Now we know why social networking firm Facebook cared so much about Oculus VR. Today, the company shared many more details about its social virtual reality strategy.
Among the announcements are Avatars, Parties, and Rooms. Now, you can create your own avatar to represent yourself in VR and then join parties of as many as eight people with a single click. You can also gather in virtual rooms, where you can do things like watch a movie or play minigames.
The company announced the details on the Oculus Touch controller at the Oculus Connect developer event in San Jose, California, where thousands of developers are attending the three-day event.
Earlier in the presentation, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed a demo in which three people gathered together in virtual reality and played a game of chess and even fenced with each other. But that technology isn’t ready yet. Still, it was a nice promise of the future, as the cartoon avatars closely tracked the gestures and lip movements of the speakers.