Tracking Amazon’s work in VR can be tricky, as the company is famously quiet in response to media inquiries while seemingly being involved in multiple areas.
The company is helping to make VR games with its Lumberyard development engine, and appears to be interested in VR video for its streaming service. But what about when it comes to its juggernaut online store? It sounds like the company has big plans there too.
Amazon is looking for a Sr. Software Development Manager in Virtual Reality to work in its Seattle offices, according to a new job listing. The listing states that the company is looking to “revolutionize online shopping for millions of customers worldwide” while seeking someone to “lead the development of a completely new VR shopping experience at Amazon.”
That makes it pretty clear that Amazon is working on a way to let us buy things inside our headsets. The listing notes that experience with “Oculus Rift, Gear VR, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, or Google Daydream” is a bonus, so we’d expect this service to come to multiple platforms too.
Another listing for a VR Tech Lead says the service will boast “new features that the industry has not seen before.”
It is not hard to see what use Amazon might have for a VR version of its store. We can easily picture people heading into VR to inspect virtual representations of products before ordering the real thing, perhaps even testing them out. Now that VR is getting closer to full body tracking imagine putting on clothes to make sure they fit you or look good, for example.
Last August we uncovered a similar listing from the company that stated it would launch a physical and digital VR shopping experience. Hopefully we’ll see whatever the company has planned sooner rather than later.
