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The best VR headsets and games to give as gifts
Virtual reality headsets were once so expensive that they would have only made suitable gifts for early adopters and serious gamers. By now, though, prices have dropped across the board, and there are enough compatible games that we're willing to recommend these headsets to a broader audience. The VR section of our holiday gift guide includes items at both the budget end of the spectrum (think: Samsung's Gear VR and Google's refreshed Daydream View) alongside higher-end offerings like the PlayStation VR and Oculus Rift and Touch bundle. Need some games to go with it? We suggest Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Fallout 4 VR, Superhot VR and Rez Infinite. Need some accessories for someone who already owns a headset? Try the PSVR Aim Controller Farpoint bundle or the HTC Vive Deluxe Audio Strap.
BBC launches VR division with ISS spacewalk experience
The BBC is getting serious about VR content production. Today, the broadcaster has released a spacewalk experience and formally announced a VR team that will work with filmers, showrunners and "digital experts" on new pieces. Home — A VR Spacewalk was developed by the BBC and digital production studio Rewind for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift last year. It's based on NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) training programs — yes, the same ones used by astronaut Tim Peake — and takes you through a repair on the outside of the ISS. It's been shown at various film festivals but hasn't been available to the public before today.
VR at the Tate Modern's Modigliani exhibition is no gimmick
In recent years, HTC has partnered with several museums to cultivate VR as a tool for art and learning. New projects are always in the works, and recently the company launched the Vive Arts program, reaffirming its commitment to working with developers and cultural institutions to further explore VR as an artistic and educational medium. The first installation under the Vive Arts banner has now opened at London's Tate Modern gallery as part of a new exhibition celebrating late-19th/early-20th-century Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani. And to its credit, the VR portion of this retrospective is no gimmick.
'Ghost In The Shell' VR arcade game is a four-on-four firefight
For everybody that's watched Ghost in the Shell and thought to themselves, "yes, I too would like to experience tearing tanks apart with my bare hands," your day has come. Well, sort of. After a four-month delay, Bandai Namco's VR Zone Shinjuku is finally ready to launch its Ghost in the Shell: Arise Stealth Hounds game with large-space full-body tracking.
HTC's Vive Tracker adds much-needed tactile control to VR
Virtual reality has made a lot of progress lately toward looking and sounding better, but we're still in the early stages of making it feel better on a tactile level. Standalone headsets like the upcoming Oculus Go and the just-announced HTC Vive Focus will definitely improve the experience by eliminating that pesky umbilical cord that connects you to a computer. However, the realism of many of these simulated worlds is still hamstrung by the need to handle a controller in order to interact with anything. HTC's Vive Tracker, available for pre-order today, goes a long way toward making VR feel more true to the experience it's meant to be simulating, replacing the usual plastic wand with accessories that can emulate the weight and feel of real-world tools like sports equipment and projectile weapons.
HTC Vive dropped its Google Daydream headset to focus on China
Throughout the Vive Focus event today, HTC never once referred to the headset as a Daydream VR device, which was a little odd given how it was first teased as one of the two standalone Daydream devices back at Google I/O. Then came this baffling statement from HTC shortly after the keynote: "We still have a great relationship with Google, but will not be bringing a standalone device to the Western markets on Daydream." In other words, the aforementioned Daydream collaboration between HTC and Google is no more, even though the Vive Focus lives on by way of the Vive Wave VR open platform. This cancellation was later confirmed by Clay Bavor, Google's Vice President of Virtual and Augmented Reality, though he also implied that the other standalone Daydream headset from Lenovo is still in the pipeline.
HTC Vive Focus hands-on: a promising start for next-gen mobile VR
We've already heard the news about HTC's Vive Focus, so it was only natural to get my hands dirty with this standalone 6DoF (six-degree-of-freedom) VR headset. As it turned out, HTC delivered pre-production units to several developers two weeks ago, in order to prep the demo area today. Soon after the opening keynote, I rushed over to the other room and managed to go through seven demos. Given the limited preparation time, the results were unsurprisingly mixed, but the best ones seem to prove that there's a lot of potential in this piece of kit.
HTC Vive Focus is a standalone VR headset with ‘world-scale’ tracking
After a couple of teases earlier this year, HTC has finally unveiled its upcoming standalone VR headset at today's Vive Developer Conference in Beijing. Dubbed the Vive Focus, this all-in-one device features inside-out 6-degree-of-freedom (6DoF) "world-scale" tracking, meaning it doesn't require external base stations nor sensors, so you can get positional tracking anywhere at any time -- even on a train or plane, should you wish to. While at least a couple of Chinese manufacturers have announced standalone 6DoF VR headsets before, HTC claims that the Focus will be the first of such kind to actually hit the market.
Preview 'LA Noire' Switch gameplay before next week's launch
Excited to try LA Noire on your Switch November 14th? Good, because Rockstar Games has something to help make the wait a little easier: A gameplay trailer of the detective simulator running on Nintendo's hybrid portable/home console. From the looks of it, using touchscreen controls for things like adjusting a cypher or making interrogation choices looks pretty natural, but we'll have to wait until we can actually play it to gauge how they work in the real world. Same goes for motion controls with the Joy-cons.
