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Valve To Reveal Virtual Reality Dev Kit Next Week At GDC
An anonymous reader writes Gaming giant Valve has been researching augmented and virtual reality for some time. Early on, the company worked closely with Oculus, sharing research findings and even adding support for TF2 to Oculus' first VR headset, the DK1, back in 2013. After demonstrating their own prototype VR headset at Steam Dev Days in early 2014, and then a modified version later in the year, Valve is now ready to take the wraps off a 'previously unannounced ... SteamVR Dev Kit,' which will make its debut at GDC next week. SteamVR is the name of the software adaptation of Steam's 'Big Picture' mode that the company revealed early last year, allowing players to browse their Steam library and play supported games all in virtual reality.
what ever happened to that? Did they finally realize it was a pointless mission?
Hmm so Steam, the #1 gaming platform and Facebook, the #2 gaming platform....I know! Let's hand money over to Facebook after they bought Oculus! At least Microsoft had it right in refusing the make Office for the iOS platform. But then again Google made Google maps for the new iOS version right exactly when Apple Maps was driving people into lakes and down airport runways and they freaking MAKE ANDROID, the #1 competitor!
How do people this stupid keep getting decision-making jobs at companies this large?! Everyone should stay off Oculus like it's toxic. 100% of Facebook customers hate Facebook as a company. 100% of Oculus enthusiasts are pissed that Facebook bought the company. Facebook is threatening Steam. Maybe they shouldn't be working with them! Facebook could take it precisely nowhere on their own and Steam could work with any other VR company and crush Facebook's overpriced acquisition. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?!
When I want to feel nausea, I volunteer for a chemo drug trial.
EVERYTHING IS AWESOOOOOOOOOME
I was hoping the big announcement was gonna be HL3
Rise and shine Mr Freeman.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
It is exciting to see Valve putting effort into VR, but I hope that their implementation does not contribute to fragmentation of this nascent technology.
Ever since the early stages of Oculus awakened the tech community's interest in VR again, suggesting that the economic and technological necessities have converged to provide "good enough, cheap enough" consumer VR, there have been many "also-rans" putting forth their own, similar plans. From Sony's Playstation visor project to tons of indie developers, there are tons of interested parties trying to make their VR product into a market leader. Considering that overall many of these projects are proprietary in nature, it could ultimately lead to fragmentation - a major threat as the consumer VR landscape unfolds. Tons of different, often incompatible hardware and software offerings each trying to lock down their little niche could ultimately threaten the widespread adoption of the technology.
With this in mind, I hope Valve is going forward as not just another (admittedly, well heeled) company making their own paradigm, but are planning an open, compatible implementation. I'll certainly give them the chance to prove it, as I think many others will - Valve has been willing to strike a blow for openness and long term growth in ways that others in the industry wouldn't dream of (ie SteamOS, Steam for Linux etc...), so it certainly seems to be a step in the right direction for Valve to a SteamVR platform in an open manner. Allowing developers who want to integrate with or launch products on Steam to be able to freely implement seamless VR support sounds like a great benefit.
However, there are still questions of licensing and how SteamVR hardware and software will fit in the larger picture. For instance, Valve is launching a SteamVR dev kit that includes hardware. That's great. However, we don't yet know if the SDK will play nice with third party hardware, such as the Oculus Rift itself. Likewise, on the software side, will the majority of it be FLOSS licensed and platform independent? The best case scenario comes to Valve joining with those like OSVR (www.osvr.com), for instance, who have already seen the threat of fragmentation and are acting against it.. Logically, joining with this sort of industry group would seem to be a win for Valve, as it would mean SteamVR being poised for adoption well beyond its own sphere. However, Valve could certainly have reasons for wanting to go it alone, worrisome as they may be from an outside perspective.
We're on the cusp of bringing affordable, enjoyable VR tech to developers and consumers alike, but this adoption could be threatened without enough openness. This is not a development that is going to give way into a clear market leader who then gets the entire ecosystem to themselves and we should not put up with those who try to make it so. Users and developers should ideally be able to use any hardware of sufficient specs with compatible, FLOSS drivers and software. Hopefully Valve is aware of this and will make SteamVR as open as possible.
If you attempt to look at something in the AR headset you haven't acquired the license to look at, the hardware simply omits that object from your view.
As I recall, Valve decided that VR hardware was not in their road map and decided to let go of the entire team, including female engineer extraordinaire Jeri Ellsworth. They also asked if they could take what they have done with them, and Valve gave them the Greenlight.
So, it appears that was shortsighted and they are now again pursuing VR hardware again? That is one company that just doesn't want to make sense, at least to me anyway.
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I believe that was a different project devoted to AR (augmented reality) not VR.
GDC / IGDA is toxic. Their awards are rigged. As a gamedev I'm boycotting them.
No amount of "insider" networking opportunity is worth encouraging the corruption they foster.
Awaiting alternative venues dedicated to ethics and transparency.
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