Extended Reality (XR) - Page 59

Yesterday, we reported that HTC and Valve had made "a very, very big technological breakthrough" with the Vive headset, and now a new finger-tracking VR demo has appeared online from the HTC developer event in Beijing.

It looks like an early finger-tracking system, using Perception Neutron finger-tracking gloves from Noitom and a SteamVR controller strapped to the back of the hand. This is obviously not a final design, but it shows an intuitive way of interacting with even simple objects like a bucket and some balls, all using natural finger movements in the VR world.

Even more recently, we wrote about the latest HTC Vive headset and controllers were shown off - looking incredibly awesome.

Rolling off the news that HTC and Valve made "a very, very big technological breakthrough" with their Vive headset recently, but new pictures of the VR HMD have surfaced.

Alongside shots of the new second-gen Vive headset, are a nice tease of the very unique controllers. The new controllers look much smoother, with a far more consumer-focused design and look. On the bottom of the controllers, you'll see four small, silver dots. We don't know what these little dots will be used for, and that excites us - surprise us, HTC/Valve.

We should see the new Vive headset and controllers at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which kicks off on the first week of 2016.

We now know why HTC delayed the Vive until April 2016, the team has been improving things behind the scenes, and today at the Vive Unbound developers forum in Beijing, China, HTC CEO Cher Wang said that two weeks ago, Valve and HTC made "a very, very big technological breakthrough" with the Vive.

This breakthrough led HTC to skip the original Vive headset, and ship the new one - missing the Q1 2016 window. Wang said: "We shouldn't make our users swap their systems later just so we could meet the December shipping date". Wang didn't talk much about the technological breakthrough but did tease that it would be unveiled at CES early next month.

Technical Illusions, the AR startup that launched its CastAR augmented reality headset onto Kickstarter in October 2013, has promised to refund the original Kickstarter backers - but with a twist, they will also provide them with a free consumer CastAR system when it launches.

During an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Technical Illusions' CEO David Henzel-Wallace said: "We're giving every backer who was expecting CastAR hardware a free consumer CastAR system at release and will be fully reimbursing their Kickstarter backings. We will start reimbursement via Paypal at the start of the new year with the last batch going out on February 29". He continued: "We're offering reimbursements to backers who pledged at the hardware tiers - "The Magic Wand" and above. The exception is the Early and Almost as Early CastAR backers, since those backers have already received their Early CastAR prototypes. That said, we'll happily exchange any Early CastAR prototypes for a discount code good for one free consumer CastAR at product launch, if any Early/Almost as Early backers would rather wait for the consumer CastAR and content. A standard Kickstarter Survey will go to all backers this week to collect the necessary info".

GamesIndustry.biz asked the big question, "why do such a generous thing when you could just keep the cash?" Henkel-Wallace replied: "Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's right. We have several reasons why we felt it was best to draw the Kickstarter to a close, and why that should involve reimbursing the backers. First, backers ordered various combinations of hardware (e.g. some just glasses, some glasses plus a magic wand controller, etc). It's hard for developers to write fun games if they don't know what the user will have. This way we can level out the configuration (e.g. our consumer product will have the wand!). Second, our Kickstarter rewards were developer-oriented, but we later learned that most of our backers had really expected a consumer product complete with content. Rather than tell people that they would simply have to write their own games, we decided it's better to take the time to give backers what they expected".

Sony touts that its console-powered PlayStation VR headset sports "cutting edge" 1080p OLED displays that will prove to be a tremendous advantage over competitors like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

Japanese console gaming giant Sony is extremely confident that its PlayStation VR headset will make its mark on the new frontier of virtual reality. In the past, Sony execs have called the PSVR the "ultimate weapon for developers", but the headset's real power lies in its display. The PlayStation VR is housed with a 1080p OLED True HD display that runs at 120Hz, which is similar on the surface to the Oculus Rift's display panel. The PSVR has a secret weapon, however: a true R, G and B for every True HD pixel, which makes for extremely crisp visuals.

In a recent interview with Game Informer, the Director of Sony's Magic Labs Dr. Richard Marks detailed the PSVR's display. "The display we chose is 120Hz True HD OLED and each pixel of True HD has R, G, and B subpixels, so if you count the number of subpixels, our True HD has more resolution, more subpixels, than higher resolution than what you can see on a smartphone. We are adopting the really cutting edge display technology for PS VR and integrating it really, really tightly with PS4. That's how we are ensuring the great experience coming from PS VR from day one and as time goes by, the PS4 hardware doesn't change, but because the console allows game developers to really go deep to extract more performance out of."

