Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
The start date for Steam's annual Summer Sale appears to have been leaked. If correct, the sale will begin on June 21 and run until July 5. It typically offers steep discounts on a wide selection of games.
The post Start saving up: Steam’s Summer Sale will reportedly begin June 21 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Ah another week is over and you need to get away into the virtual world for a few hours, right? We completely understand, which is why we’ve got a big list of brand new discounts you can take advantage of to get some new software for you virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD).
Just take a look below for all of the best offers on Steam VR, and check back on VRFocus every week for more great offers.
In this world, puzzles are built from dreams and memories and you must piece them together to understand the truth. The world morphs around you as you explore existence itself.
Race across the surface of Mars in an incredible floating vehicle called a Skimmer. Pilot different vehicles as you race on the surface of the red planet. Don’t crash if you want to survive this extraterrestrial racer.
In a medieval world you’re without fancy gadgets and technology, so your best friend is old fashioned stealth tactics. Hide away on rafters and quietly hunt down those that banished you from the Knight’s Order.
What’s the best thing to do when you’re somewhere you’re not welcome? That’s right, leave. Except that’s a bit more difficult in an escape room scenario. Your late uncle’s mansion is not as cosy as it first seems…
What’s the best pet in the world, certifiably much better than dogs? That’s right, it’s cats. In Cat Sorter VR, you’ll be surrounded by the furry fiends and will have to organise your kitty inventory…
Here you’ll feel like a superstar as you jump onto the stage and hit the beat. As you puncture the bubbles you’ll play with and feel the rhythm, and fill your stage with lights and music.
Show Must Go On is now only £5.49.
Guide the lost fleet back home with your shooting skills – after you crash land, protect your team and destroy waves of aliens on a mysterious world. Making it home alive is going to require teamwork.
Galactic Core: The Lost Fleet is now £1.43.
Memorize the path forward as quickly as possible to reach the finish, otherwise you’re doomed. Take your time and only step on the right blocks otherwise you will fall, and it’s a long way down.
Ready to get spooked in VR? Well Reciful is here to give you an experience you won’t soon forget. Everywhere has been plunged it darkness, and you must use your simple torch to move through the world, shoot enemies and survive.
Zombies suck. But far more concerning is the news that zombies bite. You don’t want to have to deal with that. As such in VRZ: Torment you’ll be fighting off hordes of the undead with a variety of weapons. Oh, there’s ghosts too.
For all of the latest offers and deals, check back on VRFocus every week.
Sony’s flagship VR headset, the PSVR, really came into its own in 2017. Attending PSX down in Anaheim felt like a victory lap for the device as it comfortably sits in first place head of the Rift and Vive with over two million units and 12 million games sold.
As the first full year of consumer-grade VR is now in the books, Sony has released sales figures for the most downloaded PSVR games on the PSN Store. Since the US and EU stores are different, the lists vary as well.
These rankings do not take into account physical sales at all.
There’s a lot of overlap between the two lists, such as Batman, Superhot, Job Simulator, and others, but there are some big differences as well. Notably, Skyrim VR didn’t crack the top 10 for the EU but was #6 in the US. Also, almost all of the games listed are early releases for the headset, not recent ones, but that’s not uncommon for other game platforms either.
What do you think of the rankings? Are your favorites on either list? Let us know down in the comments below!
Nintendo has announced the Switch has managed to sell more than 4.8 million units in the United States, making it the fastest-selling console in the country's history. The previous record was set by the Wii.
The post Nintendo declares Switch the fastest-selling home console in U.S. history appeared first on Digital Trends.
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, is typically one of the biggest and most active shopping days of the year. Retailers and manufacturers around the world issue hefty discounts on all of the hottest items in the hopes of alluring prospective buyers to open their wallets. We rounded up a lot of the best deals we saw for VR hardware, games, and accessories and it looks like Sony’s efforts with their PlayStation VR (PSVR) headset did not go unnoticed.
According to the UK sales monitor Chart-Track, PSVR unit sales for the Black Friday week were “on par with launch week” and in total were equivalent to all of the past 18 weeks combined. Doing some quick math that means that Sony reportedly sold just as many PSVRs last week as they did in the previous 4-5 months total. That’s a lot of PSVRs.
We don’t know exactly how many that is or how many PSVRs are out there, but we can surmise that it must be nearing the two million mark. They confirmed back in June that they’d sold over one million headsets and with such strong sales so far this season, that number is surely much higher by now.
Bolstered by new releases and new bundles such as the Gran Turismo Sport PSVR bundle and Skyrim VR bundle, it’s no wonder that PSVRs are flying off the shelves again. There are even bountiful free applications for new PSVR users to try as well, such as Rec Room. With another big release in the form of DOOM VFR coming just this very week, the momentum is building.
