Oculus Connect 2 – All You Need To Know

Here’s an overview of what Oculus announced during their keynotes at the Oculus Connect 2. You can catch the full keynote on the Oculus Twitch channel.

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Consumer Gear VR at $99

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Oculus Mobile is a key part of putting virtual reality in the hands of everyone.

Together with Samsung, they introduced an all new consumer edition of Gear VR for $99. This new version will be compatible with Samsung Galaxy Note 5, S6 edge +, S6, and S6 edge. Gear VR will be launching in November starting in the United States, with more than 40 additional countries coming shortly after.

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With the consumer launch around the corner, they are excited to share a few of the incredible new games, videos, and experiences coming to Gear in the months ahead.

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Dozens of new made-for-VR games are launching on Gear VR, including Land’s End by UsTwo, Gunjack by CCP Games, and Smash Hit by Mediocre.

Here’s a sneak peek of these games, among many more, coming to Gear next year:

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Oculus Arcade on Gear VR

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Oculus also introduced Oculus Arcade for Gear VR, which brings more than 20 classic games from Sega, Warner Bros. Midway, and Bandai Namco into your their virtual arcade.

Many of their favorites like Sonic the Hedgehog, Gauntlet, Spy Hunter, and Pac-Man will be available when Oculus Arcade launches later this year.

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Fox, Lionsgate, Twitch, Vimeo, and Facebook join Oculus Video

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Oculus Cinema has been reborn as Oculus Video, and they have greatly expanded the content library with a group of new partners.

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They have been working with major Hollywood studios to introduce a completely new way to experience movies. In the coming weeks, you’ll be able to watch over 100 hit movies, all from a virtual theater.

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Lionsgate is bringing a slate of current blockbusters and classic library titles including The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Insurgent. They have partnered with 20th Century Fox to bring hits such as Alien Trilogy and X-Men.

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They have also partnered with Twitch to bring live streaming video to Gear VR. You can even watch with friends in avatar form, showing a true social presence in VR.

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And they also announced other partners like Vimeo, Tivo, and Hulu who are building content and apps for the platform.

And finally, Facebook launched 360 videos in News Feed, and starting in November, you’ll be able to access all of that 360 content right from Oculus Video.

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Netflix VR now available on Gear VR

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Starting today, Netflix customers can watch their entire catalog of award-winning original series, documentaries and films on Gear VR.

John Carmack shared some of his thoughts about working with Netflix to engineer and design the made-for-VR app over at the Netflix blog.

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Minecraft on Oculus

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They announced that Minecraft will be coming to Oculus!

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Minecraft will be shipping next spring on Rift and Gear VR.

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Rift: Oculus Ready Program, Rift SDK, and New Games

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They identified a recommended spec for Rift to ensure a great experience and simplify development. And they have been collaborating with their technology partners NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD to advance the state of PC hardware for VR.

They announced the new Oculus Ready PC program, designed to make it easy to buy a great PC for Rift.

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Starting early next year, their partners Asus, Dell, and Alienware will offer brand new Oculus Ready machines powered by NVIDIA, AMD and Intel. Many of these systems will start at a variety of price points under $1,000.

This is just the beginning for the Oculus Ready program. They’ll have more partners to announce in the coming year. New Rift Games and Rift SDK 1.0 The Rift SDK 1.0 will be coming this December. Games built with 1.0 will be ready to release on Rift day one. They’ll also be compatible with future releases of the runtime.

There are now over 200,000 registered users on the Oculus Developer Center. Here’s a look at a few of the incredible games and experiences the Oculus community is bringing to Rift next year:

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We’re dedicated to building the VR platform for Rift and Gear VR developers. And they also announced new features and services coming to Oculus platform this winter.

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Introducing the New Oculus Platform

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They are adding more robust features around User Profiles to allow people to personalize their Oculus accounts. Game developers will be able to customize information by utilizing things like OculusIDs and avatar pictures.

They’ll be adding additional platform and game services like IAP, and other social features like friend lists and achievements.

They are also introducing Oculus Concepts, a new way for developers to distribute content in the early stages of development with the broader Oculus community.

Concepts will launch first on Gear VR, and next year on Rift.

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Oculus Touch and Touch SDK

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Earlier this year, we introduced Oculus Touch, a new pair of tracked controllers that let you bring your own hands into VR and take your games and experiences even further. Touch is designed around delivering hand presence — the feeling that your virtual hands are your own.

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They are making early Touch hardware available to developers, and the Touch SDK is shipping alongside developer hardware. The Touch SDK will have everything you need including API’s for determining the position of the controllers, recognizing hand controllers, and driving the haptics avatar hands. These will be fully integrated into Unity and Unreal with sample code.

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Introducing ‘Oculus Medium’

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Oculus Medium is a new art tool that they have created for Touch. They built Medium for everyone, from aspiring creatives to professional artists. It lets you use the Touch controllers to reach out and create incredible works of art in virtual reality.

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Medium will be shipping alongside Touch in Q2, and it’s also available to try here at Connect.

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New Games coming to Oculus Touch

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They have 8 new games coming to Oculus Touch, including:

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  • Final Approach by Phaser Lock Interactive
  • Moon Strike by Big Dorks
  • Pulsar Arena by ZeroTransformation
  • Job Simulator by Owlchemy Labs
  • I Expect You To Die by Schell Games
  • Nimbus Nights by Otherworld Interactive
  • Dead & Buried by Oculus Studios Team
  • Surgeon Simulator by Bossa Studios

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Epic Debuts ‘Bullet Train’ Demo for Oculus Touch

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Epic debuted a brand new Oculus Touch demo, ‘Bullet Train’, a VR gunfight experience allowing you to interact in bullet time and teleport around the scene.

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