GamesBeat lead reporter Dean Takahashi demos Survios's virtual-reality tech.
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The DeanBeat: Virtual-reality startups like Survios are moving into Oculus Rift’s slipstream

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

I had a little epiphany while shooting zombies in a demo that virtual-reality startup Survios staged. I could point my guns in different directions, like a hero in a John Woo action movie, shooting enemies that were coming from all sides. That was something I could never do in a video game, where I would have to point my guns forward at the limited field of view in a TV screen. Virtual reality delivered an experience that I couldn’t get any other way. And that’s pretty cool.

The Survios virtual reality interface.
The Survios virtual reality interface.

Virtual reality startups have momentum in the wake of Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of virtual-reality headset maker Oculus VR. Now, VR isn’t a fantasy. It’s a real business with a growing ecosystem, even though Oculus VR hasn’t released its commercial product yet.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.