OcUK Staff
Hi guys, I was sent a list of the announcements for Oculus and VR at the OC4 conference in San Jose. Thought you guys might appreciate having them all in one place so I performed the arduous task of copy pasting them here. I expect my medal in the post soon.
VR Hardware
Oculus Go
An all-new standalone headset that doesn't require you to snap in a phone or attach a cable. It'll be available early 2018 and cost $199. Oculus Go is hands-down the easiest way for people to get into VR. It's perfect for people who haven't experienced VR before to play games, watch movies, or hang out with friends. Oculus Go features orientation tracking and will ship with a 3DOF controller. Dev kits will ship in November.
Project Santa Cruz
The latest update to our work on Santa Cruz, a completely untethered, positionally tracked headset. Over the past year, we've brought in fully tracked 6DOF controllers to enable true hand presence in a standalone form factor. This helps deliver Rift-like immersive content in a standalone headset. We'll get them into developer hands next year.
New permanent price for Rift
The Rift bundle is available right now on Oculus.com (http://oculus.com/) and retailers worldwide for $399 (was $499).
Oculus for Business
An all-in-one solution for businesses looking to integrate VR for workplace training, collaboration, retail sales, and much more. Each bundle includes Rift, Touch, three sensors, extra facial interfaces, and a four-meter dual input cable. Available for sale online (at www.oculus.com/business), the bundle also includes dedicated customer support, as well as a new commercial license and warranty, and is priced at $900.
New Oculus Software
Rift Core 2.0: the first major redesign of the core Rift software experience includes two systems: Dash and a completely re-designed Oculus Home.
Dash
The new UI and universal menu experience in Rift. Bring your entire PC desktop and dock of apps to an
overlay that carries across your virtual space; use intuitive Touch controls to work and play in VR.
Oculus Home
Opens up the platform for customization and expression. Design your own place in VR with environments, decorative elements, and interactive gadgets. You can also share and visit your friends' places to see what they've created, with more opportunities for co-presence in the future.
Social VR Products
Venues
Venues is a brand new experience launching next year that lets you watch concerts and catch premieres of new movies and TV shows with thousands of people. More announcements about the content lineup coming next year.
3D Posts on Facebook
A native 3D media type in Facebook News Feed. We're opening up the power of immersive experiences to everyone with the ability to share virtual content beyond the boundary of the headset in full interactive 3D. Starting with objects created in Oculus Medium and marker drawings from Facebook Spaces, and opening to more VR content types soon.
Live 360 video in Facebook Spaces: Brings the wealth of Live 360 content from Facebook into social VR.
People can view Facebook Live 360 videos in Spaces to feel like they're anywhere in the world with friends in real-time. Rolling out this year.
Immersive 3D entertainment in Facebook Spaces: A new way to experience art and entertainment created specifically for VR with your friends in Spaces. Starting with animated short stories created in Quill. Kits in Facebook Spaces: Anyone in Spaces can make their very own kit (like a game or a set of decorations) that they can save in their space, use again and again, and share with friends. Launching this year.
Share in Gear VR: With our new Share API you can easily allow people to post content from your app straight to Facebook, from selfies to pieces of art.
Livestreaming comments in Gear VR: Now, when you livestream from Gear VR, you can see the comments your friends make on Facebook displayed inside your headset—making streaming more interactive than ever before.
We're also adding a new app feature that helps reconnect friends in — and out — of VR. The Oculus App will notify people when a friend goes into Gear VR. From the notification, friends have the option to request to tune in. If accepted, they'll be connected through a 2D stream and voice chat, and can even jump into Rooms if they have a headset nearby.
New Content
Coco
Pixar's first VR experience, with the visual and storytelling magic only they could produce. Coming to Rift November 15 and Gear VR November 22, the day of the film's release.
Space Explorers
New project from Emmy winners Felix & Paul Studios, Space Explorers lets you prepare for launch with NASA's astronauts. Coming to Gear VR and Rift in early 2018.
Stranger Things/Face Your Fears
This brand-new experience in fan-favorite Face Your Fears directly ties to Netflix's Stranger Things when your VR headset takes you to The Upside Down. Launching on Halloween.
Blade Runner Memory Lab
Uncover a thrilling conspiracy in the world of the Blade Runner: 2049 motion picture from Alcon
Entertainment. The second of three Blade Runner: 2049 experiences coming to Rift October 19 and on
Samsung Gear VR October 26.
