Earlier this week we learned that the CEO of Jaunt was stepping down, but that isn’t stopping the VR company from making some bold moves.
The cinematic VR studio has this week announced the launch of a brand new Chinese company, Jaunt China. It’s been formed with the help of two Chinese media outlets in Shanghai Media Group (SMG) and China Media Capital (CMC). The new company will essentially reflect the US team, creating its own 360 degree content for VR HMDs and distributing it via its own platforms.
In fact its first projects have already been announced. Jaunt China is working on a piece named The Voice of China as well as virtual tours of Shanghai and musical performances from Chinese idol group, SNH48. This content will reach a “global audience”, meaning we’ll likely see it on our version of the Jaunt app. It’s also pledging to creative other narrative experiences and sports-based content using the company’s own professional VR camera, Jaunt ONE.
It will be interesting to see if this means the company will have to tackle translated subtitles in VR, which is something we haven’t really seen yet. VR design dictates that you can’t have words stuck to the player’s screen, and it also helps for such content to appear within the VR world itself. Just how this will apply to 360 video remains to be seen.
SMG is also investing in Jaunt’s US operations, where the company is currently searching for a new CEO. The company has also made some exciting announces over here in recent weeks, the biggest being the reveal of a new documentary series that follows legendary Beatle, Paul McCartney.
Jens Christensen surprisingly stepped down from the role earlier this week, with CTO Arthur van Hoff serving as interim CEO while other candidates are studied. It’s an interesting time for the company to be making this kind of move for sure.
