Starbreeze – Page 6 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

November 4, 2016

These Are The Stocks You Could Buy To Invest In The VR Industry

The VR and AR markets are full of companies of various sizes with many roles in the VR industry, when you consider how many verticals there are it can get confusing. Additionally, many of these companies are still privately owned or in their infancy. Thus, if you are interested in investing in some of these companies you would normally have to be a venture capitalist (VC) of some sort usually with millions of dollars to invest. Many VC firms have gotten into VR in one way or another and wall street firms are watching VR like its already a full-blown market. VR is still a very fledgling market and has lots of room to grow, which means that there’s lots of potential for companies involved in VR to make some major money for their investors. Investing in a new market is risky and there will be some winners and there will be some losers, so there’s definitely a certain amount of risk. VR investments have broken into the billions of dollars with reports showing as high as $4-5 billion since 2010 and $2 billion in the last 12 months alone.

This list will mostly be made up of publicly traded companies that are confirmed to have a presence in VR. There are a few at the end that are suspects but don’t have anything launched or to show quite yet. Below we have compiled the company, exchange, stock ticker and involvement in VR. Also keep in mind that there are plenty of private companies worth investing in, and some public companies listed below have invested in them like Magic Leap who has investments to the tune of $1.39 billion from companies listed below like Google and Qualcomm.

Public Companies involved in VR

Facebook – NASDAQ: FB – Oculus VR, VR headset, VR Camera, VR content, VR platform
Google – NASDAQ: GOOG – Cardboard, Google VR, Daydream & Tango, VR cameras, Tilt Brush
Starbreeze Games – NASDAQ OMX Stockholm: STAR – VR headset & VR games
IMAX – NYSE: IMAX – VR content, headsets from Starbreeze & cameras
Discovery Communications – NASDAQ: DISCA – VR Content
Sony – NYSE: SNE – VR Console, VR Games & VR Headset
HTC – TPE: 2498 – Headset, Content Delivery Platform (non-gaming)
AMD – NASDAQ: AMD – GPUs, CPUs and other computer hardware for VR
Intel – NASDAQ: INTC – VR headset and CPUs & iGPUs, RealSense 3D cameras for AR & VR
NVIDIA – NASDAQ: NVDA – GPUs for VR
Qualcomm – NASDAQ: QCOM – Smartphone SoC for VR, VR Headset Ref. Design.
Samsung – KRX: 005930 – GearVR (partnership with Oculus VR) and 360 Camera
Nokia – NYSE: NOK – OZO VR Cinema camera
Mattel – NASDAQ: MAT – VR Headset & Content
LG – KRX: 0003550 – VR Camera & Headset
Amazon – NASDAQ: AMZN – VR Content & Game Engine
Time Warner, Inc – NYSE: TWX – VR Content & Distribution Platform
Microsoft – NASDAQ: MSFT – VR operating system, VR platform, VR headset
Amazon – NASDAQ: AMZN – VR content

Unconfirmed

Apple – NASDAQ: AAPL – AR/VR headset

How to invest in these companies

Because right now there are so many startups with VC investment, the only way that you can invest is to buy stocks that have varying levels of VR engagement. This means buying stocks from the NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges through a broker like TD Ameritrade, Scott Trade or Robinhood. There are plenty of other ways to invest in VR, but these are some of the cheapest and fastest ways of getting there before the market matures.

You can also go through your own broker, who will advise you on which stocks are worth buying overall when you consider their entire business performance, not just VR. The list provided above is not designed to be a recommendation to buy these stocks and a certified financial professional is your best guide to investing in VR. In addition to buying these stocks, you can either buy a mutual fund that is heavy in these stocks or one that is more diversified but still incorporates some of the individual companies.

Disclaimer: This article is not a recommendation or solicitation for you to buy any of the stocks mentioned above and is purely for informational and research purposes. This article is not and should not be considered as advice or as a recommendation regarding investing in any security or any investment activity. This article is provided without any guarantees and is purely to inform the reader about the companies involved in the VR industry and what their roles are within it. Please consult a professionally accredited investment advisor if you plan to make any investing decisions.

Disclosure: My firm, Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or had provided research, analysis, advising, and/or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, including AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Samsung and others cited this article. I do not hold any equity positions with any companies cited in this column.

