This week saw Oculus announce a raft of new improvements for its Oculus Home platform. Designed to further advance the user experience while in virtual reality (VR) the new Core 2.0 updates saw performance enhancements, achievements and Oculus Dash redesigned for better ergonomics. But that’s not all, as Oculus has even more incentives planned for Oculus Rift users.
Using a new feature called Custom Developer Items, studios will be able to create unique items for players to collect by completing achievements. This option is now available for the following videogames: Arizona Sunshine, Brass Tactics, Echo VR, Lone Echo, Job Simulator, Moss, OrbusVR, and SUPERHOT VR, so long as you’re signed up to the Public Test Channel, other wise you’ll have to wait until next month.
But Oculus wants to take this a step further. In a session titled ‘The Future of Home for Rift: Developer & Roadmap Updates’ Nancy Xiao, Product Manger, Oculus Home, revealed that developers will soon be able to grant rewards for more than just achievements, looking along the lines of pre-order bonuses, or specific purchase incentives like when buying DLC for example. Or when studios host an event or tournament they’ll be able to give out participation mementos.
This will likely lead to limited edition items that may become highly sort after, although that then begs the question, will friends be able to swap or trade items with each other in the future, much in the same way PC players sell and trade weapons skins or other ancillary items?
With these features alongside being able to bring friends into your home and new expressive avatars, Oculus is greatly expanding the use functionality of its platform. From a simple store with community features to an actual digital hub for users to customise and share.
As Oculus Home continues to be improved and expanded upon, VRFocus will keep you updated.