Games
Echo Combat
Ready At Dawn, the creators of Echo Arena (Critic's Choice Best VR Game at E3) announced Echo Combat, an expansion to the Echo universe. Take flight with this zero-g FPS in 2018.
Lone Echo
Lone Echo earned a score of 89 on Metacritic in July, and fans have made it one of the most popular titles on the Oculus platform. Stay tuned—we teased on stage at OC4 that Liv and Jack's story isn't over just yet.
MARVEL Powers United VR - Thor Reveal
We revealed Thor as a new playable character in the cast of MARVEL: Powers United VR. The game will launch in 2018 with more than 20 playable characters.
Respawn - Oculus Partnership
Respawn Entertainment, the legendary creators behind beloved franchises like Titanfall and Call of Duty, is partnering with Oculus and going all-in on a major VR title due for release in 2019.
Developer Products
Explore API
A brand new API. We're opening the power of our recommendation engine to let developers create custom stories and boost discoverability of their content on mobile VR.
New Oculus Avatars
Oculus Avatars introduced a new look, with more options for skin, hair, and clothing for a more personalized appearance. Developers will also be able to design custom clothing and accessories that match the theme of their game and app. New Oculus Avatars will launch in early 2018.
Additionally, Avatars will enable cross-platform support. And, later next year, the system will incorporate
technology for more dynamic avatars, with lip-synced mouth movement, eye movement, and facial
expressions.
Lost Frame Capture
A new Oculus Debug feature that shows you exactly where you're not hitting frame rate so you can more efficiently test and improve your Rift apps before submitting.
Multiview
A rendering technology that lowers the overhead on mobile, to allow developers more freedom and richer scenes. Developed over four years in partnership with Khronos, Unity, Unreal, AMD, and NVIDIA. When enabled, Multiview renders a scene only once, making draw calls cheaper and giving the CPU more room to hit frame rate. (Without this feature, engines render the scene twice: first to render the left-eye image, and then again for the right-eye image.) An automated technique, Multiview can increase draw call performance by up to 40%.
Tools to Build Safe Communities
New APIs, alongside our existing Rooms and Recently Met APIs, make it easier for developers to build safety features into their social apps and experiences. We're starting with dedicated platform features to allow in-app blocking and reporting, available free to developers using the Rooms API. More features for more monitoring, reporting, and enforcement will come next year.
VR Hardware
Oculus Go
An all-new standalone headset that doesn't require you to snap in a phone or attach a cable. It'll be available early 2018 and cost $199. Oculus Go is hands-down the easiest way for people to get into VR. It's perfect for people who haven't experienced VR before to play games, watch movies, or hang out with friends. Oculus Go features orientation tracking and will ship with a 3DOF controller. Dev kits will ship in November.
Project Santa Cruz
The latest update to our work on Santa Cruz, a completely untethered, positionally tracked headset. Over the past year, we've brought in fully tracked 6DOF controllers to enable true hand presence in a standalone form factor. This helps deliver Rift-like immersive content in a standalone headset. We'll get them into developer hands next year.
New permanent price for Rift
The Rift bundle is available right now on Oculus.com (http://oculus.com/) and retailers worldwide for $399 (was $499).
Oculus for Business
An all-in-one solution for businesses looking to integrate VR for workplace training, collaboration, retail sales, and much more. Each bundle includes Rift, Touch, three sensors, extra facial interfaces, and a four-meter dual input cable. Available for sale online (at www.oculus.com/business), the bundle also includes dedicated customer support, as well as a new commercial license and warranty, and is priced at $900.
New Oculus Software
Rift Core 2.0: the first major redesign of the core Rift software experience includes two systems: Dash and a completely re-designed Oculus Home.
Dash
The new UI and universal menu experience in Rift. Bring your entire PC desktop and dock of apps to an
overlay that carries across your virtual space; use intuitive Touch controls to work and play in VR.
Oculus Home
Opens up the platform for customization and expression. Design your own place in VR with environments, decorative elements, and interactive gadgets. You can also share and visit your friends' places to see what they've created, with more opportunities for co-presence in the future.
Social VR Products
Venues
Venues is a brand new experience launching next year that lets you watch concerts and catch premieres of new movies and TV shows with thousands of people. More announcements about the content lineup coming next year.
3D Posts on Facebook
A native 3D media type in Facebook News Feed. We're opening up the power of immersive experiences to everyone with the ability to share virtual content beyond the boundary of the headset in full interactive 3D. Starting with objects created in Oculus Medium and marker drawings from Facebook Spaces, and opening to more VR content types soon.