October 31, 2016

Starbreeze Acquires Nozon for $7.7 Million to Bring ‘Pixar Level’ Visual Quality to VR Film

Starbreeze has acquired visual effects (VFX) studio Nozon for €7.1M (~$7.7M), a Belgium-based company known for their pre-rendered PresenZ VR technology which promises to bring ‘Pixar levels’ of visual quality to real-time VR scenes with positional tracking.

PresenZ, introduced by Nozon in 2015, is a rendering technique especially created for VR that allows for what they call ‘interactive parallax’ in VR movies. Unlike real-time rendered experiences like Oculus Story Studio’s Henry, which is necessarily limited by the number of polygons your system can render at any given moment, projects created with PresenZ allow the user a high-level of detail for a comparatively lower hardware cost, and all while maintaining a measure of positional tracking.

According to our own Executive Editor Ben Lang, who got a hands-on with a demo last year, the results are pretty astounding, but has a few inherent limitations.

“I’ve seen it for myself and it’s everything they say it is: the visuals of pre-rendered CGI with the positional tracking parallax that’s normally only possible with a scene rendered in real-time. The area in which you can move your head about the scene is only about a meter square. If you hit the edge of that area the scene will fade out as the view of the scene in the area beyond that space has not been pre-rendered.”

By pre-rendering more of the scene, and connecting together rendered spaces, it’s possible to create larger viewing areas; late last year Nozon demonstrated a room-scale space rendered with their technology.

StarVR: Starbreeze kauft Nozon für Bewegungen in VR Videos

In den letzten Monaten hatte Starbreeze mit dem StarVR Headset große Schritte gemacht. So ist mittlerweile Acer mit im Boot und ein Release für Konsumenten ist theoretisch in Aussicht. Zunächst sollen aber Arcades und andere Einrichtungen mit dem StarVR Headset ausgestattet werden.

Starbreeze kauft Nozon für Bewegungen in VR Videos

Nun hat Starbreeze das belgische Unternehmen Nozon für 7,1 Millionen Euro gekauft. Mit PresenZ hat Nozon ein Tool erschaffen, welches euch erlaubt, euren Kopf in einem animierten, bereits vorgerenderten Video zu bewegen. Ihr könnt euch also nicht nur umschauen, sondern auch in die Szene hineinlehnen. Somit bleibt diese Möglichkeit nicht nur animierten Videos vorenthalten, die in Echtzeit gerendert werden. Somit können noch viel beeindruckender animierte Filme verwirklicht werden, da der PC keine großen Aufgaben beim Abspielen übernehmen muss.

Da Starbreeze auch in einer engen Partnerschaft mit IMAX ist, verwundert uns dieser Schritt nicht. IMAX möchte mit Starbreeze viele VR Stationen errichten und wenn das Tool von Nozon funktioniert, dann könnte eine deutlich bessere Darstellung ermöglicht werden. Das StarVR Headset von Starbreeze setzt auf ein 5K Display mit einem Field of View von 210 Grad. Um dieses Headset zu befeuern, ist also sehr viel Rechenpower nötig. Somit ist es clever von Starbreeze, wenn sie das Headset zunächst mit vielen animierten Filmen ausstatten und mit IMAX eine neue VR-Erfahrung ermöglichen, die es in Privathaushalten aktuell noch nicht gibt.

Der Beitrag StarVR: Starbreeze kauft Nozon für Bewegungen in VR Videos zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

October 26, 2016

Starbreeze Acquires Nozon To Work On Parallax In VR Video

Over the past few months Starbreeze’s StarVR headset has gone from an industry oddity to a genuine contender in the location-based VR scene. This week, the company is cementing that status with some major new acquistions.

Starbreeze announced the purchase of Nozon, a Belgium-based visual effects studio for €7.1 million, which works out to around $7.75 million. Along with its special effects, the company is also working on some important features for VR video.

PresenZ is Nozon’s tool for interactive parallax. This refers to allowing viewers to move their heads with six degrees of freedom in pre-rendered animated video to better immerse you in a scene. It essentially enables a degree of positional tracking. Imagine stepping into Toy Story, for example, and being able to look around Woody and Buzz as they’re talking.

It’s easy to see why Starbreeze would be interested in Nozon. The company has already partnered with IMAX to deliver new cinematic video content to location-based pods across the world by the end of the year. Located in movie theaters and shopping malls, these pods will showcase experiences that tie-in with current cinema releases, offering additional content for those that want it. Expected to arrive first in Los Angeles and then moving out to other cities like Manchester in the UK, audiences will be able to pay for tickets to these experiences, just as they would a movie.

