AR/VR Weekly: Virtual reality takes a bigger stage at E3
You can get a good sense of the role virtual reality plays in the video game industry by comparing two of the biggest industry events in North America: the Game Developers Conference and the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
VR plays a crucial role at GDC, and this year’s event made a case that it’s not going anywhere. And while last year’s E3 showed off VR from Ubisoft and Sony, the platform didn’t feel like it was a big deal.
But that’s changing. Leading up to E3, we saw the momentum continue. Ubisoft released Star Trek: Bridge Crew a couple of weeks before the show, and the startup Experiment 9 added Dungeon Chess, the Dungeons & Dragons chess app for Oculus Rift, to Gear VR as it prepares to add more to its VR tabletop platform.
And then the big boys weighed in. Bethesda’s bringing Doom and Fallout 4 to VR, and Sony made announcements as well for the PlayStation VR platform. This includes a Final Fantasy XV experience and our Unreal Engine VR game of the show, Polyarc’s Moss.
E3 is becoming a bigger stage for VR. And it’s developing the same relationship with GDC that traditional gaming has: One show teaches you how to make cool games, and the other gives you one of the world’s biggest platforms to show them off.
Now, if only more of those 15,000 fans who came to E3 this year wiped their faces before donning a VR headset, not after, while enjoying the show.
For AR/VR coverage, send news tips to Dean Takahashi and Jeff Grubb (for those that cross over into PC gaming). Please send guest post submissions to Rowan Kaiser. Please be sure to visit our AR/VR Channel.
—Jason Wilson, GamesBeat managing editor
P.S. This Ubisoft game lets you “fly like an eagle.”
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