Starbreeze has announced this year’s plans for its virtual reality viewer, with the intention of continuing to focus on businesses and amusement parks.
Andersson Klint, CEO of Starbreeze, he has been proud after knowing the good financial results obtained during the last year, and has commented on the future plans around virtual reality, where a large part of his actions go through his device StarVR. “Currently, no large quantities of StarVR have been shipped, but the interest of multiple markets, brands and businesses puts us in a good position to start the serial manufacturing phase at the end of 2017,” Klint commented. Starbreeze will focus on distributing the current development version of the HMD to key partners, in order to ensure compatibility with the main systems and industry standards, and thus be prepared once they have the first finished production device to be manufactured by Acer.
“We estimate that there will be approximately two more development releases throughout the year, where we are confident that the third iteration will include Tobii’s eye tracking technology. Durability, viewing angle, hygiene, resolution, refresh rate and weight are all key factors that we constantly improve and according to plan. StarVR’s roadmap is clear, we are still targeting B2B as our core business,” Klint added. StarVR is a high-performance HMD with 210º FOV and two screens of 2560×1440 each, which makes it require a lot of power, although this could change thanks to the eye tracking that would allow using techniques such as foveated.
Starbreeze is currently renegotiating with IMAX the agreement to offer content and hardware in its facilities, due to IMAX’s decision to expand its offer of virtual reality experiences. The recent Los Angeles center, which has opened IMAX, has two rooms with Star VR, the result of the previous agreement. The company intends virtual reality to be a significant business for them, thanks to the development of StarVR and the sale of content such as its latest game based on the John Wick movie. The company is carrying out strategic agreements and investments to make sure that once the market is mature, they are in a great position.
