR HMD's attach rate is quite small: the PlayStation VR has only penetrated 1.67% of the PlayStation 4's massive 60 million console install base.

To attract more PS4 users to adopt PlayStation VR, the console-maker is investing into more games to fill out the headset's catalog of titles with a number of high-profile exclusives and ports. The principal PSVR exclusive is Bethseda's new Skyrim VR, which brings 2011's award-winning RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim into virtual reality for the first time. Sony announced a total of 12 new PlayStation VR games at the show and on its YouTube channel.

E3 2017 - Xbox division head Phil Spencer discusses what Microsoft's new Direct Reality trademark actually means.

Microsoft's recent "Direct Reality" had the VR world buzzing. Was this Microsoft's new buzzword for its cross-platform Mixed Reality initiate that spans consoles and PC? In actuality, Direct Reality is a lot like DirectX, and aims to make all HMDs natively plug-and-play compatible on Windows 10 with specific features that make things easy for HMD OEMs and developers. Xbox boss Phil Spencer confirmed details behind Direct Reality in a recent interview with Giant Bomb at E3 2017.

Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann: "When I look at Direct Reality I think of DirectX helping a lot of different graphics cards talk to a lot of different software. Is Direct Reality going to be an easy way for people to make games for any VR headset without having to worry about things?"

E3 2017 - Bethesda is keen on making their mark on virtual reality by bringing their biggest open-world RPGs into VR.

For the first time ever, players will be able to step into Skyrim's frosty wilderness in an immersive new way. Bethesda Softworks has announced Skyrim VR will release exclusively for Sony's PlayStation VR headset this year. Skyrim VR is a full adaptation of 2011's celebrated RPG, and like its cousin Fallout 4 VR that's coming to HTC Vive this year, the game features the full Skyrim experience with 200+ hours of exploration, quests, weapons and armor, and everything else the original game offered.

Skyrim VR also includes three DLC packs--Dragonborn, Hearthfire and Dawnguard--and may be compatible with premium Creation Club monetized DLC-like mods, but Bethesda hasn't said anything on that front.

E3 2017 - High-end PC-powered Virtual Reality might be getting its killer app this year with Fallout 4.

Bethesda has announced that Fallout 4 VR will launch in October exclusively on the HTC Vive. Unlike most VR games, Fallout 4 VR isn't just a little slice of content locked in a closed-in environment, but the actual full retail game built to be 100% compatible with VR. Vive owners will be able to explore Boston's full post-apocalyptic Commonwealth, from the Glowing Sea to the Kingsport Lighthouse and everything in between. The entire game has been re-tooled for VR, including a new innovative combat system with VATS to bring even more immersion.

Just don't expect mods to show up any time soon.

Sony's console-powered PlayStation VR headset has surpassed 1 million sales, the company today announced.

Sony took a big risk with its PS4-powered PlayStation VR headset, but the gambit seems to have paid off: President & CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America Shawn Layden today confirmed the PSVR has sold a million units in the eight months since it launched in October 2016.

But as Layden told The Verge, "it's still just a million units." A quick take on the numbers shows that Sony could've taken in $399 million from PSVR sales, and that's assuming if everyone bought the base $399 model. The real figures will have the complete $499 package mixed with the base $399 model, of course. Layden goes on to say that supply for the PS4-powered virtual reality headset will increase throughout this year, which will no-doubt grow sales for Sony's FY2017. "We'll have freer supply in the marketplace [in 2017]," the CEO affirmed.

At the SID Display Week conference for display technologies, Samsung showed off a new type of display specifically designed for virtual reality.

The new 3.5" display is designed to be used in VR headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift and offers a much higher resolution than current headsets.

Each display has a resolution of 2022 x 2200 pixels which translates to a pixel density of 858 PPI, something simply unheard of in a display larger than 1 inch. Each display will be dedicated to each eye and should do well for VR with a 90 Hz refresh rate.

