Blockbuster Storage Performance for Media and Entertainment

PlayStation, Oculus, and Facebook Gaming pull out of GDC over coronavirus concerns

Article | February 20, 2020

Sony’s PlayStation team and Facebook, including Oculus VR, have withdrawn from this year’s Game Developers Conference, citing health concerns surrounding the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.“Out of concern for the health and safety of our employees, our dev partners, and the GDC community, Facebook will not be attending this year’s Game Developer Conference due to the evolving public health risks related to COVID-19,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement emailed to Polygon. “We still plan to share the exciting announcements we had planned for the show through videos, online Q&As, and more, and will plan to host GDC partner meetings remotely in the coming weeks.”

Super-bundle plans reportedly missing from Apple Music’s new deals

Article | March 14, 2020

This is the ‘super-bundle’ that we (and the wider industry) have been speculating about ever since Apple revealed plans to launch subscription services for video, news and games – Apple TV+, Apple News+ and Apple Arcade respectively. From Apple’s point of view (not to mention its customers’) a single, discounted subscription covering its range of services makes a lot of sense. Music rightsholders are wary, however, with plenty of uncertainty around how the royalties from such a super-bundle would be divided between the different forms of entertainment.

What's Really Holding Virtual Reality Back?

Article | March 18, 2020

It's been nearly four years since HTC and Facebook's Oculus launched this generation of virtual reality (VR) with the Vive and Rift headsets, respectively. They were supposed to be revolutionary products that would open up a new world of innovation that would disrupt nearly every aspect of our lives. Instead of being in every home, as hoped, VR is still a novelty with only a few million headsets in the market. HTC and Oculus are actually trailing Sony's (NYSE:SNE) PSVR, which recently surpassed 5 million headsets sold since launch. And the number of headsets being used on a regular basis is well short of that number. So why hasn't VR taken off, and can HTC and Oculus fix what's ailing the industry?

Which VR headsets can you actually buy at the launch of Half-Life: Alyx?

Article | March 21, 2020

Valve released the Index in 2019. It’s a high-powered, tethered VR headset that relies on Lighthouses to position itself in your playing space, even if you’re sitting down to play. This headset is compatible with older Lighthouse base stations made for the original HTC Vive, so you can save some money if you already own them or can find them for cheap. Valve’s own second-generation base stations have better range, and at $149 per unit, they currently don’t cost much more than the new price for first-generation base stations.