Valve still appears to be interested in developing its own virtual reality headset.
At a VR meet-up in Boston this weekend, the Bellevue-based gaming company showed off the most recent prototype of its headset. A few attendees posted images online and included some thoughts on Reddit.
The device looks somewhat similar to the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2. Reddit user jonomf noted that Valve employees described a “Dota 2 VR experience where you see the entire game arena sitting on a table in front of you and can bend down to inspect any piece of the action. I really, really want to see that. They also mentioned a life-size Dota 2 VR experience where you’re hanging out in a lane watching the heroes fight; they said it was very scary.”
It’s worth noting that Valve is still toying around with its own VR headset, especially after Oculus VR was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in March. Valve has lost a few of its VR experts to Oculus in the past few months — Oculus is also opening up a Seattle R&D office — but it looks like the company is still tinkering with its own VR headset.
Valve and Oculus have had an amicable relationship over the past few years, with Valve publicly supporting Oculus during its record-breaking Kickstarter campaign and sharing its virtual reality research with the now Facebook-owned company.
Interestingly, Valve had two former employees working on augmented reality glasses a few years ago, but the company apparently didn’t see how the device would fit with its games. Those two engineers — Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson — went on to raise more than $1 million on Kickstarter for their own projected augmented reality glasses.
Here are some more photos:
Related: Q&A: Rick Johnson on working at Valve, Facebook’s Oculus deal, and the future of augmented reality
