Content is King. This has been our statement since we got involved this 360VR thing a few years ago. So when we hear of a company that wants to UNITE all of the VR content under one roof, or one VR Headset if you prefer, we don’t merely take note. We stand up and applaud.
San Francisco-based (surprise!) GameFace Labs is not exactly a new-comer. The good folks at Engadget gave them great coverage at CES 2014, where they were demonstrating their first prototype, the EP-1. The product has evolved since, in a major way.
GameFace CEO says that it “has a unique technology that lets GameFace download content up to 100 times faster than traditional downloading methods, which enables instant-gratification VR content with zero latency. Everything is cloud-delivered but locally rendered for a latency-free VR cloud-gaming experience. It even has a built-in fan that promises to keep things nice and cool during operation.”
Sounds enticing, right?! But wait… There’s more… Check out the features listed below…
Features:
- Android OS (Custom Nougat & Daydream Ready)
- 2x 90Hz 2,560 x 1,440 display panels (custom made by Samsung)
- 120° Field of View
- No need for PC or a specific Smartphone
- Portability (Untethered VR, hooray!)
- 7+ Hours of Battery Life
- nVidia Tegra SoC “more Powerful than 2x Xbox 360s strapped to your face” (lol!)
- Valve SteamVR (Lighthouse tracking in Android & PC environments)
- AR Ready: Stereo 3D cameras for hand-tracking, AR & holographic experiences
The headset is surprisingly lightweight for a unit that can work with VR Content from Cardboard apps to Oculus/Vive.
“I think one of the biggest holdbacks for VR is content,” says Mason. “The fact is that the people who are pushing the content, they’re not triple-A studios, they’re the indies. These are the guys who can’t afford to buy $10,000 to $15,000 worth of six to seven different headsets just so they can release $5 to $10 apps on six different stores. This is hampering development quite significantly.”
Info for Devs:
- Reserve one of two variants of the EP1 headset, either the GF-DD which offers support for the Daydream platform specifically, and the GF-LD which includes support for Lighthouse positional tracking.
- The GF-DD carries a price tag of $500 USD, whereas the GF-LD costs around $700 USD.
- Pricing is subject to change, we suggest you pounce on this.
- To Register: http://devs.gamefacelabs.com/
So what is the End Game for GameFaceLabs? “What we’re trying to do is build one headset that is trying to unify a rapidly fragmenting industry,” Mason says. “What we really are is a VR-enabling company.”
