Oculus wants to make virtual reality more fun and social and to that extent, it just added voice chat and virtual rooms to the Samsung Gear VR.
The company aims to get users to interact with each other in a virtual setting, having VR hangouts rather than just solitary experiences. With this in mind, Oculus has now launched Parties and Rooms for the Gear VR, enabling new options of virtual interaction.
Samsung Gear VR With Oculus Parties And Rooms
The Parties feature is a chat system similar to the game chat option for Xbox or PlayStation gamers, allowing users to make voice calls and talk to others while wearing the Gear VR headset. You can talk to up to three friends on a voice call.
Rooms, meanwhile, is a more exciting way of interacting in virtual reality, enabling Gear VR wearers to have virtual hangouts with others, chat, or interact with the objects around them. Friends joining a Room together can also launch multiplayer Gear VR games such as Drop Dead or Dragon Front.
“We’ve always known that the future of VR is social-and with today’s launch, we’re making that future a reality across the Oculus platform,” says Oculus.
“The first wave of VR was all about the magic of presence, the immersive sense of actually being inside a virtual space,” adds the company. “The next step is to let you feel that same sense of presence with other people in VR.”
Parties and Rooms are available now for the Gear VR and will roll out to the Oculus Rift next year.
How To Find Friends In VR
Finding friends to interact with in virtual reality is pretty easy and straightforward. All you have to do is link your Oculus and Facebook accounts, or search for friends either by their Oculus username or by their real name.
Once you’ve found them and become Oculus friends, you’ll be able to see when they’re online and start a voice call or share a VR experience. Users can also share their screen if they want, as Oculus has also prepared a Facebook live streaming option. Simply put, you’ll be able to live stream what you see in VR so that your Facebook friends can see what you’re up to.
Oculus further points out that this is just the beginning, but it plans to make social VR more exciting in the future. Virtual reality is not mainstream just yet, but social features definitely boost its appeal and could be just what it needs to help it gain more ground and become more ubiquitous.