GameInformer is going VR crazy right now, with a gigantic interview with Sony's President of Worldwide Studios for Sony Computer Entertainment, Shuhei Yoshida - yes, the king himself! The interview also includes the Director of PlayStation Magic Lab, Richard Marks.

The first question out of the gate was "Where did PlayStation VR start, and how did it get to where it is now?" to which Yoshida replied with: "The VR project that we used to call Project Morpheus was started as a grassroots project amongst different teams geographically spread across Japan, the U.S., and Europe almost simultaneously. When we released PS Move, many people found that just adding PS Move to head-mounted displays of the time like Sony's Movie Viewer or some other company's viewer creates like a handmade, semi-VR headset, and they started experimenting with it with PS3. All of these people who are using their spare time after work creating the handmade kit and some games to play with as a hobby almost realized that many of us are doing the same thing, and the company was like, "With the PS4, we could make a real virtual-reality system." So this really came from the passion of these people who had waited for the time that virtual reality could be made real".

But it was the big question of "What do you see as the major differentiation between PlayStation VR and the other major headsets?". Yoshida replied: "The difference between the console-based VR systems that we are working on versus PC-based or mobile-based systems that they are working on – the clear difference is that the philosophy we are approaching PS VR is the same as we've always approached PlayStation as a console device, meaning that you don't need any technical knowledge to use it. You've just bought PlayStation in the past and connected it to your TV and enjoyed the game. We want people to just buy PS VR and connect it to a PS4 and enjoy VR experiences. The ease of use, the quality of the experiences – because every single PS4 is the same hardware whether it's a consumer unit or a developer unit the developers are using to test their games in development. So before a developer or publisher releases these titles, they can make sure the experience is great for consumers. They can playtest and we have our certification test the same way as we approach consoles. Developers can fully test their games with the same environment that consumers have. That's a huge benefit that we believe the consumer will notice – not just the ease of use of the hardware and the system, but the expected quality of the games or applications that will become available on PS VR. Because we make the same hardware for a long time, we tend to be able to provide a high-tech device for an affordable price".

Crytek has already announced its first VR game 'Robinson: The Journey' earlier this year at E3 2015, but now the company has announced an Oculus Rift exclusive: 'The Climb'.

The Climb is exactly as it sounds, taking players to parts of the planet where they wouldn't otherwise visit. Thanks to the bundled Xbox 360 controller in the box for the Oculus Rift, you'll be able to use it to grab onto, and hold on for your life, the sides of mountains, huge rocks, and more. The trailer we've embedded above shows off The Climb using Oculus' upcoming Touch controllers, that won't be out until a few months after the Rift drops early next year.

As for the technical side of The Climb, Crytek has confirmed that it's running at 2160 x 2100 and at 90FPS. For a game that has you housed in a VR headset by yourself, you didn't think a company owned by the largest social network in the world would let you play The Climb by yourself, did you? The Climb might be a single-player only title, but you'll have various social factors to play around with, such as scoreboards against your friends. Each climb earns you a score which is based on various factors, such as how long it took you to complete the climb, how difficult the path you took, and more.

Following a recent Canadian release, Samsung has now announced the official launch of its third-generation Gear VR in the Land Down Under - Australia.

Designed to function with Samsung smartphones such as the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 edge+, S6 and S6 edge, the Gear VR utilizes these mobile AMOLED displays in order to offer consumers a virtual reality experience. Explained as much lighter than the prototypes and previous models, this new VR addition enables users to browse the web through an available Samsung official app, further being able to watch 360-degree videos on YouTube and enjoy other various HTML5 video content.

Available for a local price of $159 AU from Samsung directly, the press release explains that this product will be available for wider distribution early in 2016.

NASA and Sony have been working together on a PlayStation VR experience called Mighty Morphenaut, which is a PlayStation VR demo that allows operators to practice control over a humanoid in space.

Mighty Morphenaut recreates the robot's environment, which is a simulated space shuttle so that users on the ground can learn how to get the humanoid to complete a task, or move around obstacles from a safe distance. NASA has been trying to build a dexterous humanoid for space exploration for a while now, something that led to the rise of Robonauts. Robonauts are dexterous humanoids that are designed to help, or even replace humans in space. NASA explains Robonauts, "one advantage of a humanoid design is that [it] can take over simple, repetitive, or especially dangerous tasks on places such as the International Space Station".

When NASA use the Mighty Morphenaut demo, it allows the operators to use the PS4-powered PlayStation VR headset to look around and make quick decisions based on the environment the robot is in, all in real-time. The robot will then perform movements based on the operator's movement of the Move controllers, but there is lag between the movement of the Move controller, and the Robonaut, obviously. It might be a long time before NASA can control a humanoid from Earth while it hovers around in space, but VR and AR technologies are going to do huge things for NASA.

