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Oculus Rooms, Parties for Samsung Gear VR Bring Out the Social Side of Virtual Reality

Oculus Rooms, Parties for Samsung Gear VR Bring Out the Social Side of Virtual Reality

By Shekhar Thakran | Updated: 19 December 2016 18:58 IST

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Highlights

Features currently made available for just Gear VR
Expected to roll out for Oculus Rift in future
Company showcased features earlier this year at its conference

Oculus VR announced two VR features namely Rooms and Parties at its Oculus Connect Conference in California in October earlier this year. Considering the company's acquisition by Facebook, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the company introduced some social elements into its offering. Even though there is still some time till the Oculus Rift headset gets these features, built-in voice chat Parties and virtual hangout space Rooms are now live for the Samsung Gear VR headset.

Users can link their Facebook or Oculus account or search people by their real names or usernames to connect with friends in VR, the company said in its blog. Oculus Parties allows users and up to three friends join a voice call from anywhere in VR. In order to start a party users have to just click on the party tab from Oculus Home.

On the other hand, Oculus Rooms provides users with a virtual hangout space to users where they can spend their time with friends. "From there, you can choose what you'd like to do: gather around the TV and watch videos, play matching or guessing games, or hit the group app launcher to jump to a multiplayer game like Dragon Front or Drop Dead. Look for even more apps to support this feature in the coming months," Oculus said.

This can potentially turn out to be a game-changer for VR platforms as the immersive experience of virtual-reality mixed with social experience can open up more possibilities the developers. However, we will have to wait and see how fast this community grows and whether users find this experience to be enriching or just gimmicky.

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