It’s looking more and more like these types of experiences will define StarVR, though it does have gaming content like The Walking Dead VR Experience too. With a 5K display and a 210 degree field of view, StarVR should prove to be a good home for this type of content, though we’ll find out for ourselves later in the year.

October 14, 2016

Hands-On: ‘John Wick Chronicles’ Showcases the Titular Assassin’s Unique Universe

John Wick was a surprise hit when it came out in theaters October, 2014. Effortlessly cool, it was a perfect graft of a crime thriller onto a comic book world. The film felt completely new and exciting. In fact, it’s the world of John Wick that remains one of its most distinguishing features, and the one that VR Studios Big Red Button, Gameco, and Grab are looking to recreate with the help of Starbreeze Studios and Lionsgate.

Judging by the demo for the John Wick Chronicles VR game I got to try, I can tell you that the world hits that balance of thrilling first-person action and showcasing the unique John Wick universe.

The demo opens with the player picking up a gun and shooting the game’s logo to “awaken” in an opulent penthouse. I’m told that the game’s central location is in the Continental Hotel, the hotel for hitmen seen in the film. Hitting a button centered within an elegant wooden desk lowers a large screen that gives players a short clip from the new John Wick 2 trailer. A nice little bit of cross-promotional marketing for players who might have tried the demo at New York Comic-Con. The trailer cuts short however, and an ominous voice booms out over the PA system. The voice is there to tell the player, John Wick, that you’re about to die. Red dots from sniper rifles beam in through the windows and players are forced to duck and find cover.

Here’s where VR’s pros and cons meet. VR is a 360 degree experience and being able to physically move within a virtual space is one of VR’s most thrilling features. Unfortunately, until players have the ability to use full-room VR without wires, you’ll find yourself too conscious of the connecting wire behind your Vive headset to move as freely as you want to. While the actual ducking and dodging works perfectly, I sometimes found myself limited to 180 degree turns because of the wires and not wanting to trip.

Pressing another hidden switch opens up one of those old-fashioned, hand cranked elevators with the collapsible doors- the one’s you might see in an old Hollywood hotel, which is super cool because again, this is the alternate reality of John Wick. Taking the elevator lifts you away from the embattled sniper room and to the roof, where naturally more enemies await.

First-person shooters in VR always kind of remind me of the arcade game Time Crisis, the shooter/ducking simulator probably most widely seen at movie theaters. Of course for those of you who’ve had the good fortune of experiencing VR for yourself, you know that this is a shallow approximation. VR is far more engrossing than the average arcade experience, and it also makes it more overwhelming at times.

On the roof of the Continental hotel, you’re finally armed with a sniper rifle of your own. Holding the gun up to your face and pressing the left trigger button will allow you to look down the gun’s sight, giving you the chance to perform awesome (and powerful feeling) shots at far away targets. After the natural way of holding a gun in VR, it’s almost hard to go back to a traditional controller, or even mouse and keyboard. You might be less accurate at first in VR than with the other two controllers, but it’s way more immersive.

The demo also gave me a mini arsenal while on the rooftop. This includes an automatic rifle, two pistols, and two submachine guns. Dual-wielding is possible with the smaller guns, and it’s fun to try them out, but most of the enemies are too far away for any of the weapons but the sniper rifle and the automatic rifle to be useful. It’s not until the enemies start rappelling down helicopters and climbing up rooftops that they become close enough for your shorter range weapons to be effective.

Again, the wire causes some problem when you’re trying to shoot enemies to the left and right of you. Additionally, precision aiming with the shortsighted weapons, especially without a sight, is far more difficult than with the sniper, but I have to be honest, dual wielding weapons in VR is just more fun.

After dealing with several waves of enemies, and dying a few times (which is embarrassing because I’m told the demo is easier than the actual game,) you finally have to take on the big boss, or in this case, the big helicopter. Rather than unloading bullets into it, the encounter is more like a puzzle, forcing the player to shoot at specific weak points in order to take out the enemy. Here’s where VR demonstrates another of its unique attributes, forcing the player to demonstrate some real physical coordination when taking down the boss. Aiming at a small moving target with your whole body is way more difficult when you have to exert yourself to do it, but the sense of gratification that comes with winning is that much more intense.

