Oculus Rift
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Oculus: ZeniMax lawsuit a 'transparent attempt' to profit from Facebook sale
Oculus VR has issued a legal statement denying ZeniMax Media's claims that Oculus Chief Technology Officer John Carmack developed key VR technology while employed at ZeniMax, therefore entitling ZeniMax and its subsidiary id Software to compensation. "ZeniMax's Complaint falsely claims ownership in Oculus VR technology in a transparent attempt to take advantage of the Oculus VR sale to Facebook," the statement reads. "By deliberately misstating some facts and omitting others, ZeniMax makes the incredible assertion that it, a videogame software publishing company for personal computers and consoles like the Sony PlayStation, invented and developed a virtual reality hardware and software system." The statement continues: "The truth is quite different. There is not a line of ZeniMax code or any of its technology in any Oculus VR product. [...] Until the Facebook deal, and the perceived chance for a quick payout, ZeniMax never raised any claim of infringement against Oculus VR, undoubtedly because ZeniMax never has contributed any intellectual property or technology to Oculus VR." Carmack responded to the allegations last month. "No work I have ever done has been patented," he said. "ZeniMax owns the code that I wrote, but they don't own VR." Today's statement asserts that the Oculus VR headset technology was developed solely by Palmer Luckey, and claims that "[ZeniMax's] lawsuit is nothing more than ZeniMax seeking to correct for a massive missed opportunity through the assertion of meritless litigation." Oculus now demands a jury trial to resolve the issue. [Image: Oculus VR]
Playing virtual beer pong with Control VR
Virtual reality in video games is all about new technology that places players within an interactive digital environment. By now, most know about Oculus VR, Sony's Project Morpheus or augmented reality specs like Google Glass and CastAR. But what do you do with your hands while using these headsets?
You can't cover your eyes in Oculus Rift, a study of Alien: Isolation
With Oculus Rift dev kit 2.0, the world of Alien: Isolation appears more real than ever before – you peer around dark corners by tilting your actual head, you can almost feel the cold metal walls of your busted ship, and you cling desperately to the motion tracker, hoping that little green dot never appears. Because when it does, you're dead. Thankfully, dying in Oculus Rift doesn't equate actual death – this isn't Stay Alive, people – but it certainly feels real, if only for a second. This is my excuse for squealing like a piglet while playing Alien: Isolation on Oculus Rift at E3. It might be flimsy, but it's all I have. Alien: Isolation was one of Joystiq's official game selections of E3 2014, and we discussed how the Oculus version went down, in text form, here. But, of course, seeing is believing.
Bastion senior programmer leaves Supergiant Games for Oculus
Oculus VR continues to snap up talent from other games industry fixtures, as Supergiant Games loses senior programmer Chris Jurney. "I'm joining @Oculus at the end of the month to help make VR awesome," Jurney wrote in a brief Twitter announcement. As senior programmer at Supergiant Games, Jurney's most famous work can be found in critical darling Bastion, and the more recent, yet no less beloved, Transistor. Despite the success of Transistor, Jurney's departure comes as little surprise. He's only the latest in an ever-growing line of games industry professionals to join Oculus VR. The virtual reality firm previously attracted Valve employees Jason Holtman, Tom Forsyth, Steve Lavalle, Atman Binstock and Michael Abrash. Of course, for sheer name recognition, none of those hires hold a candle to DOOM creator John Carmack, who left id Software to assume the role of Chief Technology Officer at the burgeoning virtual reality firm. [Image: Supergiant Games]
Weekends with Engadget: E3 2014, getting sweaty with Sony's Project Morpheus and more!
This week, we stormed the floors of E3 2014, interviewed Shuhei Yoshida and Phil Spencer, took Sony's Project Morpheus for a test-run and watched Amazon launch its Prime Music streaming service. Read on for Engadget's news highlights from the last seven days. Oh, and be sure to subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!
Engadget Daily: surviving Aliens on the Oculus Rift, a guide to drones and more!
Today, we fight off aliens on the Oculus Rift, meet SoftBank's new robot, Pepper-kun, investigate the reality of commercialized drones in the US and go hands-on with Samsung's Galaxy Tab S. Read on for Engadget's news highlights from the last 24 hours.
Oculus CEO: 'We invited' Sony to see Oculus prototypes
Oculus VR isn't threatened by Sony's rival virtual reality headset, Project Morpheus, and Oculus even invited Sony to check out its own internal prototypes, CEO Brendan Iribe told Joystiq at E3. Sony then returned the favor and invited the Oculus team to see Project Morpheus. See? We all can be friends. Oculus made headlines recently when Facebook acquired the company for $2 billion. Iribe said that even though the deal was a surprise to most people, it made perfect sense to Oculus founder Palmer Luckey: "Many people, I still think, don't really understand or know that Palmer was the most excited about this partnership. Because he felt like, from the beginning, we got into this to make VR work and make it for the masses, and make it work at a scale and a comfort level that could hit the entire population."
