Virtual Reality

One of the biggest issues faced by those hoping to showcase virtual reality games, is that conveying why they are awesome can be really difficult. Player motion alone is boring and in-game footage doesn't explain what the player is doing. Blending the two together however, is a much better solution, …

Yesterday was a big day for virtual reality, with thousands of HTC Vive headsets sold to pre-orderers around the world. But Microsoft also debuted a developer version of the Hololens headset. Priced at $3,000 (£2,150), its augmented reality offers something very different, even if it can also do gaming. One of …

One of the big questions about this year's virtual reality landscape was answered yesterday, when the HTC Vive finally went on sale. Initially playing a distant second fiddle to Oculus' Rift headset, it pulled back a lot of ground thanks to launching with motion controllers and a more room-scale focused …

The HTC Vive is now available for pre-order around the world, with international pricing revealed over the weekend. To put in your own order, visit the official HTC site, but consider pre-warning your your credit card company, as though there are no charges going through today (unless you use Paypal), …

Founder of Oculus VR and the original creator of Minecraft, Markus “Notch” Persson, have been going back and forth via Twitter, with the latter suggesting that Oculus has fallen behind its main VR headset rival, HTC with its Vive. While Luckey countered, the back and forth shows the heated landscape …

If you didn't know that 2016 was going to have a big virtual reality focus, perhaps watching the Oscars this weekend will have tipped you off. As well as bundling one of Samsung's mobile-orientated Gear VR headsets in the nominee goody bags, the event also had William H. Macy enjoying …

If anyone remembers the early days of the Nintendo Wii, there were a lot of people posting images and video online of their Wiimotes buried in their TV screens, smashing mirrors and of course hitting other people. That problem is only exacerbated in VR, as you can't even see the …

If the price of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift put you off virtual reality, what if all it cost you was the price of a 12 pack of Coke? That's something that Coca Cola has been experimenting with with a new type of packaging that lets you turn a 12 …

Sword Art Online is soon going to be a virtual, reality if IBM has anything to do with it. The longtime technology firm announced that it is sponsoring the development of a VR MMO based around the manga/anime series known as Sword Art Online: The Beginning. It's listed with a …

Over the weekend a rumour began circling that the HTC Vive price would be revealed on Monday 22nd February at Mobile World Congress. Despite that looming event, someone broke cover and revealed the price early and now a number of publications have confirmed it, stating that it will be $800 …

For each generation of components, you get the periphery, the mainstream and the sweet spot. According to Chillblast, this Mini-ITX system is perfect for Fallout 4 at maximum detail. Ben also told us that it's VR-ready for HTC and Oculus. We asked him to bring one into the KitGuru studio and …

In a world's first, NextVR has just signed a five year contract with Fox Sports in the U.S., to allow for live broadcasting of virtual reality, 360 degree experiences to the public. Sporting events from across the United States will become available in the near future to anyone with a Samsung …

Although the big VR makers are working on hand-tracked controllers to allow us to bring our limbs into virtual worlds with us, Leap Motion has been developing a camera based solution and it's had some success over the past couple of years. The recent Orion update could be the biggest …

As much as the Oscars might have the occasional host that lampoons attending actors on yet another night of back-patting and hero worship,  the goody bags must always be worth the effort. Often containing tens of thousands of pounds worth of freebies, the bags are legendary for their nauseas over-indulgence. …

Valve founder Gabe Newell made a brief speech at this year's Vision Summit 2016 organised by Unity, in which he broke down some of the exciting announcements coming at the event. However he seemed particularly pumped about what he called his “Oprah moment,” in the latter half of the speech, …

We've seen what it would look like watching sports in augmented reality, but virtual reality is much closer to an affordable reality. That's why LiveLike has been putting its efforts into making watching football in VR a reality and it already looks fantastic, with your own personal box-seat, alternative camera …

It might be exorbitantly expensive, still look rather chunky and requires plenty of work on its image quality and field of view, but Microsoft's Hololens has the potential to do some very cool things. In the latest trailer for the in-development tech, the software giant shows us just how such a …

As much as VR hardware is almost upon us, many of those working in the fledgling industry are looking far into the future. Oculus is considering future camera tracking hardware and Microsoft wants to blend the virtual and augmented realities into one, but Magic Leap has something clever in the …

Cover your mother's eyes before starting the video on this one ladies and gents, it's a little racy. The VirtuaDolls adult VR game controller is now available to pre-order on IndieGoGo, offering a touchable, feelable, real-world controller for certain adult ‘games' that will be available for virtual reality headsets when they …

Although virtual reality will be used in lots of ways, one of its most compelling is how it will allow us to tell new sorts of stories. Games are one aspect, but so are movies, which is why Oculus's Story Studio is developing new types of filmmkaing. Take its upcoming …

From duct tape prototype, right through the developer versions to the final product, we've seen the Oculus Rift from its inception through to its consumer version, but not so with rival VR headset, the HTC Vive. Fortunately though we have VR Product Specialist at HTC, Shen Ye, tweeting out images of …

Starbreeze studios, the co-developer of Payday 2, has announced that it will be creating a brand new VR Arcade in Los Angeles, utilising its in-house developed Star VR headset as the HMD of choice. Set to open sometime in the Spring or Summer of 2016, the facility will be using …

Ubisoft has big plans for virtual reality, with a number of games in the works that will be compatible with both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets. However it isn't stopping there, as it's just announced a partnership with Elijah Wood's production company, SpectreVision, most known for horror films …

Although virtual reality has a lot of potential for giving us amazing gaming experiences in the home, there's also huge potential for more advanced entertainment at bespoke locations. Take the upcoming re-imagining of the ghost train in a partnership between Thorpe Park and Derren Brown, utilising virtual reality to enhance …

As much as many people love the idea of room-scale virtual reality, the ‘reality' is that most won't have the space for it. What might be possible for a lot of people though, is a small scale room, a few metres by a few metres of clear space. That will be …

While you, I and a lot of enthusiasts and gamers are excited by virtual reality, there's still a lot of people that have no idea what all the hype is about. Some just haven't tried it, but others don't believe in it and more still, have yet to even hear …

In-case you weren't aware already, running a virtual reality headset is not something many PCs can do. In-fact, based on the recommended specifications, it's something only a few per cent of PCs can do. That won't always be the case though, with incoming software tweaks making it so VR could …

This week has been an exciting one with CES ongoing in Las Vegas, but Oculus nearly stole the show by launching its pre-orders earlier this week. Although buyers were asked to put down a little more than expected for their future HMD, detailed images of the headset and its accessories …

Yesterday's launch of Oculus Rift Pre-Orders was rather manic, with thousands or perhaps even tens of thousands of people trying to buy the headset, despite it coming in at around double the expected cost. To answer some people's concerns and others' hopes for the future, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey took …

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is now available for pre-order, priced at $600 (£530 inc. shipping the UK). This is vastly more than the originally projected $300-$350 cost for the consumer head mounted display (HMD), but we were warned previously by Palmer Luckey and several others involved in its …