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Joystiq Weekly: Facebook buys Oculus VR, Bioshock Infinite DLC review, GDC videos and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. If GDC and this past week has taught us anything, it's that almost no one's happy with the present state of reality. Virtual reality headset Oculus Rift now has a pretty cushion-y parent company, the comparable Project Morpheus potentially has Sony's developers behind it, and Microsoft might be toying with their own ideas for augmented reality. The common consensus seems to be "let's reach the future, even if it means strapping displays to our faces." We're starting to wonder what Nintendo's non-wearable health technology is going to look like. If it's not something to block out our primary reality, and if it's planned to launch through Nintendo's fiscal year of 2016, will it be something to supplement devices we already own? Maybe we'll face a line of AdventureTrek treadmills, where we run and jump our way through iconic Nintendo universes. Maybe it will involve a Pokemon MMO played with pedometer devices like the Pokemon Pikachu, with dungeon raids consisting of a dozen people throwing their devices into dryers for the best possible attack speed. Or maybe neither of those ideas! Because they're garbage. What isn't garbage is the slew of news, reviews and original content we've lined up for you in this week's Joystiq Weekly. Even if you don't care about VR, there's news of a legal tussle between 3D Realms and Gearbox over Duke Nukem, a hint of The Last Of Us reaching the PS4 and a review of Bioshock Infinite's Burial at Sea Episode Two. There's also video features from GDC for Fantasia: Music Evolved, Goat Simulator and Videoball, in case you like moving pictures with your words. We've summarized all that and more for you to delve into after the break!
Valve's VR guru jumps ship to become Oculus' head scientist
As it turns out, not everyone is bummed that Oculus VR will soon fall into Facebook's gaping maw. Valve's Michael Abrash -- one of the most notable names in the company's ambitious VR group -- just announced that he's joined Oculus as its new chief scientist. After long stints as a developer (he worked on Quake and Windows NT, among other things) and technical writer, Gabe Newell finally convinced Abrash to join Valve in 2011. It didn't take long for him to start dishing out the good stuff, either. Since then, he's been tackling the difficulties of making VR truly work... and trying to deal with the very real possibility that VR would never be as pervasive or as meaningful as it could be. But now? He's confident that VR can become "the Final Platform -- the platform to end all platforms." And it's all because of Facebook. "Facebook's acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory," Abrash wrote. "The resources and long-term commitment that Facebook brings gives Oculus the runway it needs to solve the hard problems of VR -- and some of them are hard indeed." While we may never get that Oculus-friendly version of Minecraft, at least one brilliant guy thinks we're on the verge of something great. We'll soon see how right he is.
Valve R&D head Michael Abrash joins Oculus as chief scientist
Michael Abrash, the leader of Valve's Research and Development team, joined Oculus VR as chief scientist today. The news follows Oculus' recent acquisition by Facebook to the tune of $2 billion, which Abrash addressed, in a blog post on Oculus VR's site, as a promise that virtual reality "is going to happen in all its glory." "The resources and long-term commitment that Facebook brings gives Oculus the runway it needs to solve the hard problems of VR – and some of them are hard indeed," Abrash wrote. "I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can." As of January, Abrash was at the forefront of Valve's efforts to work with Oculus to develop in-home virtual reality solutions. Valve's VR leader, Atman Binstock, joined Oculus earlier this month to lead a new Seattle-based team as chief architect. Abrash described his "unlikely" journey to Valve and now Oculus VR in the blog and his work with John Carmack, who joined Oculus in August as the company's CTO. Oculus' own path from a $2.5 million Kickstarter project to a $2 billion sale is equally remarkable, to be sure. [Image: Oculus VR]
The Engadget Podcast is live at 12PM ET!
Oh Oculus, we hardly knew ye and now you're a part of the Zuckerborg. Whither goes your Rift? Is Virtual Reality now just a shill for status updates, virtual walls you can poster and an even more immersive way to experience other people's vacation photos? Shudder. This isn't how it was meant to be -- how we thought it would be -- but then again, we'd pretty much do anything for $2 billion, too. So, who are we to judge? Oh, that's right, we're the Engadget Enemigos! And we're here to sip some coffee and talk you through the surprise of Palmer Luckey's lucky stroke of Facebook fortune. We might even touch upon HTC's slippery and brand spankin' new One -- if you behave. It's all happening at noon today, so turn on, tune in and loves us, won't you? [Image credit: Denelson83 / Wikimedia Commons (Test Pattern)]
Investors unfriend Facebook stock, Candy Crush dev IPO not so sweet
Facebook's current status after the $2 billion acquisition of virtual reality outfit Oculus yesterday? It's complicated. The social media company's stock didn't rally on the news today, dropping nearly seven percent to $60.38/share (-4.51). Reaction within the games industry has been strong to the purchase. Markus "Notch" Persson swiftly cancelled a planned Minecraft port for Oculus noting "Facebook creeps [him] out." Candy Crush Saga developer King also had its initial price offering on the New York Stock Exchange today and swiped away 15.5 percent of its value, down $3.50 to $19. Bloomberg points out the drop is one of the largest in recent memory for a new stock. No word yet if King is trying to trademark failure. Tomorrow is another day.
