Virtual reality has shifted to a higher gear in the past two years, especially because of the appearance – and upcoming launch – of the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. Other companies, such as McDonalds, also see the potential in VR – one prime example of them would be British Pay TV provider Sky.
Rupert Murdoch‘s company opened up a production unit that exclusively focuses on VR content. It is called Sky VR Studio – just in 2016, they will have over 20 productions ready and available. Their focus would be news, sport, art and entertainment. They already showed off their first result: the first video’s shots were recorded at the Formula-1 test in Barcelona. It’s available via Facebook 360 Video and Oculus platforms, and you can watch it on either an Oculus Rift or Samsung Gear VR. Sky will launch their dedicated Sky VR app later this year. Sky has slowly started to give more attention to VR since 2013 – in 2016, they’ll make VR content of boxing, Tour De France and even DC Fancast.
With Star Wars, Disney doesn’t want to be left behind, either – they already have a Battlefront VR-experience with Sony and EA in development for the PSVR, but they also showed off Star Wars: The Trials of Tatooine. In this interactive, first-person experience, we must defend R2D2.
Sky is on the right path to be a pioneer in Pay TV VR-experiences.
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