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Watch the World Cup 2018 in VR on Oculus Go and Gear VR
The Oculus Go- and Samsung VR-compatible platform Venues was introduced the back in May as an immersive VR experience placing viewers within a simulated stadium for sports games and events. What better way to kick it off than with the World Cup? Select games will be livestreamed for free in Venues courtesy of Fox Sports, starting with Germany and Mexico's game at 8AM PT on June 17th.
Oculus' mobile VR now supports paid add-ons for apps
Downloadable extras are a staple of the gaming world on PCs, phones and consoles, but not in VR. With Oculus' devices, you've either had to buy another app or hope the creator would be kind enough to throw in thew new content for free. Not anymore: Oculus has introduced beta support for paid DLC in the mobile store serving both its stand-alone Go headset and Samsung's Gear VR. If a game developer wants to expand the story, for example, they can ask you to pay a small amount instead of charging for a wholly separate app.
'Jurassic World: Blue' tells a dinosaur's story on Oculus VR headsets
Now that Oculus Go is here, you can expect a deluge of experiences built to take advantage of affordable VR -- and one of the first will be enticing if you're a Jurassic Park fan. Felix and Paul Studios (the team behind Jurassic World: Apatosaurus) has returned with Jurassic World: Blue, another VR experience based on the dinosaurs-run-amok franchise. The two-part companion to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is designed for both the Oculus Go and Rift, and follows its namesake intelligent velociraptor around Isla Nublar as she struggles against other dinosaurs as well as the island itself. Yes, it's a movie tie-in, but part of the attraction is an improved take on the behind-the-scenes technology.
Oculus Go review: Finally, cheap and easy VR for everyone
The Oculus Go is the most convenient and comfortable VR headset ever made. That might sound like hyperbole, but it's well deserved. With the Rift, its first headset to reach consumers, Oculus helped introduce us to high-end VR. And together with Samsung, it delivered the cheap Gear VR headset for smartphones. But the $199 Go has a far better chance of getting average consumers into virtual reality, because it's dead simple to use.
Oculus Go standalone VR headset is now available for $199
Oculus' first stab at a standalone VR headset is finally here after several months of hype. The Oculus Go is now available to order from the company's website for buyers in 23 countries, with US pricing set at $199 for a version with 32GB of storage and $249 for a 64GB model. Americans can also buy the headset from a mix of online and physical retailers including Amazon, Best Buy and Newegg.
$199 Oculus Go VR headset is ready for pre-order on Amazon
We're just hours away from the first keynote speech of Facebook's F8 event where we're expecting to hear about all kinds of things, including its mass-market standalone VR headset. Facebook showed off early standalone VR work with "Project Santa Cruz" two years ago, then last year revealed the Oculus Go and its $199 price. We got some hands-on time with its comfy wireless experience at GDC recently, but now Amazon watchers Wario64 and the Tracker App note that Monday night it became ready for pre-ordering. If you're already sure you want one of the headsets that will bring a VR experience without requiring any help from a PC or phone then you can go ahead and get in line now. The only issue remaining (other than any idea about details or software support) is the release date, which Amazon has filled in with a likely placeholder of December 31st. Update: After debuting at F8 earlier today, the headset is now officially on sale, and you can read our review right here.
What we saw at GDC 2018!
All good things must come to an end, and today we say goodbye to GDC 2018. As usual, the Game Developers Conference didn't disappoint. During our time here in San Francisco, we found a slew of indie titles that were incredibly fun to play and gorgeous to look at, including Black Future 88, Children of Morta and Guacamelee! 2. Oh and how can we forget Scissors the that than, the weird first-person action game that makes you use physical giant scissors as the controller. We also got to check out Oculus Go, the $200 standalone headset that's expected to launch in May -- it's sleek, lightweight and comfortable.
GDC 2018 by the numbers
It was a wet and wild week at the 2018 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The Engadget team spent our days wandering the show floor, meeting with developers and, of course, playing every game we could get our hands on. Here are a few highlights of the conference.
Hands-on with Oculus Go: Comfy, wireless VR
Oculus Go might be the virtual reality industry's best chance at pushing the medium into the mainstream. Tethered VR devices are unwieldy and generally require a beefy PC rig to run properly; mobile headsets offer a taste of what full, immersive VR has to offer, but they're limited by smartphone specs and battery life. Standalone headsets are the future of VR, and while the Oculus Go isn't the first device in this category, it's an accessible and high-quality option backed by the marketing power of Facebook. Oculus Go is a $200 headset rumored to hit the market at Facebook's F8 conference in May, but the company is showing it off, for the first time, on the GDC show floor -- and we've already gone hands-on.
Standalone Oculus Go headset could debut at Facebook's F8 event
Last year Oculus teased its standalone "Go" VR headset saying it would go on sale for $199 early in 2018. Now Variety cites unnamed sources claiming that it will debut at Facebook's F8 conference May 1st. That should provide the kind of stage Zuckerberg, Barra & Co. would like for their first mass-market virtual reality product, although it does mean we have a few more weeks to wait before it arrives.
Facebook's Hugo Barra says standalone headsets are key to social VR
Even though Oculus didn't have an official presence at CES this year, its leader, Hugo Barra, made a surprise appearance at Qualcomm's press conference to make an important announcement: Xiaomi would be its global hardware partner for Oculus Go, its first standalone VR headset. What's more, Xiaomi would also be making a special variant of the Go, the Mi VR Standalone, especially for China. In an interview with Barra following the press conference, he explained the reason for the push in standalone headsets: social VR.
Oculus taps Xiaomi to make its first standalone VR headset
Hugo Barra, head of VR at Facebook, has just announced at Qualcomm's CES press conference that Oculus has partnered with Xiaomi to make its first Oculus Go headset. It'll also make a second Oculus Go headset especially for the Chinese market called the Mi VR Standalone. Both headsets will be built on the Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile VR platform, and will ship with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset.
Oculus Go headset pops up at the FCC with two models
The Oculus Go headset is edging closer to its promised early 2018 launch, and we're learning more about what that entails thanks to the necessary paperwork. A recently discovered FCC filing has revealed that the stand-alone VR headset will likely be available in models with 32GB and 64GB of storage. It's not clear if there will be microSD expansion, but we wouldn't count on it -- don't be surprised if you're paying for a higher-end model to get enough room for all your apps, even if they're smaller compared to desktop VR titles.
Oculus' standalone headsets point to a changing VR landscape
Last year was the year that VR went mainstream. The Oculus Rift finally shipped to consumers, as did the HTC Vive and the PS VR. But even as the VR industry is finally starting to take off, it's already beginning to splinter. Before, we had phone-based VR like Samsung's Gear VR and Google's Daydream, and then higher-end PC models like the Rift and the Vive. Now, the standalone VR headset is emerging as a category unto itself. And it stands to make the VR landscape a lot more accessible -- and possibly more divisive -- than ever before.
Oculus Go is a $199 VR headset that doesn't require a phone
While Oculus has pioneered the modern consumer VR industry with the Oculus Rift and Samsung's Gear VR, it's been working hard on a truly wireless VR solution as well. Last year, Oculus teased that it was planning on a powerful standalone VR headset called "Project Santa Cruz," and earlier this year, there was news that Oculus was working on yet another tether-free headset codenamed "Pacific." Now, the company is finally ready to unveil its first standalone headset, that's a little more accessible than the Santa Cruz. This is the Oculus Go.
