Some of the greats may not be as asleep about virtual reality as they would have us believe, since Ubisoft and some HMD manufacturers like Vuzix are joining the OSVR initiative.
A couple of months ago there was the announcement of OSVR, an initiative for virtual reality devices based on open source, and it came with the announcement of a Razer HMD that will be available this summer. Soon other well-known names such as Cyberith, Sixense, JauntVR and Tactical Haptics joined, and now another wave of support arrives with real heavyweights, including Ubisoft, which a year ago was not at all clear on the subject of virtual reality but now finds the OSVR option very attractive. And no wonder, since Vuzix has also just joined, a veteran company that has been developing commercial virtual and augmented reality devices for the professional sector for many years and that surely has a lot to contribute to the OSVR initiative. And what about Technical Illusions, founded by two former Valve employees who successfully completed the Kickstarter campaign for the CastAR augmented reality glasses achieving more than 1 million dollars at the end of 2013. To the list we must also add Stompz, Homido, ARCortex, the Spaniards Hydra Interactive Entertainment, Littlstar, Mindfield Games, Seebright, Seven Hill Games, GodheadVR and Aesthetic Interactive.
On the other hand, the source code of OSVR is already on GitHub, including a plugin for Unreal Engine 4, a distorting tool to support the 11 HMDs supported at the moment and an interface to add new augmented reality, absolute positioning and eye tracking modules. In June, the Razer HMD will go on sale with updated specifications, including an OLED panel with better contrast and less latency and a selection of covers with modules for use in augmented reality, natural interaction, absolute positioning and others. The designs and schematics are publicly available on the OSVR website.