E3 2014: Hands-on with EVE Valkyrie and a chat about Legion
Why does the guy who gets motion sickness keep getting sent out into space!? Someone on Massively's staff is really looking out for you guys and gals with weak stomachs because once again I was sent to chat with CCP about EVE universe stuff and take an Oculus Rift for a spin at this year's E3. Spoiler alert: I managed to keep down my breakfast and have fun. First up was EVE Valkyrie, the virtual reality game that this time last year was still known as EVR. While the game looked a bit familiar, there were certainly some differences. First is the addition of Rán (it sounds like "roun"). Rán is sort of the first Valkyrie and your trainer, acting as sort of your flight instructor and mission debriefer, who helped give me a sense of setting. EVR was fun before, no doubt, but it was a stripped-down flight simulator (not a bad thing). Having a narrator makes it feel more like a game. The addition of some brighter and bolder colors helps boost immersion too.
Oculus game teaches journalists how to survive in war zones
You're sat in the back of an armored personnel carrier when, suddenly, something hits you and the lights go out. Stumbling out of the darkness, you emerge onto the battlefield armed with just a video camera and a first-aid kit. Laying in front of you is a wounded soldier screaming for help, but would you know what to do? This is Stringer, an Oculus Rift title designed not as an alternative to Battlefield or Call of Duty, but to teach journalists sent into war zones how to survive.
Confessions of a VR Virgin: Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus
While the rest of gaming world seemingly hopped on the VR bus as soon as Oculus Rift was announced, I've been skeptical. Every time a friend or developer started to extol the virtues of strapping on a Weapon X mask to play Mirror's Edge, I'd ask the same question: How long did you play while wearing it? Half an hour tops? No way anyone's going to want to sit around marathoning Skyrim with shoebox-sized goggles on their dome. That may still be true, but my doubts were unfounded. I finally put the big gaming VR helmets on my face at E3 2014 and took them for a quick spin. I have no idea if I'll ever want to sit in my living room playing four hours of Yakuza 8 wearing an Oculus or Morpheus, but I do think VR technology adds a remarkable bodily element to video games that's unlike anything else. My experiences with Oculus and Morpheus were also dramatically different.
Military's 'Plan X' would put cyberweapons into the hands of soldiers
A soldier's natural home is on the battlefield. So what happens when to infantry when conflicts move online? It turns out that DARPA, America's mad science division, has a solution called "Plan X." The project is designed to make cyber-weapons as easy to use as a pistol, but also to use technology to turn soldiers into digital warriors. One of the more realistic aspects of the project is to equip marines with hardware that'll sniff out wireless networks that could be hosting booby traps.
nDreams invites Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus to attend The Assembly
PlayStation Home content developer nDreams will be opening the door to a world of scientific discovery, experimentation and what can only be described as a seriously hostile work environment with its newly-announced game, The Assembly. Built for Oculus Rift and Sony's Project Morpheus, the game will have players solving puzzles and exploring the pristine halls of a fictional company - called The Assembly - that nDreams described to Joystiq as "Google gone rogue." We're not sure how far Google is from dissecting crows and sticking ominous devices that flash red onto the necks of mannequins, but hopefully nDreams' hypothetical comparison remains hypothetical.
Mortal Online upgrades its graphics engine
If you log into Mortal Online today, you'll be treated to a vastly upgraded game. The team switched the game's visuals to an updated Unreal graphics engine, including new lighting, better grass, Oculus Rift support, and "countless gameplay improvements." "Myrland has been remade, from the ground up, in a new modern terrain system," Star Vault wrote in a newsletter. "This means not only does the terrain look much better and less jagged, but also performs loads better." Today's changes mean that players should start seeing faster updates in the future. The patch notes for V1.80.00.03 are up for your perusal. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Oculus Rift and Alien: Isolation: I see you
Alien: Isolation is running in prototype form on Oculus Rift at E3. Two things about that: The full game isn't coming to Oculus Rift for sure just yet. It's terrifying. Creative Lead Al Hope first saw the Oculus Rift's horror potential after a demo at GDC in 2013, he told Joystiq. Creative Assembly decided to give it a try and built the demo now stalking the booths of E3 2014. "To be clear, what we announced last night is that we're showing a prototype of Alien: Isolation on Oculus Rift," Hope said. He made it clear that a demo didn't equate a full game, at least not for now. This is a blessing and a curse, because Alien: Isolation on Oculus Rift is great, and also greatly horrifying. We sat down with it on Oculus Rift dev kit 2.0, and those few dark minutes were easily 10,000 times scarier than the standard controller-and-screen version.
Bloomberg built a virtual trading terminal using Oculus Rift
No matter how many screens they add to their setup, traders are limited to a finite amount of display real estate. To solve that problem, Bloomberg LP's turned to the virtual-reality headset Oculus Rift. Don't expect to see a room full of Oculus-equipped traders anytime soon, though; it's just a prototype, albeit one that Bloomberg's showing off at its Next Big Thing Summit this week.
