There’s been a lot of talk up to this point about the future of virtual reality, and how it will eventually become a $30 billion market, between such competitors as Oculus VR, PlayStation VR and HTC’s Vive device. Now, it appears Oculus has made some major moves, with some recent announcements made at this past weekend’s Oculus Connect 2 event.
The event has been recapped here in full on Oculus’ blog page, but here’s a breakdown of some of the announcements:
-A new Consumer Gear VR headset will be introduced this November for $99, a partnership between Oculus Mobile and Samsung. With it, owners of Samsung mobile devices will be able to make proper use of the affordable headset, getting the most out of their virtual experience.
-Several new games are in the works for the device, including original games like Smash Hit by Mediocre Games and Land’s End by UsTwo. The trailer for these games can be found here.
-Old-school games will be getting their due as well, as a number of favorites like Pac-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog and Gauntlet will make their debut in Oculus Arcade later this year.
-Oculus’ video division saw a number of new partnerships emerge, including Twitch, Fox, Lionsgate, Twitch and Facebook, and there’s also one more major partner worth noting. (More on that below.)
Perhaps the one big feature, however, is the debut of Netflix on the Oculus device, which Social Media Marketing Daily noted in its recent article. With it, users can use Netflix’s artificial environment for a different take on movie viewing, bypassing the screen altogether for a whole new experience.
Netflix explained that the new virtual channel was actually the work of chief technology officer for Oculus (and former id Software president) John Carmack. “Honestly, John did most of the development himself,” said Anthony Park, vice president of engineering for Netflix.
With this, Facebook could be moving forward with its “spherical” video approach with the Oculus gear, which Mark Zuckerberg hinted at earlier this year during an F8 developer conference. That’s not to say that all of Oculus’ plans have been laid out the main Oculus Rift gear still has yet to see a release next year but this is definitely a step in an innovative direction for the market.
No word yet on how this will advance augmented reality just yet but considering it’s set to get a push of around $120 billion in its own market, we’re likely to see examples of this sooner rather than later.