CCP still 'excited for friends and colleagues at Oculus'
News of the Oculus-Facebook buyout may have saddened gamers -- including Minecraft maestro Markus "Notch" Persson -- but EVE Online developer CCP is taking the corporate high road. The company, which is polishing a virtual reality action title called EVE: Valkyrie that will be co-published by Oculus, put a positive spin on the future of the Rift without mentioning the $2 billion Facebook acquisition. "We're very excited for our friends and colleagues at Oculus," CCP told Engadget. "We share their vision about the future of VR and gaming and are looking forward to participating in the consumer launch of the Oculus Rift with Eve: Valkyrie." CCP announced at last week's GDC that Valkyrie will also appear on the PlayStation 4 in conjunction with Sony's Project Morpheus initiative.
Daily Roundup: new HTC One review, Facebook acquires Oculus VR and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Palmer Luckey says Oculus' future 'just became crystal clear,' but Facebook's impact is still murky
If you're reading this, you're likely already aware that social networking juggernaut Facebook has just announced plans for yet another multi-billion dollar acquisition. This time it's spending $2 billion dollars (that's $17 billion less than WhatsApp for those keeping track) to buy virtual reality headset maker Oculus. Just minutes after the announcement, the startup's founder, Palmer Luckey took to Reddit to provide some perspective about the deal: "When Facebook first approached us about partnering, I was skeptical. As I learned more about the company and its vision and spoke with Mark, the partnership not only made sense, but became the clear and obvious path to delivering virtual reality to everyone. Facebook was founded with the vision of making the world a more connected place. Virtual reality is a medium that allows us to share experiences with others in ways that were never before possible."
Instagram crosses 200 million users, welcomes Oculus to the family
In news that Zuckerberg, Luckey & Co. hope bodes well for Facebook's latest acquisition, Instagram just announced it's crossed 200 million users, with over 50 million joining in the last six months and 50 billion photos shared so far. Facebook CEO Zuckerberg mentioned the number during his conference call discussing his company's purchase of Oculus VR, highlighting Instagram's better-than-expected growth as an example of how it continues to operate independently within Facebook. Recent developments have included ads, a revamped app for Android and testing out integration of Facebook Places instead of Foursquare, but so far Instagram doesn't even use Facebook accounts for logins. We'll see if that changes anytime soon, or if the team finds itself redirected to work on filters for the virtual reality experiences its owner is suddenly jumping into.
Pre-orders for second development kit of Oculus Rift now live
Oculus Rift, get your Oculus Rift, here! Well, not here, but those ready to take the plunge into virtual reality can now pre-order the second version of the headset's developer kit via the Oculus company site. Nabbing one will cost you $350, and shipments are expected in July of this year. The new kit - and the site stresses this is a kit, not a consumer product - features low-persistence OLED displays at a resolution of 960 x 1080 per eye, as well as positional head tracking via an external camera. The Developer Kit 2 announcement on the Oculus website notes that this opens up such possibilities as "peering around corners, leaning in to get a closer look at objects in the world, and kicking back on a virtual beach." "DK2 is not the Holodeck yet," the company states on the kit's announcement page, "but it's a major step in the right direction." [Image: Oculus]
Valve adds 'virtual reality mode' to latest Steam beta
Valve is gradually embracing the warmth of an enormous video screen being mounted to its face, as it updated the beta client of Steam to add a "virtual reality mode" option. The newest beta version of Steam removes the "-vr" command line option in favor of a button in the view menu, which only appears for those with SteamVR installed when a head-mounted display like the Oculus Rift is detected. Virtual reality became a big focal point for Valve in recent years, and its former head of VR joined Oculus VR's new Seattle team just one week ago. Our friends at Engadget seem to believe that this week, the week of the Game Developers Conference, is the time that the virtual reality landscape will begin to "look very different." Given the recent rumor that Sony will unveil its own virtual reality headset in the coming days, we tend to agree. [Image: Oculus VR]
Daily Roundup: Garmin Vivofit review, Amazon raises the price of Prime, and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Daily Roundup: Blackberry's identity crisis, Oculus Rift meets Game of Thrones and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Valve VR leader joins Oculus R&D with new Seattle team
