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The beginning of 2017 was already marked by a multitude of technological joint ventures, but as Unity and Valve announce partnership at the Vision Summit, it makes us wonder what else is in store for us in terms of product development.
The announcement came from none other than Gabe Newell, Valve’s co-founder, who decided to make an appearance at the 2016 Vision VR/AR Summit in order to formally introduce their new collaboration.
Apparently, Unity will be joining forces in creating the SteamVR technology, which will be the foundation of the much-anticipated HTC Vive headset. This product was conceptualized as an open platform and in direct competition to Facebook’s Oculus VR.
The developers will also include a SteamVR plug-in, which will create a superior level of virtual reality graphics. According to John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity Technologies, both Valve and Unity are committed to delivering the best possible VR experiences on the market.
Unity already has a long history of developing virtual reality games, however this announcement marks another level of improvement, as developers will now be able to integrate new content inside virtual reality.
HTC Vive is said to be released in April, so this latest announcement only reinforces the company’s commitment to creating outstanding products and delivering high quality experiences for their customers. Considering the fact that it was only a month ago that Valve declared it wants to support VR developers, it was only natural for the company to back that up by bringing a strong partner on board.
Unity Technologies was founded in 2004 and since then they have managed to offer a wide array of services, some of the most important ones being developing games and boosting productivity. For those of you who may not know, Unity is the number one game development company in the world, having more than 5 million registered developers under its belt.
The announcement certainly kept the event interesting, but the crowd really started cheering when Gabe Newell started handing out Vive headsets to all developers present in the room. As Newell himself describes it, it became a sort of Oprah moment, when he managed to create excitement with his free products.
The Vive headset was created in partnership with HTC and it features a frontal camera, allowing customers to spot everything that is ahead of them. If you are interested in buying it, you should know that pre-orders will be available starting from February 29.
Image Source: ITPro.co.uk