Live 360 video in Facebook Spaces: Brings the wealth of Live 360 content from Facebook into social VR.
People can view Facebook Live 360 videos in Spaces to feel like they're anywhere in the world with friends in real-time. Rolling out this year.
Immersive 3D entertainment in Facebook Spaces: A new way to experience art and entertainment created specifically for VR with your friends in Spaces. Starting with animated short stories created in Quill. Kits in Facebook Spaces: Anyone in Spaces can make their very own kit (like a game or a set of decorations) that they can save in their space, use again and again, and share with friends. Launching this year.
Share in Gear VR: With our new Share API you can easily allow people to post content from your app straight to Facebook, from selfies to pieces of art.
Livestreaming comments in Gear VR: Now, when you livestream from Gear VR, you can see the comments your friends make on Facebook displayed inside your headset—making streaming more interactive than ever before.
We're also adding a new app feature that helps reconnect friends in — and out — of VR. The Oculus App will notify people when a friend goes into Gear VR. From the notification, friends have the option to request to tune in. If accepted, they'll be connected through a 2D stream and voice chat, and can even jump into Rooms if they have a headset nearby.
New Content
Coco
Pixar's first VR experience, with the visual and storytelling magic only they could produce. Coming to Rift November 15 and Gear VR November 22, the day of the film's release.
Space Explorers
New project from Emmy winners Felix & Paul Studios, Space Explorers lets you prepare for launch with NASA's astronauts. Coming to Gear VR and Rift in early 2018.
Stranger Things/Face Your Fears
This brand-new experience in fan-favorite Face Your Fears directly ties to Netflix's Stranger Things when your VR headset takes you to The Upside Down. Launching on Halloween.
Blade Runner Memory Lab
Uncover a thrilling conspiracy in the world of the Blade Runner: 2049 motion picture from Alcon
Entertainment. The second of three Blade Runner: 2049 experiences coming to Rift October 19 and on
Samsung Gear VR October 26.
Games
Echo Combat
Ready At Dawn, the creators of Echo Arena (Critic's Choice Best VR Game at E3) announced Echo Combat, an expansion to the Echo universe. Take flight with this zero-g FPS in 2018.
Lone Echo
Lone Echo earned a score of 89 on Metacritic in July, and fans have made it one of the most popular titles on the Oculus platform. Stay tuned—we teased on stage at OC4 that Liv and Jack's story isn't over just yet.
MARVEL Powers United VR - Thor Reveal
We revealed Thor as a new playable character in the cast of MARVEL: Powers United VR. The game will launch in 2018 with more than 20 playable characters.
Respawn - Oculus Partnership
Respawn Entertainment, the legendary creators behind beloved franchises like Titanfall and Call of Duty, is partnering with Oculus and going all-in on a major VR title due for release in 2019.
Developer Products
Explore API
A brand new API. We're opening the power of our recommendation engine to let developers create custom stories and boost discoverability of their content on mobile VR.
New Oculus Avatars
Oculus Avatars introduced a new look, with more options for skin, hair, and clothing for a more personalized appearance. Developers will also be able to design custom clothing and accessories that match the theme of their game and app. New Oculus Avatars will launch in early 2018.
Additionally, Avatars will enable cross-platform support. And, later next year, the system will incorporate
technology for more dynamic avatars, with lip-synced mouth movement, eye movement, and facial
expressions.
Lost Frame Capture
A new Oculus Debug feature that shows you exactly where you're not hitting frame rate so you can more efficiently test and improve your Rift apps before submitting.
Multiview
A rendering technology that lowers the overhead on mobile, to allow developers more freedom and richer scenes. Developed over four years in partnership with Khronos, Unity, Unreal, AMD, and NVIDIA. When enabled, Multiview renders a scene only once, making draw calls cheaper and giving the CPU more room to hit frame rate. (Without this feature, engines render the scene twice: first to render the left-eye image, and then again for the right-eye image.) An automated technique, Multiview can increase draw call performance by up to 40%.
Tools to Build Safe Communities
New APIs, alongside our existing Rooms and Recently Met APIs, make it easier for developers to build safety features into their social apps and experiences. We're starting with dedicated platform features to allow in-app blocking and reporting, available free to developers using the Rooms API. More features for more monitoring, reporting, and enforcement will come next year.