Like the film, John Wick Chronicles’ best assets are the little details. The Vive controllers are represented with leather gloved hands in the game. There’s even a military watch on the player’s left hand that acts as the in-game timer for levels. Likewise, I like how detailed the environment felt, something Almir Listo from Starbreeze Studios explains is a high priority. Even after only playing two levels, they’re both filled with details that really drives home how upper-class the Continental Hotel is. No street-level thugs here, the criminals of John Wick are part of the one percent.

If there’s a couple things I would like to see with the full game, it’s that I hope the other levels are just as detailed, to help continue expanding the John Wick universe. The rest of my grievances are mostly related to wired VR experiences as a whole, tripping over wires, feeling constrained by spatial limitations, etc. As far as how the game plays, looks, and most importantly makes you feel, I can tell you that I had no problems. Combat felt natural, the visuals were crisp, and no motion sickness on my end, which is coming from someone who did once actually get sick from a VR demo.

“I think the most important is that you feel like John Wick,” Listo explains. “I think we did a very good job asking the question ‘What would John Wick do?’ And a good example comes from development regarding grenades. Let’s say you’ve got a gun in one hand and a grenade in the other, and because it’s VR we try to capture reality. So how would you pull the pin of the grenade if realistically you can only use two hands at a time? Well you can bring the grenade up to your mouth and pull the pin out that way, something very action hero/guns akimbo in my opinion.”

If there’s one thing Listo wanted to be clear about is how everyone, from Lionsgate, Starbreeze, and the actual John Wick team is on board for the project. The team plans on launching a deluxe bundle for John Wick Chronicles that will include the VR game, PayDay 2 with John Wick DLC, and even the movie. “It’s a multimedia approach,” Listo says. “Entire John Wick survival kit.”

John Wick Chronicles is expected to ship in February 2017 for HTC Vive and Playstation VR. You can follow its Steam page here for the latest updates.

Matt Kim is an entertainment and technology journalist with work appearing in other publications such as Inverse, VICE, Kill Screen, and more. Follow him on Twitter: @LawofTD.

October 10, 2016

‘John Wick Chronicles’ Lets You Become The Legendary Hitman In VR

John Wick is a tale about the legendary assassin of the same name brought to life by Keanu Reeves and directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch. The neo-noir action flick, that starts with the notorious hitman coming out of retirement after his dog is killed, birthed a franchise that is already developing its 3rd film with the 2nd having only received its first trailer this past weekend at New York Comic-Con. We reported on this new title from Starbreeze Studios in August and gamers will soon be able to step into Wick’s shoes in their VR game John Wick Chronicles. New York Comic-Con attendees were able to sample a 7-minute preview of the game in the HTC Vive, and the full experience is slated for February 2017.

It’s not Starbreeze’s first foray into video games based on film, as they’re responsible for the critically acclaimed game based on the Vin Deisel-led feature film Pitch Black. Chronicles also won’t exactly be the first time John Wick appears in the video game arena. John Wick was previously brought into the Pay Day 2 game world and, releasing on October 20th on Steam, Pay Day 2 will be getting the additional John Wick Weapon Pack for their bank robbery adventures.

John Wick Chronicles is available to pre-order on Steam for $19.99 and includes a free copy of Pay Day 2 along with the John Wick Weapon Pack DLC. For an additional $9.99 you can get the US exclusive digital deluxe version of the bundle that includes the John Wick film.

John Wick: Chapter 2 sees Keanu Reeves returning to the role with Chad Stahelski remaining in the director’s chair. The cast also adds Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix, Black-ish), hip-hop artist Common (Smokin’ Aces, Suicide Squad), and Angel Pai (Audition, Jessica Jones) to the mix as the hitman faces off against some of the world’s most lethal killers.

October 2, 2016

Lionsgate Bringing 7 Minute Preview of ‘John Wick VR’ to New York Comic Con

Lionsgate have announced that the VR experience based on the Keanu Reeves film John Wick is to be previewed next week at NYC’s Comic Con, where attendees will be treated to a 7 minute sneak peek of the Starbreeze developed title.

