When Samsung announced the original Gear VR headset, it only worked with the Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy Note Edge, but still offered something that no other consumer ready and available product was offering, and that’s virtual reality content including games, movies and other original content. This was expanded upon when Samsung launched the next version of the Gear VR, which was compatible with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Now, earlier this morning Samsung has announced their latest offering to debut this November and coming in at a price of $99 no less, which is half the cost of the already existing models on the market.
In addition to opening the compatibility to any 2015 Samsung smartphone as well as lowering the cost, Samsung is also going all in on making games a big focus for this unit as well. Thanks to the partnership with Oculus for every iteration of the Gear VR, there will be an introduction of something called Oculus Arcade which will introduce the users to a collection of classic, retro games from the arcade and NES, SEGA Genesis days. If these are your kind of games, you may want to look into picking up a Gear VR unit as this is sure to be a fun new way to play them and a fresh experience, with new life being breathed into some old classics.
According to the details gathered from Oculus Connect Day 2 keynote, games like Gauntlet, Sonic the Hedgehog, and PAC-MAN. Game companies mentioned were Bandai Namco, SEGA, and Midway, but it was also stated that there would be many more game companies that Oculus and Samsung would be partnering with, which means more games for the Oculus Arcade and more games for Gear VR owners to play. As this announcement coincides with the announcement from Samsung about the new Gear VR coming in November, it’s unknown whether or not Oculus Arcade will be just for the new model, but chances are it’ll be content available to any version of the Gear VR. At the moment there is no announced timeframe for when the Oculus Arcade will be showing up on Gear VR units, and unfortunately no mention of whether the games in Oculus Arcade would cost anything and what those costs would be.