Valve Index Stock Check – Manufacturing Looks to be Spinning Up as Backorders Shrink

Like other headsets, the Valve Index has been in high demand but limited supply due to the Coronavirus pandemic. While we’ve seen stock of Oculus Quest and Rift starting to return over the two months or so, Index has been backordered globally. Though it’s still backordered, we’re seeing the first strong signal that Index stock starting to flow again.

Updated – August 5th, 2020

We checked stock availability for all Index packages across all 31 regions where sold. Our last check in July was the first time in months that any of the Index packages had a backorder less than eight weeks. At the time, most regions showed the ‘Headset’ package at 3–5 weeks, while all other packages were either 8+ weeks or outright unavailable.

Now in August we’re seeing more packages with a backorder less than 8+ weeks. Though the ‘Headset’ package has returned to 8+ weeks, the ‘Headset + Controller’ package now stands at 5–7 weeks and the ‘Controllers’ package at 3–5 weeks in almost all regions, with the US, Canada, Italy, and Japan being outliers.

See chart for: 7/6/20 | 4/30/20 | 5/6/20 | 5/18/20 

“We are continuing to make every effort possible to keep up with the ongoing demand and deliver units in a timely fashion, while navigating the challenges of shipping during the pandemic. We appreciate everyone’s patience, and we’ll let you know when we have more specifics to share,” a Valve spokesperson told Road to VR earlier this year.

Index had been backordered by eight weeks or more in all regions since a small supply of new stock was gobbled up just before Half-Life: Alyx launched in late March. Today is the first time since then that we’ve seen shipping estimates of less than 8 weeks on more than one of the Index packages.

Despite the backorders, it’s been possible to register your interest in any of the Index packages (except for the base stations). To reserve a spot in line, check out the Index store page and click the order button.

Valve is then sending out notifications by email when stock is available, giving customers one week to pull the trigger. Even so, when offered the option to buy, no specific estimate for delivery is provided leaving, customers wondering how long they’ll be waiting.

SEE ALSO

Analysis: 'Half-Life: Alyx' Adds Nearly 1 Million VR Users to Steam in Record Gain

Like other headsets, the Chinese-manufactured Index has seen a double-whammy due to the Coronavirus pandemic: supply decreasing due to manufacturing disruptions and demand increasing due to shelter-in-place orders in many parts of the globe.

Oculus had been in the same boat; in the last month however we’ve seen Oculus steadily beating back its Quest and Rift S backorders, showing that manufacturing of the headset has picked up significant steam. When the same might happen for Index isn’t clear, but we’ve got our eye on the situation.

The post Valve Index Stock Check – Manufacturing Looks to be Spinning Up as Backorders Shrink appeared first on Road to VR.

Ream more: https://www.roadtovr.com/valve-index-stock-check-headset-availability-shipping-countries/

Someone Remade Disneyland’s Classic Indiana Jones Ride in VR with ‘Dreams’

Dreams (2020), the VR-compatible game-maker tool suite, has unleashed a ton of creativity since it launched on PS4 earlier this year. You may be (very wisely) planning on skipping the trip to Disneyland this summer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take a head-first dive into the classic Indiana Jones ride with the help of Dreams PSVR mode.

Created by TheArmyofDos, the VR project presents an uncanny recreation of the real thing, which you’ll find at Disneyland in Anaheim, California and a nearly identical version in the park’s Chiba, Japan location.

It even appears to have authentic sound effects. Check out the whole experience in the video below:

In case you’ve never been Disneyland in Anaheim between 1995 and now, take a look below to see just how close TheArmyofDos manages to get the VR version of the ride.

 

Dreams for PSVR keeps on impressing. You can play a hacked together version of Beat Saber, experience a bootleg Friday Nights at Freddy’s, and explore a ton of original art, experiences, and prototype games.

One of the best ways to keep an eye on Dreams content is by heading to the Media Molecule subsite and filtering for ‘VR only’, ‘VR compatible’ and ‘Recommended’ to see some of the top VR content the community has to offer.

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What’s your favorite VR-compatible experience on Dreams? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Someone Remade Disneyland’s Classic Indiana Jones Ride in VR with ‘Dreams’ appeared first on Road to VR.

Ream more: https://www.roadtovr.com/indiana-jones-ride-dreams-vr/

Applications for Oculus Launch Pad 2020 Developer Program Now Open

Oculus has now opened applications for this year’s Launch Pad program, which aims to give a select number of developers from diverse backgrounds some hands-on support with their VR projects.

Launch Pad 2020 is set to invite up to 100 participants to what the company calls a “virtual boot camp” this September. Oculus says development support will be available as participants work to finalize their working prototype in the coming months.

