NexTech AR enters VR market with virtual shopping platform VRitize

As mixed reality technologies have continued to gather steam over the past several years, virtual reality companies, including Facebook, have increasingly dipped their toes into the more challenging and nascent augmented reality market. Today, NexTech AR announced that it’s going in the opposite direction, bringing some of its AR tools and assets to the VR world in a new virtual shopping platform. The VRitize platform is designed to let companies leverage assets already created for AR to sell products to VR users — a practical move, given that consumer AR hasn’t yet taken off, while VR continues to grow steadily in popularity. In an effort to appeal to a growing “V-commerce” market, NexTech says it will release an app that works on Facebook’s Oculus devices, as well as iOS and Android devices, to provide a mixed reality retail shopping experience for AR and VR users. It already offers ARitize through the App Store and Google Play.