Summer is traditionally a slow time for the tech industry. People want to be outside enjoying the heat, not squinting at the computer screen and shutting their curtains. That said, it’s been a surprisingly good few months for VR; there may not have been many earth shattering headlines, but the Summer fun has been fuelled by the remarkable Oculus Rift sale, introducing a new wave of consumers to the industry for the first time (and the Vive price cut just added to that). But now that daylight hours are slowly winding back down and we’re all starting to think about that holiday which must not be named until at least late-November, we’re looking forward to more news and releases.
The holiday period for VR last year was pretty hectic. Between PlayStation VR launch, shows like Oculus Connect and announcements like the TPCast wireless adapter for Vive, we barely got a minute to breathe. Looking at the schedule for the rest of the year, 2017 will be no different.
Yes, Connect returns in October and we’ve got a ton of catching up to do with Oculus. 2017 has been a great year for content on Rift and shown a new side to Oculus as a publisher just as much as it is a hardware company. But we’re eager for updates on the company’s standalone headset, which hasn’t been heard from since last year’s Connect, and we want to get a clear direction of where Facebook’s VR team is going under Hugo Barra’s leadership. We’ll find out in mid-October.
Valve, too, has plenty more to share. SteamVR 2.0, a label we use to describe the arrival of new base stations and its promising Knuckles controllers, may be launching later this year. With the Vive still $100 more than the Rift, Valve needs to produce exciting tech that pushes SteamVR further than the Oculus platform. What can we expect from SteamVR’s refresh and how will it arrive in our homes? With a new Vive? Or perhaps LG’s kit? That’s one of the biggest questions in VR right now.
Next up is the full launch of Microsoft’s Windows 10 VR headsets, which have been quietly shipping out to developers over the past month. This is the launch of an entire new VR ecosystem, supported by promising inside-out tracking technology. Again, we’re really curious as to how Microsoft envisions these devices being used, and what content we’ll be able to experience on them. We’ve only got a few months left to find out.
And then there’s Google, which still has to detail the release of its promised WorldSense standalone headsets. Both HTC Vive and Lenovo are meant to be launching their takes on the Daydream-supported platform later this year, and we’ll likely learn more whenever Google announces its long-rumored follow-up to the Pixel.
But it’s not all about new hardware; there’s some huge software on the way too. I don’t have to remind you that Skyrim, Fallout and Doom are all getting VR versions, but we also have four more months left, which means four more exclusive games Oculus intends to publish on Rift, and we don’t know for sure which are coming. We expect to have plenty to play over the next few months.
Looking at all of that, it’s hard to believe there’s just four months left of 2017. Best strap yourself in; it’s going to be a rush.