Oculus has scooped up Atman Binstock as its new Chief Architect; he's the former Valve virtual reality head and one of the leaders of the VR Room demo at Steam Dev Days. Binstock will head up a new Oculus R&D team in Seattle, Washington, which joins existing offices in Irvine, California, Dallas, Texas, and San Francisco, California. It's worth noting that Valve is based in Bellvue, Washington, roughly 15 minutes from Seattle. Binstock says he began working on VR at Valve two years ago, after a pitch from Valve R&D leader Michael Abrash: "Michael convinced me that this was basically the myth of technological inevitability: the idea that because technologies were possible, they would just naturally happen. Instead, the way technological revolutions actually happen involve smart people working hard on the right problems at the right time. And if I wanted a revolution, and I thought I was capable of contributing, I should be actively pushing it forward. I signed up." Valve and Oculus are working together on the Oculus VR headset, and together they created the most recent Oculus prototype, the Crystal Cove. Valve doesn't plan on releasing an in-house VR headset, and will instead focus on helping Oculus. In February, we learned Oculus was running out of dev kits because some components were no longer manufactured. Now, the company has closed sales in most regions and it's ramping down production. Oculus writes, "We never expected to sell so many Rift development kits and the fact that we're close to being sold out after 60,000 kits is nothing short of incredible - Thank you for your support!" There's no word on a new dev kit model. [Image: Oculus VR]
Oculus ends Rift dev kit sales citing parts supply issues
As forewarned, Oculus VR is officially ending sales of its first-run development kit. "We're quickly running out of stock for the Rift development kit, so we've shut down sales in most regions," a note from Oculus says. Specifically, the issue comes from certain pieces of the headset "no longer being manufactured." That said, those headsets are more than a little long in the tooth at this point: both the HD version and the Crystal Cove prototype take giant leaps past the first dev unit, to say nothing of Valve's prototype. Oculus isn't offering anything official in terms of word on new dev kits (beyond what the company's CTO told us last year), but we expect many devs already have some form of new hardware from the fast-growing VR company.
Oculus Rift running out of stock as some components cease production
Oculus VR can't construct additional Oculus Rift dev kits because some components are no longer being manufactured, an Oculus community manager posted on Reddit. The company is now relying on on existing stock, but that's "quickly running out," the post reads. Oculus is investigating alternate sources for the required materials, but for now the team will simply suspend sales by region as its stock runs dry. Oculus Rift dev kits are currently still on sale in the US, Canada, countries in the EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland and Norway. There are more than 50,000 dev kits out in the wild, the spokesperson says. There's no word on the existence of a dev kit 2.0 (though it seems Reddit would love one). "We never expected to sell so many development kits and VR only made this much progress with the community's support and enthusiasm," the community manager says. "Even though we never wanted to sell out, it's a good problem to have – thank you!" If those missing components aren't electrical or lens-based, we may have a solution for Oculus: 3D printing. The future of gaming meets the future of manufacturing in one tidy hunk of layered plastic. [Image: Oculus VR]
Oculus is running short on dev kits due to nearly-extinct components
While you're still dreaming of the day you can put on an Oculus VR headset and become a space accountant, devs have long been able to buy a starter kit for their projects. Any dev who doesn't have it yet might have a hard time getting one, though, because the company will soon stop selling its developer kits. According to a Reddit post by the startup's community manager, there's a shortage because some of the headset's components are no longer being manufactured. Although Oculus is looking for other sources, it can't quite tell when production can start again -- even worse, it's fast running out of stock. The firm has remaining units it intends to distribute in select locations, but anyone who misses out might just have to wait for the second developer kit to come out.
The Elder Scrolls Online has been given (very) unofficial Oculus Rift support
If you're looking forward to playing The Elder Scrolls Online but want to really feel that you're in the game, your options are a bit limited. Odds are you don't want someone standing by to hack at your torso with an edged weapon during on-screen combat, for instance. But if you've got an Oculus Rift and want the full VR experience, that might be a bit more doable after all; a fan has hammered together unofficial support for the headset. The video contained past the break shows about five minutes of footage -- nothing novel, but more than enough to get a sense of the game running on the Rift's paired screens. The fan in question is aware that this is breaking the terms of his testing agreement; however, he hopes that this will convince ZeniMax Online to add in native Oculus support before the game goes live. If you want a peek at what it looks like, feel free to check out the video past the break.
Daily Roundup: Rugby on an Oculus Rift, Sony sells its PC business, and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Daily Roundup: Xbox One update inbound, Sony Cyber-shot RX10 review and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