Samsung's popular and affordable Gear VR launched last month in the US, but Canadian residents had to wait an extra few weeks to buy. That's over with now: the device is available through Best Buy, The Source, and Samsung Experience stores across the promised land.

Now for the bad news: whereas Gear VR launched in the US with a cool $99.99 price tag, it's $139.99 in Canada due to the currently weak Canadian dollar.

Best Buy says quantities are limited; The Source's inventory is on backorder and estimates if you order now, your device will ship December 16 (just about in time for the big day, if you're lucky).

Oculus VR has announced that all final retail versions of its Oculus Rift CV1 headset will come packaged with a free copy of CCP Games' VR starship sim EVE Valkyrie. In a recent Tweet, EVE developer Sigurdur Gunnarsson said "So very happy to finally announce that EVE: Valkyrie will be bundled with the Oculus Rift at launch :)".

EVE Valkyrie is an interstellar dogfighter that takes place in the landmark MMO universe of EVE Online, and puts players in the cockpit of a spaceship for brutal team-based multiplayer. The game sports a plethora of unlockable ships and weapons, a dynamic character-progression ranking system, 360 degree combat, and aims to fully harness the power of the first consumer Oculus Rift headset.

EVE Valkyrie will likely continue to get better as time goes by, and it definitely won't be the only VR starfighter that CCP Games releases. The studio recently secured a $30 million investment in order to bolster its stance as a leading contender in the virtual reality market. CCP Games also acquired ex-EA networking exec Maria Sayans, who will helm the company's new customer relations office that will assess and digest user-submitted feedback.

As a kid, the Lawnmower Man movie fascinated me. I've always wanted to put on a suit and literally enter a video game, actually feeling the digital realm. With the advent of full-body haptic feedback suits like the one Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi wore at the PS Experience, this long-awaited sci-fi dream is now a reality.

At this year's PlayStation Experience, Sony showcased a slew of VR-enabled games for its PlayStation VR headset. Aside from the games, the Japanese console-maker had something special to show off for Rez Infinite: a full-body VR suit. Tetsuya Mizuguchi walked on stage in what looked like a sliver astronaut getup, but it was actually a haptic-feedback Synesthesia Suit equipped with 26 actuated motors that pulsed to the rhythm of Rez's in-game music.

Attendees at the event were able to try the suit on for themselves, which led to explosive praise. One user said that the experience was drug-like, saying it was "absolutely exquisite" and the suit offered "total sensory immersion in a way that was never possible before without resorting to narcotics." After trying the Rez Infinite suit, Sony's own Shuhei Yoshida said that he "feels like a new person", and that he "sees the world differently now".

Big showcases like CES are perfect springboards for new product announcements and reveals, and with virtual reality expected to take hold in 2016, its pertinent that VR will be a major focus for the event. Despite HTC revealing an April 2016 release for the Vive VR, Oculus hasn't countered, but can we expect an official Oculus Rift release date at CES 2016?

Anshel Sag, analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, told us exclusively that he fully expects a final Oculus Rift release date at CES 2016. "I think we'll get pricing and availability info (and orders) at CES and they'll probably ship low quantities around CES and volume weeks later with normal shipments later in the quarter."

Although Facebook-owned Oculus VR is seen as the pioneer in virtual reality tech, it wasn't the first to formally announce a concrete window of availability. HTC and Valve jumped the gun with their promise of a release in 2015, which was ultimately delayed into 2016. After delays and speculation, HTC revealed a final April 2016 window for the HTC Vive VR. Amid the promises of its competitors, Oculus VR took the conservative approach with a Q1 2016 window for the Rift CV1.

Up until now, we had no idea when HTC would launch its Vive headset, apart from sometime early 2016. Well, the Taiwanese manufacturer has just announced the commercial release window of April 2016.

HTC took to a blog to say that it will be hosting a developer conference in Beijing next week on December 18, and then it will launch a second generation developer kit before the Vive reaches consumers in April. HTC will release 7,000 new developer units early next year, as well as taking the Vive on the road with Valve on a demo tour at various events.

These events include The Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, GDC and MWC. HTC has previously said that 2016 is critical to the success of VR headsets, and we only just reported that the VR industry will reportedly be worth a huge $70 billion by 2020.

According to research firm TrendForce, the VR market will be worth a huge $70 billion by 2020, a market that includes both the VR hardware, and software.