Part of Lionsgate’s efforts to move into the immersive content business, the virtual reality tie-in to their movie John Wick (2014), starring Keanu Reeves, has appeared on and off since its announcement in August of last year, but we’re still yet to get a handle on how the game, developed by Starbreeze, will shape up when it’s released late this year.

Now, Starbreeze and Lionsgate have announced that the most substantial peek at the title, entitled John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye, will be given at next week’s New York Comic Con where show attendees will get to go hands on with the HTC Vive version. The demo is reportedly around 7 minutes long. NYC’s Comic Con will run October 6-9 at the Javits Center.

Starbreeze and Lionsgate to Bring John Wick Chronicles to NY Comic Con Next Month

Before today the most that we had heard about the John Wick virtual reality (VR) episodes was that the first episode had been renamed and that screenshots had been released to show it off. From then until now it is clear that a lot has been put into the series as Lionsgate and Starbreeze are both bringing it to this year’s Comic Con in New York.

What those who will be attending Comic Con will be trying out is a seven minute preview of the first mission of the HTC Vive title, John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye which will be at the exclusively John Wick stand at the event.

John Wick art

There will also be a smaller version of the title, John Wick Chronicles: Arcade Edition, which will premiere on the StarVR head-mounted display (HMD) at its first IMAX VR Center to be opened later this year in Los Angeles. As well as this, there will be additional DLCs that is to “be announced soon”.

In the John Wick Chronicles, created by Lionsgate and Starbreeze in collaboration with Grab Games, Big Red Button, and GameCo, players can expect to “explore the iconic Continental Hotel and are tasked with assassinating seemingly unbeatable targets that only John Wick himself could handle.”

For more on the latest in the world of VR, as well as all the news, updates, and features, check back with VRFocus.

September 17, 2016

IMAX VR rollout to begin this year

IMAX will begin its virtual reality roll-out as early as the end of this year, IMAX Entertainment CEO Greg Foster said at a conference in Los Angeles this Wednesday. Moviegoers will be able to purchase bundled...

August 31, 2016

Acer & Starbreeze Begin Shipping StarVR

Acer and Starbreeze AB today announced at a global press conference in Berlin that they have started to ship StarVR virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMD) to IMAX Corporation in preparation for the opening of the IMAX VR Center in Los Angeles, expected later this year, and others in the near future. This marks the first commercial availability of the Star VR HMD.

Star VR / StarVR HMD

Earlier in 2016, Acer committed to delivering a small volume of units of StarVR HMDs this year with mass production of the devices to commence in 2017. On hand at the press conference were Bo Andersson Klint, CEO at Starbreeze and Rob Lister, Chief Business Development Officer at IMAX Corporation.

“We’re extremely proud to be able to show the first manufactured units of the StarVR headset produced in our collaboration with Acer. Since announcing the StarVR headset in 2015, we’re finally at a place where we can see the pieces of our vision coming together. From day one we’ve been convinced that we can deliver premium experiences with premium hardware. The search for great partners sharing the same vision was long, but we’re happy to be able to lay down these two fundamental parts in Starbreeze VR-ecosystem together with Acer and IMAX. We can’t wait for people to start experiencing world-class virtual reality in the StarVR HMD and at IMAX VR centers,” said Bo Andersson Klint, Starbreeze CEO.

Starbreeze has recently disclosed details of the ramping-up for VR software development, incorporating two big film and television franchises, John Wick and The Walking Dead, into the company’s short-term VR software release strategy. Several partnerships have secured placement of the StarVR HMD in out-of-home VR experiences, similar to this first shipment to IMAX.

John Wick art

“With this shipment to as important a player in the entertainment industry as IMAX, we are absolutely thrilled that we are well on our way in bringing the virtual reality experience to the next level and to the world” said Jason Chen, President and CEO at Acer. “The realization of the most premium VR experience ever offered isn’t just our dream, but one of an entire ecosystem that encompasses hardware makers, videogame developers, theater companies, filmmakers and many others. [sic]”

Chen highlighted at the global press conference that movies and videogames have exceedingly become ever more closely entwined. The lines are blurring between movies and videogames, and are moving beyond just two mediums that have traditionally only complemented one another. He said they were converging to become a more dynamic, immersive form of storytelling, and virtual reality would feature prominently in this development.

StarVR is a unique HMD, delivering 210-degree horizontal field of view. The HMD is not currently targeting a consumer audience and no further details concerning commercial availability have yet been announced, but of course VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details.