Do you reminisce about the days of playing video games with dorm roommates? Even if you and your friends are dispersed across the country, you can now play games and watch Twitch in the same room — the same virtual room, that is.
Oculus is adding social features to its Samsung Gear VR experience. Starting tomorrow, users will be able to create profiles and connect with other players in virtual reality. Oculus Social users can create rooms with friends to stream content together.
Starting next week, Oculus users will be able to connect their accounts to their Facebook profiles. Facebook, which owns Oculus, rolled out 360-degree video playback in September, as part of a broader plan to introduce its users to VR. Now Facebook is deepening its integration with Oculus, by adding a Facebook Videos tab to Oculus Video. Users will be able to personalize their 360 video feeds, based on the pages and people they follow.
Gear VR is also adding several social games to the Oculus Store, including “Social Trivia” and “Herobound: Gladiators.” Oculus plans to release new tools for developers, later this month, to create more social VR apps.
If today’s announcement is any indication, Facebook’s plan to bring virtual reality to its massive user base is on track. As for virtual reality gamers, it brings a new dimension to this burgeoning technology.