TrendForce said that VR hardware will be worth around $20 billion by 2020, but the software side of things is where the money will be made, with an estimated $50 billion by the end of the decade. TrendForce expects to see VR generate around $6.7 billion of revenue in 2016, with most of it coming from the sales of VR headsets, like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

The research firm's wearable device analyst, Jason Tsai, said: "These explosive growth projections actually do not sufficiently reflect just how hot the VR industry is right now. The figures do not include the value of non-commercial uses of VR technology. For example, the industry is currently pushing the development of free software and do-it-yourself apps. While these projects do not immediately generate revenue for the developers, they have a vital role in the promotion market growth and innovations".

Although Electronic Arts has expressed hesitation concerning VR, the Battlefield devs at DICE are all too eager to explore the new dimensions and possibilities that virtual reality offers.

DICE's own Johan Andersson revealed that the company is recruiting active tech experts to flesh out its new "small and collaborative VR team". The VR ensemble will be part of DICE's Frostbite outfit, which is responsible for creating and developing a number of EA's AAA juggernauts from Mass Effect to Dragon Age.

According to info gleaned from DICE's jobs page, the company is hiring five different VR specialists including a creative director, technical artist, software engineer, gameplay engineer and a rendering engineer. "We have a small multi-disciplined team with Frostbite who will work on virtual reality projects and for that team we are now looking for a Sr Technical Artist," reads each job listing.

Oculus VR teased that a "special announcement" was planned for The Game Awards 2015, leading many to believe that a release date for the Oculus Rift was finally coming. Instead of revealing a launch date for its VR headset, Oculus VR opened the door for a new kind of immersive experience to bolster its virtual reality hardware.

Oculus founder and VR pioneer Palmer Luckey revealed that Rock Band will be making the jump to virtual reality, bringing the explosive thrill of on-stage rockshows to millions of gamers worldwide. Oculus teamed up with Harmonix, the studio behind the Rock Band games, and hired real-life bands like Dragonforce to help make the game as authentic as possible.

The trailer reveal was vague in terms of actual gameplay mechanics, but it looks as if Rock Band VR will realistically merge actual guitar playing with virtualized play, so the on-screen queues might not show up. It'll be interesting to see how Rock Band VR actually works, and if it can avoid the semi-nauseating "VR sickness" which stands as a major roadblock for the new platform.

For quite some time, the realm of portable gaming has been met with limitations, including small low-res screens and rather uncomfortable control schemes. With the advent of Microsoft's HoloLens AR headset, however, gamers will soon be able to bring full-scale console gameplay with them everywhere they go.

Windows Holographic project manager Varun Mani shows off some of the HoloLens' potential by streaming Halo 5 gameplay from his Xbox One over to the headset. The HoloLens then projects the overlay onto a nearby wall, fully mirroring the gameplay in real-time. The dev showed how users can drag the streaming pane across surfaces, making everyday objects into screens. "Wish you could take Halo with you everywhere you go? Now you can with HoloLens," reads the video's description.

We've seen Microsoft demo off the HoloLen's amazing AR gaming capabilities in the past, and the company has affirmed that its Xbox One console will be a centerpiece to power its cross-platform games streaming. HoloLens is but a piece of Microsoft's unified Windows 10 ecosystem, which manifests in various features including Xbox One to PC game streaming (with PC to Xbox One streaming coming soon) as well as Lumia-specific features like Continuum.

Nokia has been quiet lately, until its media event in LA yesterday where the company unveiled its new VR camera, OZO. Nokia's new OZO camera is a professional-grade VR camera capable of capturing 360-degree spherical video.

The OZO costs an arm and a leg too, with Nokia unveiling its huge $60,000 price tag - requiring a $5000 deposit to secure one of the first when it ships in Q1 2016. The new VR camera from Nokia features 8 x synchronized 2K x 2K camera sensors, and a 500GB SSD that the footage is recorded to (it holds up to 45 minutes of video).

Jaunt are apparently using the Nokia OZO for their VR content, with Nokia also offering a $1500 docking station, and more.

Samsung's cheap but effective virtual reality device Gear VR started shipping this week. If you haven't gotten your hands on it yet, you may not be able to for awhile, as it's all been bought up through the advertised e-tailers (Amazon, Best Buy, and Samsung.com).

Samsung said of the news, "We are delighted with the overwhelmingly positive response Gear VR has received from reviewers and eager buyers alike. We are working hard to fulfill all orders as quickly as possible."

The popularity isn't too surprising: Samsung is a well-known and respected electronics maker, and Gear VR allows one to test out augmented reality with little sacrifice thanks to the $99 price point.