In addition to support from VR experts and past Launch Pad alumni, Oculus will also award some participants between $5K – $50K USD, with a total $250,000 allocated to qualifying candidates that require additional financial support.

SEE ALSO

Kat VR Secures $1.6M in Kickstarter Funding for Its Consumer-grade VR Treadmill

“In order for immersive technology to reach its full potential, we need a developer/creator ecosystem that can build and ship diverse VR experiences to the world,” Oculus says in a blog post announcing this year’s program. “That’s why we started Launch Pad—a program designed to support promising VR content creators from diverse backgrounds with hands-on training and support, so they can iterate on their unique ideas and bring them to market.”

Apply for Oculus Launch Pad 2020

Through Launch Pad, Facebook (vis-à-vis Oculus) hopes to invest in developers with unique perspectives, including women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and “anyone who is willing to share how their perspective adds to the ‘diversity of thought’ in our community,” the company says.

Applications are open to August 20th, 2020. Click the button above to apply. Also make sure to check out last year’s winners for inspiration.

The post Applications for Oculus Launch Pad 2020 Developer Program Now Open appeared first on Road to VR.

Ream more: https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-launch-pad-2020/

Analysis: Steam Hangs on to VR Surge Four Months After ‘Half-Life: Alyx Launch’

Half-Life: Alyx led to a huge leap in VR usage on Steam when it launched back in March. Four months later, there’s nearly as many VR headsets on Steam as there were right after the game’s launch.

Each month Valve collects info from Steam users to determine some baseline statistics about what kind of hardware and software is used by the platform’s population, and to see how things are changing over time, including the use of VR headsets.

While we had expected that Half-Life: Alyx would lead to a surge in VR usage on Steam, we also figured that only a portion of that surge would remain in the long run. Surprisingly, Steam appears to have retained nearly all of the growth in VR usage brought on by Alyx four months after the launch of the game, according to Valve’s monthly Steam Survey.

In fact, if you look purely at the percentage of Steam users with VR headsets, this month’s figure is slightly higher than the peak brought in by Alyx.

Monthly-connected VR Headsets on Steam

The data shared in the survey represents the number of headsets connected to Steam over a given month, so we call the resulting figure ‘monthly-connected headsets’ for clarity; it’s the closest official figure there is to ‘monthly active VR users’ on Steam, with the caveat that it only tells us how many VR headsets were connected not how many were used.

The latest figures for the month of July show that 1.93% of Steam users had a VR headset connected to their PC over the course of the month, which is actually the highest the percentage of VR users on Steam has ever been.

To put this into perspective, Steam users with connected VR headsets are about twice as common as those using Linux, and a little more than half as common as those using MacOS.

While Valve’s data is a useful way see which headsets are most popular on Steam, the trend of monthly-connected headsets has always been obfuscated because the data is given exclusively as percentages relative to Steam’s population—which itself is an unstated and constantly fluctuating figure.

To demystify the data Road to VR maintains a model, based on the historical survey data along with official data points directly from Valve and Steam, which aims to correct for Steam’s changing population to estimate the actual count—not the percent—of headsets being used on Steam.

From the model we estimate there was 2.6 million monthly-connected VR headsets on Steam in July. Although the percentage of VR users in July (1.93%) was ever so slightly higher than the April Alyx peak (1.92%), from a raw number standpoint we estimate that April still held the edge with 2.7 million headsets that month. Still, four months later, nearly all of the Alyx spike has remained.

As we can see on the graph, June seemed to have a sudden drop but recovered quickly. It isn’t clear if this is just a blip in the data or if June really did see around 400,000 fewer headsets than July. Valve did make some tweaks to the Survey (which now breaks down more headsets and VR streaming drivers), though they didn’t specifically say that a dip would be expected.

Share of VR Headsets on Steam

As for the share of individual headsets on Steam, the biggest winner in July was Valve Index (+1.55%) which now represents 14.45% of all headsets on Steam. That’s surprising considering the significant global backorder that the headset has faced during the Coronavirus pandemic. This may be a sign that Index has begun shipping steadily again, but that Valve is still churning through its backlog of orders.

Oculus Quest also had a big month (+1.26%) for an overall 10.13% share of headsets. If it keeps growing at this rate it may well eclipse Valve’s Index.

On the losing side, first-gen headsets are giving way to newer headsets. The original Rift CV1 (−1.03%) at 13.63% now holds less than Index for the first time. The original Vive (−1.06%) is declining too but still holds an impressive 23.03% of the share of headsets on Steam.

