Google is currently hosting its yearly I/O festival in Mountain View, California. Although it will last for three days, with today being the first, already there are a ton of new products and technologies to talk about.
Among them, perhaps the most impactful to the gaming industry is the next step in what Google is calling Daydream VR. Although the efforts of this new virtual reality ecosystem were seen last year with the Daydream View, what’s coming next is much more compelling.
Daydream VR will be supported by two new consumer grade headsets, one crafted by HTC, and the other by Lenovo. These products will emphasize comfort and ease-of-use. More importantly, they won’t require any additional hardware to operate—not even a phone.
These headsets have both augmented and virtual reality implications. They are free-form and wireless, yet still capable of providing full 360 degree tracking using what Google calls WorldSense.
Unlike their desktop-bound competitors, they will also be within the realm of affordability.
There’s a lot to like here, even if the hardware might not come close to being able to produce the same visual fidelity as something like an Oculus Rift of HTC Vive. On the plus side, consumer adoption and profitability may be far greater, incentivizing developer investment in virtual reality.
