October is set to be an exciting month for virtual reality (VR). This week coming Google is set to hold an event revealing further details on its Daydream headset and the Oculus Connect 3 conference will be taking place. There’s also the little matter of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) launching its long awaited PlayStation VR on 13th. Going back to Daydream, it now looks as if Google will be ramping up its promotional push by setting up pop-up stores for the head-mounted display (HMD), but only in New York City (NYC).
Reported by Digital Trends, Google’s planning a series VR focused pop-up events from October through to December 2016 in NYC. While there’s been no confirmation on what hardware, peripherals or software will be present, the Daydream headset, controller and titles already confirmed for the hardware are pretty much a given.
Videogames that have been confirmed for the HMD include InMind 2 from Luden.io, Wonderglade by Resolution Games and CCP Games’ Gunjack NEXT, along with VR studio nDreams working on two titles. For non videogame services partners so far announced include: The New York Times (NYT); Wall Street Journal; USA Today; CNN; HBO Now; Netflix; National Basketball Association (NBA); Hulu; Lionsgate; IMAX and MLB.com.
In terms of the smartphones that’ll support Daydream, ZTE’s Axon 7 and Zenfone 3 Deluxe have been officially certified along with Googles own Nexus 6P for development purposes. While HTC, Samsung, LG, Huawei and Alcatel have all confirmed support but haven’t yet revealed any products.
Just over a week ago Google confirmed the Daydream SDK had left the beta phase and Epic Games updated its Unreal Engine to fully integrate with it.
Google created a guide for anyone wishing to create a development kit, and VRFocus also looked at how Daydream would stack up against Samsung Gear VR, likely its closest rival. As further details surface on Daydream, keep reading VRFocus for the latest updates.