Windows VR headsets (−0.99%) have continued their steady decline, now at 7.36% from their June 2019 peak of 11.13%. Later this year HP will launch Reverb G2, the first new Windows VR headset, since Samsung’s Odyssey+ in 2018. We’ll be interested to see if the headset alone can breath new life into the bloc.

SEE ALSO

Exclusive Hands-on: HP's Reverb G2 is the King of Clarity

Looking at the headset vendors overall, the ‘big two’ still hold strong; Oculus headsets (+0.69%) now hold 45.55% and HTC headsets (−0.89%) 28.82% of all headsets on Steam. Valve (+1.55%) is still a somewhat distant third at 14.45%, but closing the gap as HTC’s overall share of headsets continues to decline from its 39.28% share this time last year. Windows VR headsets (−0.99%) are giving way too, now at just 7.36%.

As ever, it’s worth noting that the Steam Survey only gives us a glimpse of the overall VR market, as it only counts headsets connected to Steam. That means it doesn’t count some portion of Rift & Quest users which may not use Steam at all, nor other major headsets like PlayStation VR on PS4 and Quest standalone.

The post Analysis: Steam Hangs on to VR Surge Four Months After ‘Half-Life: Alyx Launch’ appeared first on Road to VR.

Ream more: https://www.roadtovr.com/steam-survey-vr-headset-growth-august-2020/

Kat VR Secures $1.6M in Kickstarter Funding for Its Consumer-grade VR Treadmill

Kat VR, the China-based company behind the original Kat Walk VR treadmill Kickstarter in 2015, has concluded its latest crowdfunding campaign, this time bringing a consumer-focused VR treadmill ‘Kat Walk C’ to market.

Update (August 3rd, 2020): The Kickstarter for KAT Walk C has successfully concluded with a whopping $1.66 million in funding. Less than 24 hours after its launch back in late June, the project successfully broke through the $1 million mark, pushing it well over its initial $100,000 goal.

This astounding result puts Kat Walk C as the platform’s most-funded non-headset peripheral designed explicitly for VR.

In an update, the company says the device is well on its way to be produced, as manufacturing lines are now established. There are still plenty of stretch goals to fulfill, including an overhead cabling pulley system, a dedicated game, haptic feedback modules for the device’s base, and more, which should keep Kat VR busy in the months to come.

The first units are said to arrive in October 2020; considering the company has been producing its VR treadmills for over 5 years now, it’s not an impossible task to reach, although we’ll be following updates closely to see whether Kat VR will be able to make this ambitious shipping schedule.

Original Article (June 19th, 2020): The campaign is slated to begin at 10 AM ET (local time here) on Sunday, and will end on July 30th. Kat VR hopes to reach at least $100,000 with its campaign.

Kat Walk C will be offered via multiple quantity-limited tiers, with the earliest supporters getting a chance to reserve their own at what the company calls “a significant discount.”

It’s not clear what the final MSRP will be after the Kickstarter is said and done, however Kat VR has consistently made their crowdfunded hardware cheaper to backers.

Check out the tiers below:

• Super KATer Extra Early Bird: $699 + Delivery (Limited Quantity)
• Extra Early-Bird: $799 + Delivery (Limited Quantity)
• Early-Bird: $899 + Delivery (Limited Quantity)
• Special Kickstarter Offer: $999 + Delivery (Unlimited Quantity)

Additionally, the company says it’s going to offer discounts for backers looking to buy multiple units, which will include discounts on delivery costs.

The first units of Kat Walk C are expected to ship to backers in early October, Kat VR says.

Kat VR says the device acts as an “independent controller”, allowing it to work with any SteamVR game with free locomotion on major VR headsets such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Pimax, and Windows VR. The device is also said to be compatible with Oculus Quest via Link, and with PSVR via an additional adapter.

Like all of the company’s VR treadmills, Kat Walk C incorporates a low-friction parabola and slippy user-worn footwear, giving you a slick surface that simulates walking to some degree.

SEE ALSO

Back-compat PSVR Games on PS5 Could See Improved Frame Rates, Resolution, & Loading

We’ve had a chance to go hands-on with its bigger brother back at Gamescom 2017. Although VR treadmills have gotten better throughout the years, they still don’t offer a natural walking experience, as the user needs to adapt to the low-friction surface and the demands of pulling themselves opposite to the rear-mounted stabilizer bar.

That said, there’s really no other device class in town that approximates walking in VR—let alone one for consumers—so we’re interested to see how Kat Walk C fares before offering any further opinion.

The post Kat VR Secures $1.6M in Kickstarter Funding for Its Consumer-grade VR Treadmill appeared first on Road to VR.

