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Acer is joining forces with video game studio Starbreeze to bring the StarVR headset to market.
Some of you may remember a little piece I wrote back in January about how future High Streets could be full of ‘VR arcades’. Well, Starbreeze was one of the first firm’s to try this idea out.
At the beginning of the year, the studio launched its own arcade, called ‘StarCade’, featuring games that make use of its StarVR headset, with Starbreeze’s CTO Emmanuel Marquez saying: “We continue to iterate the fact that VR really needs to be experienced in person to fully be able to appreciate the phenomenon. We will invite developers to join us and give them the opportunity to put their content in our StarCade.”
Now, the game dev has teamed up with vendor Acer to cooperate on the design, manufacturing, promotion, marketing and sales of the StarVR HMD to the professional- and location-based entertainment market.
“Since our launch in June 2015, we have had an amazing start with StarVR. By partnering with Acer we shift gears yet again to firmly position us as the leader in top-end VR experiences. Acer is an excellent, experienced and prominent hardware partner that will accelerate us in realising and producing a high-definition, high-fidelity VR headset,” said Bo Andersson Klint, Starbreeze CEO.
“We’ve been working with a clear roadmap for our VR strategy from day one, and are now about to realise one of the first major collaborations we set out to achieve. The future for StarVR is now set and extremely exciting.”
Jason Chen, Acer Corporate President and CEO, added: “Acer is thrilled to join forces with Starbreeze in bringing the StarVR head-mounted display to the market. We are devoting R&D resources across multiple aspects of the VR ecosystem for a coherent and high-quality experience, while just last month Acer announced powerful desktops and notebooks fully ready for StarVR.
“Starbreeze and Acer share the same goal of delivering best-in-class VR applications, and we look forward to unlocking new VR possibilities together with this partnership.”
Starbreeze launched StarVR with a VR-experience at the E3 in June 2015 by the acquisition of French company Infinite Eye. In January 2016, Starbreeze unveiled its location-based StarCade initiative, introducing VR centres looking to allowing customers to immerse themselves into premium VR experiences.
Starbreeze additionally premiered its first cinematic VR experience “Cockatoo Spritz” directed by Stephane Barbato in Cannes during the first week of the festival.
Acer will come up against some stiff competition in the VR headset market from the likes of HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR.
