Much like the Game Developers Conference (GDC) which it’s replacing, Facebook’s Game Developers Showcase is a chance for the company to announce both consumer and industry-focused news, with the first day mainly concentrating on Oculus Quest. Facebook also unveiled plans to roll out OpenXR in prototype form for Oculus Rift and Quest developers later this month.
Having played a central role in the development of OpenXR, helmed by The Khronos Group, Facebook and Oculus first revealed plans to give developers access back in September 2019. A royalty-free open standard designed to aid the development of high-performance virtual reality (VR) applications across multiple platforms, an update offering access to OpenXR will arrive in the next few weeks.
As VRFocus has previously reported, the OpenXR 1.0 specification launched last year to solve the fragmentation of the XR industry, reducing overheads for VR/AR developers working across various platforms because they can reuse the same code. This should, in theory, provide consumers with more choice in the long run.
The Oculus Developer Blog notes: “The Oculus PC and Mobile SDKs will include the resources necessary to use the Prototype OpenXR API for native C/C++ development of Oculus Rift Platform apps and Android apps for Oculus Quest respectively. OpenXR offers an alternative development path that allows developers to create portable code that can be used on devices from multiple vendors.”
Also for developers, Oculus will be releasing an Add-ons option in the Developer Dashboard. This will combine Downloadable Content (DLCs) and In-App Purchases ( IAPs) under one management function, making the creation of add-on content easier. So hopefully you’ll see more content arrive for your favourite videogames.
Facebook’s Game Developers Showcase will be continuing later today with new details expected for Pistol Whip, The Room VR: A Dark Matter, Lies Beneath and Phantom: Covert Ops to name a few. As those updates are released VRFocus will let you know.