Samsung’s entry into the VR space, the Gear VR, is now available for the retail market; beginning the broadening of the VR realm.
Now available at Amazon, Best Buy and AT&T, with T-Mobile coming next week, and priced at $100, the Gear VR will be compatible with Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, and Note 5 smartphones. Like the Google Cardboard, the Gear VR will be a headset that uses your phone as the VR interface.
While the Gear VR Innovator is compatible with the Note 4, it’s only available on Amazon priced at $200. Whether the Gear VR will be updated to support previous versions of the Galaxy, Edge and Note is unknown at time of writing.
More than 25 brand new made-for-VR games and experiences are coming to Gear VR by early December, joining the more than 100 games and apps at launch. Alongside the gaming content, apps for 360-degree picture/video, Netflix and a social app that lets you meet your friends in virtual reality.
While the Gear VR’s capacity for VR gaming may be limited to the hardware of the phone, and also the mobile sphere, having an affordable, easily integrated platform for virtual reality brings us one step closer to the TRON future I’ve dreamed about since I was little.