Logitech and HTC Vive bring keyboards into VR
The HTC Vive team and Logitech introduced a new hardware and software package today that aims to help developers enter text while building apps and games. The $150 BRIDGE kit includes a Logitech G keyboard and a Vive tracker that tracks typing and replicates it in VR. While Logitech is only releasing 50 of these kits to start, it's promising to see crossover tech that brings real-life gadgets into virtual reality. And it works across the entire Steam VR system.
PSVR, one year later
PlayStation VR hit the market with a bang in October 2016. It debuted at $400, without the PlayStation Camera or motion controllers. By February, Sony had sold 915,000 headsets -- far surpassing the combined number of HTC Vive and Oculus Rift units estimated to be out in the wild. Sony Interactive Entertainment head Andrew House went on a press tour to brag about the numbers, telling The New York Times PSVR sales were on track to outpace the company's internal goal of 1 million in the first six months. That would have been mid-April. "The company will almost certainly surpass that forecast," The New York Times wrote.
Steam will support VR in very large rooms
If you want to play a room-scale VR game using Steam's current tracking method, you need to do it in a 13-by-13 foot area. That's fine for your living room, but what if you want more space? Don't fret: Valve has announced that SteamVR Tracking 2.0 will support a cavernous 33 feet by 33 feet space starting in early 2018. You'll need four trackers to do it instead of two, but this could be very helpful for arcades or any other experience that could benefit from greater freedom of movement.
USA Today takes you on a VR tour of Trump's proposed border wall
After a series of experiments with virtual reality, USA Today launched its full-fledged VR news show last year. "VRtually There" (as it's known) followed in the footsteps of similar segments from The New York Times and ABC News. Since then, the media outlet's immersive broadcasts have covered everything from extreme sports to marine life. It even hosted a VR livestream of Donald Trump's inauguration. The 45th President of the United States also happens to be the catalyst for its latest (and arguably most ambitious) experience. The Wall: Unknown Stories, Unintended Consequences uses Trump's campaign promise to build a border wall as its launchpad for an in-depth exploration of its possible ramifications.
HTC Vive ditches the PC thanks to China's cloud VR service
One of the main obstacles to popularizing high-end VR amongst consumers is the total cost of ownership. HTC and Oculus have both done their part recently by slashing the prices of their VR kits to $599 and $499, respectively, but you'll still need to fork out at least another $800 if you don't already have a nice PC. That said, the lucky folks in China may soon no longer have to worry about the latter part. Over the weekend, HTC announced its partnership with Dalian Television and Beijing Cyber Cloud to launch the world's first cloud VR service for a commercial trial in Dalian, a city not far from North Korea. So rather than tethering a Vive system to a PC, it'll instead be hooked up to a set-top box with full access to the carrier's VR content store -- and not limited to just five apps per month like HTC's own Viveport subscription offering.
Google Earth VR gets new Street View images
Google announced today that it's adding Street View to the Google Earth VR experience. With a new update, users can check out Street View images from 85 countries provided by the Street View team as well as pictures shared by others from around the world. To get there, while in Earth VR, zoom down closer to the street level and see if your controller says there's Street View imagery available. If so, you can then view the area within a 360 degree photo.
Royal Academy of Arts will showcase VR's influence on artists
This winter, the UK's Royal Academy of Arts will host an exhibit about making art from life, how it has been done throughout history and how technology like VR is influencing artists today. The From Life exhibit will include a look at life drawing, spanning from works done in the 18th century to contemporary pieces, as well as current artists who are using modern technology in their work.
'L.A. Noire' is coming to HTC Vive and modern consoles
Red Dead Redemption 2's release might've gotten pushed into next spring, but Rockstar Games has something else to fill that gap: an unexpected HD (and UHD) remaster of its 2011 detective simulator L.A. Noire. This goes beyond the expected gussied up graphics for modern consoles though, as it's also getting a pack of missions cases designed specifically for virtual reality.
VR throwback 'Duck Season' arrives September 14th
Stress Level Zero's Duck Season caught our eye for a number of reasons. It's not just a VR callback to the NES hit Duck Hunt, it's a broader celebration of '80s culture... with a horror twist, to boot. And now, you'll get to see whether or not it's as fun as it is weird. The studio has announced that Duck Season will be available on both Steam and the Oculus Store on September 14th. Yes, despite the early Vive-focused experience we saw in June, it'll be available for the Oculus Rift as well.
HTC reportedly considering selling its Vive VR business
Back in the day, HTC was one of the biggest and best Android manufacturers out there. It made a number of the most important Android handsets in the early days, including the very first -- the T-Mobile G1 -- as well as Google's Nexus One. In recent years, however, Samsung took over the market with its Galaxy series; as such, HTC has been losing money and struggling for relevance. Given those struggles, it looks like HTC is investigating a major shakeup. Bloomberg is reporting that the company is investigating a sale of some kind.
'Fallout,' 'Doom' and 'Skyrim' will launch in VR this year
The biggest beef for VR gamers is the lack of, well, VR games. That's about to change soon thanks to Bethesda, which revealed that all three of the VR titles it announced previously will be coming to the Playstation VR and HTC Vive by the end of the year. And those titles should have you salivating: Doom VFR arrives on December 1st to the PSVR and HTC Vive, Fallout 4 VR hits the Vive on December 12th, and Skyrim VR will land on the PSVR on November 17th.