Ream more: https://www.roadtovr.com/kat-walk-c-kickstarter-launch/

PlayStation 5 to Support Current Gen PS Aim, Move Controllers, Camera & DualShock 4

Sony previously confirmed PSVR compatibility with the upcoming PlayStation 5 console, however what wasn’t so clear was whether you’d be able to use all of your current-gen accessories like PS Aim and PS Move controllers. Now Sony says those old school essentials will also work with the PS5.

This, Sony’s Isabelle Tomatis reveals in a blog post, also includes the current-gen PlayStation Camera, however it will require an adaptor.

Tomatis says Sony will be handing out these adaptors “at no additional cost to PS VR users.” More details are said to follow on how those will be distributed.

Based on images courtesy Sony

What’s equally intriguing is that the DualShock 4 wireless controller and officially licensed third-party gamepads are also said to work with “supported PS4 games” on PS5, something Sony hasn’t historically allowed by default across console generations. Games created for PS5 will however require the new DualSense wireless controller, Sony says.

Both the PS Move and PS Camera were originally released on PS3 in the late 2000s. Any PSVR user can tell you how irksome the headset’s less than performant tracking can be when the stars aren’t metaphorically aligned. Hopefully this is a concession aimed at keeping PSVR users happy in the near term and not a hint that the next-gen PSVR will use the same tracking standard as its forbear.

SEE ALSO

Pressure Mounts for Xbox's Missing VR Strategy as PSVR Revenue Exceeds $2 Billion

To allay those fears somewhat, it appears the DualSense controllers don’t seem to contain the same sort of optical tracking markers as DualShock 4, which further supports the position that PSVR 2 will benefit from some other tracking standard altogether.

Tracking woes aside, it seems PSVR users will (mostly) be able to simply plug and play their library of PS4 games on the new console. Granted, we still don’t know the exact extent of this compatibility, and it’s something we hope to learn more about as we approach the console’s holiday season launch.

The post PlayStation 5 to Support Current Gen PS Aim, Move Controllers, Camera & DualShock 4 appeared first on Road to VR.

Ream more: https://www.roadtovr.com/ps5-aim-move-camera-gamepad-support/

One Of The Best Military FPS Now On Oculus Quest! - Onward Gameplay First Impressions

Onward from Downpour Interactive is finally released on Oculus Quest. Let's check it out together! Full disclosure: This stream is sponsored by Oculus #OculusPartner ► Click here for more info about the Oculus Quest → https://ocul.us/CasandChary2020 Onward is a tactical, multiplayer military shooter with crossplay for PC VR. You can engage in 5v5 skill-based warfare, select from over 30 unique and realistic guns, and in multiple environments and scenarios. It's not an easy one, as you get one life, no HUD, no crosshairs, players will need their wits and combat skills to survive. We're going to check out what Onward is like on Quest. What the graphics are like, how it plays, and more in this live stream! Come hang out :-) Today's topic(s): Onward on Oculus Quest LINKS ► More info about the Oculus Quest → https://ocul.us/CasandChary2020 ► Onward on the Oculus Quest store → https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2677344882310094/ SCHEDULE - Every Friday at: 🕛 12 PM PT 🕘 9 PM CET 🕗 8 PM UK Time SUPPORT US Subscribing and watching our videos (for free) is by far the biggest support you can give us. However, if you want to do more - you can also donate. All donations go to improving the channel. BUY US A COFFEE & BOOST THE CHANNEL ► One-time donation → http://bit.ly/DonateCasandChary BECOME A CHAMPION (LONG-TIME SUPPORTER) ► Become our Patron (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/PatreonCasandChary ► Become a Sponsor on YouTube (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/JoinCasandChary USE OUR LINKS TO SUPPORT US ► VRcover → http://bit.ly/CCVRCover ► VR Prescription Lens Adapters (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCWidmoVR ► Play PC VR games with your Quest (10% discount code: "JWGTCASCHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCRiftcat ► More on our website → https://casandchary.com/discount-code... OUR GEAR Our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary Full PC Specs → https://casandchary.com/vr-equipment/ GET LATEST UPDATES Twitter → https://twitter.com/CasandChary Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/casandchary/ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/casandchary/ Join our Discord → https://discord.gg/YH52W2k A special thanks to these Patreon Champs for their support: - BaxornVR - Wintceas - Studioform VR - Andy - Albert - Ben P. - Steve Dunlap - Thomas M. Rice - Andy Fidel - VR Balance - Nathan Schmidt MUSIC Music we use is from Epidemic Sounds → http://share.epidemicsound.com/zqM3g DISCLAIMER This live stream is sponsored by Oculus. Links in this description may contain affiliate links. We may earn from qualifying purchases from these links (without costing you more). VR on! - Cas and Chary VR #oculuspartner #onward #casandchary