CES 2019 has been a delight to follow.
A lot of cool VR announcements were made by Nvidia, HTC, Audi and TPCast.
There are more, but we have chosen 7 highlights that we found most exciting.
First of all, welcome to another episode in our DIVE INTO VR series, where we share our
excitement about VR technology, news and just everything beyond that.
Subscribe if you haven’t yet to see more of these types of videos.
Today, we just wanted to share our excitement about the CES 2019 VR announcements.
So here are 7 of our most favorite VR highlights
Coming up!
Number 1.
Nvidia said during their CES 2019 press conference that 4 million PC VR headsets are sold.
This number is most likely about the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
They also said that 3800 VR titles are now available on Steam.
Now, Nvidia has not said where they got this information, so it probably means that they
have their own statistics somewhere.
But this is probably the first time that we got a more accurate number of the size of
the PC VR market, since HTC and Oculus never gave us any sales numbers.
So this could be an estimate, but I have a feeling Nvidia could have a pretty good idea
about this.
And we feel this is a pretty good number!
So great news!
Number 2.
New VR ready hardware was announced by both Nvidia and AMD.
Nvidia announced the RTX 2060 GPU priced at 350 dollar.
This is an entry-level graphics card that is alledgedly more powerful than the GTX 1060
and 1070 cards, but benchmarks will have to prove this.
The 2060 will launch on January 15th.
AMD also announced their next gaming GPU.
The AMD Radeon VII.
With this AMD is hoping to take on NVIDIA’s RTX 2080.
The AMD Radeon VII will launch on February 7th and will be priced at 700 dollar.
This is exciting news if you are looking to upgrade your PC, since you have more choices
now.
We are on a GTX 1070 ourselves, so we are pretty happy about this!
We will probably get a GPU with VirtualLink though, which is the new USB-C single cable
standard for future PC VR headsets.
And we just want to invest into something that is more future proof for VR headsets
as VR enthusiasts ourselves.
What’s also exciting is that Nvidia also announced laptops with the GeForce RTX chips,
some of them will also include VirtualLink.
I’m a little sad about this though, because we just bought a new VR ready laptop.
*Sad Face*
But let’s move on.
Probably one of the most exciting highlights are the ones from HTC Vive.
So coming up are three highlights from them that we are most excited for.
Number 3.
The VIVE Pro Eye is a new VR headset that looks just like the VIVE Pro, except it has
blue rings on the camera’s in the front and it has integrated eye-tracking.
The advantage of eye-tracking is that it will allow foveated rendering.
Foveated rendering is an upcoming graphics rendering technique.
It can reduce the rendering workload by prioritizing what a user is looking at and lowering the
resolution of everything else.
This can possibly allow you to play VR games with better graphics using the same hardware!
Other details of the specifications of the VIVE Pro Eye has been minimal, but it seems
like it will have the same specs as the VIVE Pro.
We are excited to see a headset use eye-tracking and foveated rendering.
However, there are sounds that the VIVE Pro Eye headset is going to be more focused on
enterprise instead of for gamers.
But I guess time will tell.
Number 4.
VIVE Reality System.
VIVE Reality System is Vive's own software platform similar to SteamVR's Home and Oculus
Home.
It sounds basically like a menu, except shaped in a world in 360 degrees, allowing you to
engage with the software in a more immersive way.
VIVE Reality System will be focused on social interactions.
According to HTC, this means that users will be able to connect with each other, watch
videos and play games together among other creative experiences.
Now here comes the highlight that we are probably the most excited about.
The VIVE Cosmos announcement.
This is a new PC VR headset that can be used at home or on-the-go as teased by HTC.
HTC has been pretty cryptic about the Cosmos, as they seem not ready to share a lot of information.
However what we could gather is that it will be a 6DoF headset with 4 camera’s.
Two at the front, and two at the sides.
This will allow inside-out tracking, so no external tracking devices are needed allowing
for an easier setup.
It has a flip-up visor, which we think is very cool!
As it looks like one of those headsets straight from Ready Player One.
It has two controllers that looks just like the Oculus Quest controllers.
But these new VIVE ones have a beautiful visual addition: the lights on the outside, which
looks like tribal art to us.
There has been a lot of confusion about this headset.
First of all, people thought (including me) that it would be a standalone headset, which
it won’t be.
It will be a tethered headset that you can connect to the PC.
But HTC also teased that you might be able to power it with a mobile device.
How this is exactly implemented is still unknown.
It will also be modular, meaning you’ll be able to customize it how you want, making
it future proof.
But the best news is that it will support OpenVR according to an article by RoadToVR,
which most likely means that it will support SteamVR applications.
That would be great news.
HTC hasn’t said a lot about the display, except that it’s their sharpest screen yet,
with real RGB displays and with minimal screen door effect.
Well, we are definitely intrigued, but we would love to hear more about things like
pricing and just more specifications.
But I guess we just have to be a little bit more patient.
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Number 6.
The car brand Audi is working on a new VR technology that can help prevent motion sickness
in car rides, making commute for passengers more fun.
During CES, Audi put a VR headset in their cars, which ran an interactive VR game in
their cars demoing this technology.
Audi has co-founded a start-up named Holoride.
Together, they are working on an interesting VR technology called "Elastic Content".
What it does is help VR content adapt to a car ride, to its type of route and driving
styles.
This means that if the car turns in real life, the game you're playing will also be able
to simulate this turn automatically.
The advantage of this is that it can help reduce motion sickness in any form of transportation,
not only during car rides, but also in airplanes or on boats for example.
It’s great for anyone who is prone to motion sickness, but also if you’re looking to
make a ride more fun.
The startup will use an open-source approach in the future to give access to other car
makers and content creators.
We are loving this approach.
And as someone who can get motion sick in car rides in the passenger’s seat (not while
I’m driving by the way), then I think this would be such an amazing solution for it.
Number 7.
TPCAST air.
TPCAST was one of the first to release a wireless adapters for the HTC VIVE and Oculus Rift.
Now, they have announced a second generation wireless solution called the TPCAST Air.
Now this device can stream PC VR applications through WiFi connections onto standalone VR
headsets like the Oculus Go.
TPCAST is also planning on adding support for the Oculus Quest in the future.
It seems like TPCAST isn't targeting consumers though, but more at enterprise, multi-user
industrial applications and Location Based Entertainment (LBE) according to their press
release.
TPCAST also states that the biggest advantages of using the TPCAST Air is:
Firstly, its ease of setup, because LBE and VR arcades need a PC backpack to make the
headsets wireless, which requires more configuration.
Second is the lower costs as you don't need a high-end and high-cost VR headset anymore.
The system supports all SteamVR applications and utilizes the most popular game engines
Unreal and Unity, which is great news for developers that uses these engines, because
it makes it easier for them to utilize the TPCAST Air as well.
Now TPCAST Air is more focused on enterprise, like LBE and VR arcades.
But still, I am pretty interested to see how this technology turns out.
So which of the CES VR announcements are YOU most excited for?
And did we miss anything that should have been in this list as our favorite VR highlight?
Let us know in the comments section down below.
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And as always: VR on!!!