Until their last showing at 2am tonight, Bigscreen, Inc. is playing Top Gun in 3D through their VR application for Windows 10. It can be used with the Oculus Rift, SteamVR, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Both the movie and the app are free, at least during this promotion, but it is only available in the United States. As such, I have not been able to try it out and give my opinion. They plan to add more content throughout 2018, including TV shows, spread out between free and paid showings.
As for the showings? It makes sense from the standpoint of creating a social experience. You know that everyone is watching the same thing at the same time, which could lead to some interesting features like voice chat (for those who want to opt-in to talking throughout a movie).
The company is planning on bringing the app to Samsung GearVR, Google Daydream, and Oculus Go. This is obviously good, because the barrier to entry will be much lower if you can get away with a cheap-ish accessory to a phone that you already have for other reasons. There’s still a question of whether VR will take off in the consumer space at all, but this is a cute application none-the-less. That said, I regularly use YouTube VR with Google Daydream, mostly for relaxation videos before bed; you can decide for yourself whether I’m an outlier or simply ahead of my time.
Neet
Neet
I took part in this over the
I took part in this over the weekend, via my Rift. Didn’t stick around for the whole things, since I had new VR games to play and I’d already seen Top Gun several times.
But definitely a cool set up, starting out in the theater lobby, picking a theater depending on the start time/how far along the movie already was, and seeing all the virtual people sitting in the theater with you there in the stadium seating (freaked out when I waved at someone standing next to me, and he actually waved back! Forgot that he could actually SEE me, well, my avatar anyway! 😀 )
Most memorable moment was before the movie even started, when I realized that even in a virtual theater, you’re still going to have people yakking away on their cell phones. The guy sitting next to me was describing to a friend in great detail about the theater, the seating, the people, and how he could see his virtual hands in front of him, and “oh that sounds like the theme to Top Gun… oh it IS the theme to Top Gun, I guess the movie is starting now.” Why yes, yes it is, so shut up please! 😀