HTC is one of the pioneers when it comes to VR. The company's HTC Vive still offers the best VR experience, and recently, the company announced that they would be shipping their own Google Daydream standalone headset later this year in partnership with Google.

While we wait for the standalone headset, HTC has launched the Link VR headset for the U11. The headset might remind you of the Gear VR, but the difference is that with the Link VR your smartphone doesn't go inside the headset. Instead, it is connected to it via USB-C cable.

The headset has its own displays - 3.6-inch big (110° fields of view), with 1,080 x 1,200px resolution and capable of 90Hz refresh rate.

Samsung has been teasing its new 1.96-inch 4K LCD, but its next-gen 3.5-inch OLED sounds much more appealing because it's closer than the super-small 1.96-inch LCDs.

The new 3.5-inch display comes in at 858 PPI, and has been "optimized for VR devices, 120Hz for wearable and tablet OLED products are displayed for smooth picture quality". Samsung is making the new 120Hz display with an OLED panel and HDR support, with Samsung also touting low power consumption on the 3.5-inch OLED.

The wording here could indicate that these new panels are not 120Hz for VR, as Samsung says: "3.5-inch size, 858ppi optimized for VR devices, 120Hz for wearable and tablet OLED products are displayed for smooth picture quality". It is a translation, so we could expect VR at a different refresh rate - but I really doubt that. The next jump for VR from 90Hz will be 120Hz, at least.

The current-gen VR headsets are plagued with the screen door effect (SDE), with it being one of the last technological barriers for VR headsets before they really leap forward in quality, with Samsung teasing what could end up as the future of LCDs for VR headsets.

Samsung recently showed off a prototype 1.96-inch LCD with a native 4K resolution, and with the super-small 1.96-inch size it has an astounding 2250 pixels per inch, compared to 500 PPI average on a high-end smartphone display. We've been hearing about 4K per eye VR headsets for a while now, so this could be what Samsung has been working on in order to provide them to the likes of Oculus, HTC, Sony or even itself - with a next-gen standalone Samung Gear VR headset.

Valve and HTC want you to be more social in VR, leading Valve to announce their new beta testing of SteamVR Home.

SteamVR Home will see players finding their avatars and wearables in a new space, with virtual environments being in high resolution that "support animations, sound, games, and interactivity".

If you happen to find a new VR home that you like, you can choose to open it up to the public - or keep it for yourself, and invite friends for some VR hangs. In order to opt into the Steam VR beta, you'll need to :

Microsoft Research is making strides in its augmented reality technology, with the company showing off new prototype AR glasses.

The new AR glasses currently feature an 80-degree field of view, and will correct for the wearer's astigmatism, which allow virtual objects to be viewed through AR glasses, all without additional corrective lenses.

The team wrote in a research paper on the prototype: "In future work, we plan to integrate all these capabilities into a single hardware device while expanding the exit pupil to create a practical stereo display".

As many of you know, HTC is one of the pioneering companies when it comes to VR. They are the first partner to work with Valve on the Vive for SteamVR and they have the best VR experience. HTC isn't really a PC company, so for them to be so heavily involved in PC VR was a challenge for them.

But we also know that HTC is s smartphone company with expertise in mobility and design. So, it was only a matter of time until they announced their own mobile VR headset.

Many believed it would be a SteamVR trackable smartphone headset, others believed it would just be another Daydream headset, but they were all wrong. A standalone headset means that all of the processing, battery, cooling and display are all built into the headset and are tweaked and tuned to perfection.

Google has just announced its new Daydream standalone VR headset, something that it collaborated with Qualcomm on, using their impressive Snapdragon 835 VR platform.

This is a big move, as we have a fully tethered VR experience for the highest-end gaming PCs right now, and while the VR experience with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are awesome, they're restrictive. Doing away with cables with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 processor means that we can have high-res, smooth VR experiences - anywhere.

Sitting on a plane? No worries.