Did you pick up a new PSVR this past week? Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Source: Gamespot
Tagged with: Black Friday, PlayStation VR, PSVR, sales, sony
Nintendo now expects the sales of its Switch console to beat the Wii U's lifetime sales in just a year. The Wii U was available for more than four, but failed to attract players with its touchscreen controller.
The post Nintendo expects Switch to beat lifetime sales of Wii U in only a year appeared first on Digital Trends.
One day the world will know how many VR headsets exist in the world like we do iPhones, game consoles, and move tickets. One day…maybe. As it stands, companies like HTC, Oculus, and even Google are being very tight-lipped about how many Vives, Rifts, and Daydream Views they’ve sold (respectively) and it’s making it very difficult to paint a solid picture of what the VR market actually looks like. Other than over one million PlayStation VR (PSVR) headsets and over five million Samsung Gear VR headsets, we really have no idea how many are out there, regardless of what analysts try to predict.
Nevertheless, most of the hardware manufacturers appear to be happy. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, HTC’s GM of Vive, Dan O’Brien, said as much:
“We actually met our targets, what we thought we would sell in terms of volumes. We don’t release our numbers publicly, but we’re actually very happy with it. We’ve also started to really penetrate the non-game space and the enterprise space, and all those use cases…In terms of our first year, 2016, it was really a kick-off year. 2017 is the ecosystem year where we turn our attention to partners to come work with us. That’s why we came out with the Tracker and opening up the ecosystem of things that could work with a tracked headset. We have Viveport, and having a store dedicated to non-game content, and the growth of things like subscription…We’re using a lot of different tactics to actually grow the industry.”
The rest of the interview at the link above talks about the VR industry as a whole, the role AAA developers will play, and what the landscape looks like as we head into the second half of 2017.
As it stands, Oculus recently earned a lot of goodwill in the court of public opinion by way of its massive price drop putting the Rift + Touch bundle at a mere $399. After the limited sale period it will only then be $499, which is actually right around the price it’d take to get the headset, tracking camera, and Move controllers for Sony’s PSVR. A new PS4 system to use their headset is still noticeably cheaper than a VR-ready PC, though.
Do you own an HTC Vive? Are you part of the sales that helped HTC hit their targets? Let us know what you think of O’Brien’s quote in the comments below!
Tagged with: sales
Before we dive into the numbers provided by industry analysis firm IHS Markit, let me be clear that all VR market analysis and projections we’ve seen are big guesses. The manufacturers have released only limited data points — with Samsung coming out with the largest number to date revealing the technology giant sold 5 million Gear VRs through the beginning of the year. To our knowledge, Google has released nothing to officially give any indication of Daydream’s performance in the market since it went on sale late last year.
Nevertheless, IHS Markit is forecasting sales for both Daydream from Google and Gear VR from Samsung, the latter of which is powered by software from Facebook’s Oculus. The firm projects the overall mobile VR king this year will be Samsung approaching 10 million units total. The actual numbers supplied by IHS Markit estimate Samsung will sell 4.12 million of the headsets this year, down 9.6 percent from 4.56 million last year. The Gear VR initially went on sale as a glorified developer kit in late 2014 — so if you combine 5 million sold through Jan. 4 with 4.12 million in 2017 Samsung could close in on 10 million mobile VR headsets moving into 2018.
“In 2016, Samsung used its Gear VR headset as a powerful marketing tool to promote sales of its Galaxy S7 smartphone and implemented appropriate pre-order bundling strategies across many sales territories,” analysis from IHS Markit states. “In 2017, Samsung has taken a more targeted approach retaining the offer for the launch of the Galaxy S8 in USA and Australia, but dropping it in a number of European territories.”
The estimates also take a stab at Google-built Daydream View sales, estimating 120,000 of the headsets sold in 2016 ballooning to 2.23 million in 2017. It’ll be boosted by “third-party smartphone vendors in the second half of 2017,” according to the analysis. We’ve reached out to IHS Markit to ask questions about how the firm estimated the Daydream figures and whether the company is also estimating sales for third-party headsets planned for the platform, and we will update this post if we hear back.
It should also be noted that Samsung typically releases flagship phones in two waves throughout the year, meaning it is possible Samsung could push the headset as broadly as it did in 2016 closer to the end of the year with the release of another new phone.
Tagged with: Daydream View, IHS Markit, sales
The Nintendo Switch is the fastest-selling console in the company's history, with more than 900,000 sold in March in the United States alone. Strangely, more copies of Zelda: Breath of the Wild were sold than systems.
The post Switch is biggest console launch in Nintendo’s history, ‘Zelda’ sales even better appeared first on Digital Trends.
Mass Effect: Andromeda currently trails both Ghost Recon: Wildlands and Horizon: Zero Dawn in U.K. game sales this year, though Andromeda did manage to take the top sales spot for last week.
The post ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ sales underwhelm in U.K. after mixed reviews appeared first on Digital Trends.