EVE Evolved: Growing the EVE Universe
For much of EVE Online's early history, the playerbase saw consistent organic growth with no end in sight and developer CCP Games was able to stay laser-focused on its single game. The EVE universe has even had to grow several times to accomodate the increase in players, most notably with the opening of the drone nullsec regions and Apocrypha's addition of 2,499 hidden wormhole systems. EVE has survived the launch of countless high-profile MMOs in its lifetime and even weathered the monumental industry shift toward free-to-play business models, but it hasn't been plain sailing. While subscriptions have reportedly grown year-on-year, EVE's average concurrent player numbers haven't really increased since 2009. The active EVE playerbase isn't really growing, so it should come as no surprise that CCP has been trying to expand the EVE universe on other fronts. Though the first attempt with console FPS DUST 514 was an unmitigated disaster, EVE players still seem quietly optimistic about its PC reboot as EVE: Legion. Dogfighter EVE: Valkyrie has also piqued the interest of the emerging virtual reality community and has the potential to introduce EVE to thousands of fresh faces. EVE's Creative Director Torfi Frans Olafsson even hinted during Fanfest 2014 that EVE Online, Valkyrie and Legion might all share a single login and that characters may eventually be able to switch between games at will. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I look at why I think a shared login could be a stroke a genius, and interview EVE's Creative Director and Valkyrie's Executive Producer to find out what the future holds for the EVE universe.
Oculus Rift-compatible Control VR gloves put the whole (virtual) world in your hands
How would you like to do your computer work on a futuristic, hologram-style interface while sitting on the Iron Throne, which also happens to be on Mars? Well, you could luck out and use a genie's three wishes, or you could use Control VR, which features just such an image in its promotional materials. Control VR is an Oculus Rift-compataible apparatus designed to give users a more precise level of interaction with their virtual reality. Consisting of a chest harness, two gloves, and sensors which wrap around the forearm and bicep, Control VR is touted on its Kickstarter page as a versatile tool for virtual reality interaction. While the applications for gaming should be obvious - imagine seeing your hands accurately represented in-game as they hold a gun or cast a spell, for example - the team behind Control VR also proposes it for other uses, such as cheap and easy motion capture for animators and navigating computer interfaces with your hands, Minority Report-style. Backing the project at $350 will net you a harness and controls for one arm, while pledging $600 will grant you a harness and controls for both arms. The Control VR team is seeking $250,000 to get the project's feet (hands?) off the ground; as of writing, they have raised approximately $200,000, with 27 days left in the campaign. [Image: Control VR]
Oculus-only platformer coming from Words with Friends co-creator
Words With Friends co-creator Paul Bettner's new development company Playful Corp will show off its introductory game at E3, Lucky's Tale. The game is a third-person platformer with an intriguing twist: It is exclusive to the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Along with his brother David, Bettner left Zynga in October 2012, nearly two years after the publisher purchased their former studio, NewToy. Lucky's Tale is one of two games in development at Playful Corp, the other being an open-world sandbox game known as Creativerse. Playful expects to bring Creativerse to the Oculus Rift following its launch on Steam "later this year." Oculus VR also announced the hire of former Valve employee Jason Holtman today, the "driving force" behind Steam. [Image: Playful Corp]
Oculus picks up Jason Holtman, a 'driving force' behind Steam
The Valve employees go marching one-by-one, hurrah, hurrah. Oculus has tapped another ex-Valve employee to help develop their virtual reality technology; this time, it's Jason Holtman, who previously served as Valve's chief of business development. Oculus credits Holtman as a "driving force" behind the creation of Steam. "Jason will be spearheading the business development and partnership side of the Oculus platform working closely with Marshall, head of platform engineering, and David, head of worldwide publishing, with a focus on building the world's best developer and player VR ecosystem," Oculus said. "We're thrilled to welcome him to the team." Oculus isn't done yet, though. The company is still hiring, with more than a dozen open positions. Think you're qualified? Who knows, the next name we write about could be yours. [Image: Oculus]
QUBE: Director's Cut spins a new story on Steam, 15% off
QUBE: Director's Cut is now available on Steam, and is 15 percent off ($8.49) until Wednesday, May 28. The Director's Cut edition features a new story and additional puzzles, and is described by developer Toxic Games as QUBE's "definitive version." It also adds a ten-level time trial mode and Oculus Rift support. The original version of QUBE first arrived on PC in December 2011, and our review of it noted that game wasn't strong on narrative, but acted more as a "delightful on-screen Rubik's Cube." The first-person puzzler draws many comparisons to Valve's Portal, and has players moving blocks to solve puzzles with increasing difficulty. QUBE: Director's Cut will launch on PS3, Wii U and Xbox One "throughout 2014." [Image: Toxic Games]
