Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
One of gaming's oldest companies is seeking to rebrand itself by embracing the cryptocurrency boom. Atari saw its stock prices rise as it announced it would be working to create new cryptocurrencies.
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Two years ago, a band of friends created an awesome mechanical tribute to the legendary Atari game, Pong. Now, they're in the final stages of production and showcasing the final unit on the showroom floor of CES.
The post Coffee table-sized mechanical ‘Pong’ makes its official debut at CES appeared first on Digital Trends.
Deep in the trenches at the World’s largest theme park, visitor attraction and amusement extravaganza (called IAAPA), in the heartland of the theme resort industry (Orlando, FL), and VRFocus special columnist on the Digital Out-of-Home Entertainment (DOE) sector – Kevin Williams – gives us a brief snapshot of developments spied on the expo floor.
The vast IAAPA 2017 show floor breaks record on attendance and number of exhibitors.
MediaMation
Presented a brand new HTC Vive powered platform incorporated with their 4D motion chairs, in partnership with Viveport Arcade.
CJ4D
Demonstrated their new 4DX VR 360° incorporating the Samsung Gear VR into a unique fully rotational motion seat platform.
Birdly
The developed VR flying experience makes its first appearance at the theme park convention looking to attract interest from facility operators – running on the HTC Vive.
Lotte World
An amazing mixture of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) demonstrated from the Korean based developer, representing a virtual coaster based on the movements of a real model traversing the track in real-time, powered by Samsung Gear VR’s and an amazing new motion platform.
Skyfun Animation
A number of the latest Chinese VR Park platforms start to make landfall in the West, Skyfun running a number of their VR platform for the show audience to try, running on the groundbreaking Deepoon DPVR E3 headset (seen for the first time in the States).
Hologate
VR Arcade one-stop solution for interested operators available from a number of providers on the show floor – Hologate, partnering with laser-tag and escape room specialists Creative Works to provide a solution for interested buyers.
VRStudios
The latest free-roaming (Arena-Scale) experiences presented with VRcade Arena running on the show floor – the company in partnership with NVIDIA and HP to bring this platform to the market.
Maxflight
Veteran developer of their unique 360° motion simulator has revealed a brand new concept of their platform now running twin Oculus Rift headsets to supply the virtual environment, married to the extreme motion platform.
And finally, forget VR – how about actual reality! Calinfer S.A working in partnership with UNIS, recreates Atari’s PONG, using a mechanical recreation of the legendary title that started the video game genre!
This brief snapshot, of just some of the new releases on display, is intended to wet the appetite for his full coverage of the trends and development for the VR community from the 2017 IAAPA Attractions Expo, in the coming days.
Atari is expanding its brand beyond gaming and a new Ataribox console to include Audiowear Speakerhats, connected baseball caps that play music and allow for social interactions. It’s part of a new expansion of the brand into IOT devices
The post Atari’s latest release isn’t a console or a game — it’s a ridiculously high-tech hat appeared first on Digital Trends.
The Ataribox is now called the Atari Video Computer System? What does that even mean? We've rounded up everything you need to know about Atari's upcoming retro gaming, PC-style set-top box in one convenient post.
The post Here’s what we know about the Atari VCS retro hybrid console appeared first on Digital Trends.
The latest information released by the team behind the Ataribox console confirms two different hardware designs, as well as the system's capacity to run new games as well as classic titles.
The post Ataribox hopes to run current and classic games, may require crowdfunding appeared first on Digital Trends.
At the end of E3 2017, Atari teased what it calls the AtariBox: a device with similar finishes seen on the Atari classic 2600 console. The company CEO even said it's based on PC components – but what does that mean? We look at all the possibilities.
The post What’s inside the AtariBox? We pieced together all the clues appeared first on Digital Trends.
After a mysterious Atari-branded console appeared on the internet during E3 2017, CEO Fred Chesnais confirmed that it was not a hoax. Dubbed as AtariBox, the device will supposedly be based on PC technology.
The post Atari’s upcoming game console is based on PC technology, says CEO appeared first on Digital Trends.
Developer Llamasoft recently announced that they were launching a new videogame for the PlayStation VR, a ‘trance shooter’ titled Polybius. The title raised some eyebrows among those of us with an interest in videogame history.
Polybius is a gaming urban legend dating back to the early days of videogame arcades. The story has spread amongst videogaming communities since the 1980s, but it was the advent of UseNet that allowed the rumour to explode to such an extent that it is known of all over the world.
The story goes that there was, in certain American arcades, a mysterious arcade cabinet containing a game called ‘Polybius’. In versions of the story where gameplay is described, it plays much like Tempest. Players who experienced the cabinet began to experience strange symptoms: migraines, memory loss, nightmares, nausea. Then, silent grim-faced men in black suits would show up to collect data from the arcade cabinet for unknown purposes.
It makes a good spooky story, of course. The reality is probably considerably more mundane. Early test builds of Tempest had the tunnel spinning while the ship and lane remained in place, but this version was known to cause vertigo and motion sickness in some playtesters – symptoms that are sadly all-too-familiar to players of modern virtual reality (VR). If any of these early versions managed to escape into the wild, well, it sounds like a great basis for an urban legend to me.
It’s also pretty curious that one of Llamasoft’s previous titles was Tempest 2000, a remake of the old Atari arcade videogame, which was likely responsible for the whole rumour in the first place. And with the new VR Polybius looking as trippy as psychedelic as it does, it certainly seems to fit the theme.
Nor are Llamasoft the only ones on the VR gaming area to play with old urban legends in their new titles. The 1980 arcade title Battlezone had its own set of rumours, namely that it was possible to drive outside the edge of the map and climb the mountains to reach a volcano and a castle. Nonsense, of course, since 1980 vector graphics were not even remotely capable of this. Didn’t stop people spending fruitless hours trying, though, to the point where Atari had to introduce a feature in later versions where an instant death missile would strike the player if they spent too long without shooting anything.
Amusingly, though, is that in Rebellion’s VR remake, what is the final mission? Why, a volcano, of course! After all these years, Battlezone players can finally drive up those tantalising mountains and explore the volcano.
What other urban legends will come to life in VR? Only time will tell.VRFocus will, of course, tell you if and when they do.
Decades after its arcade release was scuttled by publisher Atari, a long-lost sequel to the '90s fighting game Primal Rage has finally surfaced and is now playable on modern PCs via emulation.
The post Unfinished sequel ‘Primal Rage 2’ is playable outside of its arcade cabinet appeared first on Digital Trends.