As of the time of this writing Bigscreen is only available on PC VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Windows VR platform, but that’s all about to change. Starting today, Bigscreen is starting its Alpha Testing signup phase for the Samsung Gear VR mobile version of Bigscreen.
Bigscreen remains to be one of the best and most popular ways to use your desktop interface from inside of a VR headset. What sets it apart from the competition (such as Virtual Desktop) in that space is that it’s a multiplayer shared-room experience and it lets you access the entirety of your PC — not just web browsers or things in the cloud.
The Gear VR version of Bigscreen is planned for a Q2 2018 release, which is actually really soon. Bigscreen will have a lot of its features carried over to the mobile version, but at launch it will focus on its social, multiplayer features that allow for cross-platform hangouts with PC VR users. Later on in Q2 after launch singleplayer features such as a video player, 3D painting, PC-to-mobile streaming, and more will be available.
As a result, Darshan Shankar, Bigscreen CEO and Founder has outline four main features for Bigscreen mobile:
- Public and private rooms with 4-12 people per room in cross-platform multiplayer, although mobile users can only join at this time, not create rooms yet,
- Attend live movie screenings such as Top Gun and Stargate,
- Eventually a video playaer so you can watch videos stored locally on your device. This will also support streaming soon too,
- And finally, there will eventually also be the aforementioned PC-to-Mobile desktop streaming as well, so you can access your entire Windows PC.
The mobile edition of Bigscreen will eventually come to other platforms as well, such as Google Daydream and Oculus Go. If you want to signup for the Gear VR Alpha Test, you can do so at this link.
Let us know what you think of this news down in the comments below!
