Oculus VR Launches Social Experiences for Gear VR
Samsung Gear VR owners will be having a lot more time spent on virtual reality experiences, as Facebook-owned Oculus VR has launched a wide range of new social experiences for the Gear VR, including games, videos, and Facebook functionalities.
Gear VR users will now be able to create a profile and search for others on the platform by using their real name or Oculus username. From there, it will then be possible to interact with friends around the world in a virtual environment. Users will also be able to leave reviews for all apps available in the Oculus store.
Two new social-inclined games will be introduced by Oculus VR to the Gear VR headset, namely Social Trivia and Herobound: Gladiators, specifically adopted to work with the said VR headset.
Social Trivia is a simple trivia game that lets you and up to four friends compete in a battle of knowledge, while the other game is a new, co-op multiplayer version of third-person adventure game Herobound: Gladiators, lets players work together to conquer goblins and demons in arena battlefields. Integrated voice chat will be used in Herobound for gamers to coordinate with each other and formulate strategies in real time.
The social aspect of Facebook will now be experienced on the Gear VR as well – for the first time, you’ll be able to connect your Facebook account with Oculus Video to personalize your 360-degree video feed based on the pages and people you follow. You’ll even be able to ‘like’ and share Facebook 360 videos from within VR.
Watching videos with your friends at the same time is also happening in a virtual world on the Gear VR. In addition to all the social features like games and videos, Oculus VR has added the ability to create virtual rooms so groups of friends can sit down and watch Twitch or Vimeo streams together. The company added that it will be releasing new tools for developers to tinker with these VR features and create more social VR games and apps.
For more information on social features on Gear VR, please visit the following websites:
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/join-friends-in-vr-with-new-oculus-social-features/
http://www.gizmag.com/oculus-social-launch-gear-vr/42236/
http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/09/facebooks-oculus-adds-new-social-games-and-video-features-to-samsung-gear-vr/
