Samsung's VR headset gets the first Oculus-powered paid app store
It's the day many, many virtual reality developers have been waiting for: Finally, a way to sell VR games to people with VR headsets. Namely, Oculus and Samsung's collaboration on the Gear VR headset is bearing digital fruit in the form of a digital store. In short: You can finally buy and sell games on Samsung's VR headset. That's a bigger deal than it sounds, as Gear VR's store has been riddled with little more than tech and game demos since its launch late last year. We've been anxious for deeper experiences, and many developers have been withholding those experiences for a time when they could actually make money on their work. Let the floodgates open!
Oculus slipped the announcement of Gear VR's store launching into a longer piece about the new, smaller Gear VR headset that works with Samsung's new Galaxy S6 and S6 edge flagship phones. That's because it's a soft launch; what an Oculus rep called "an early build" that the company is "still ironing out the kinks" on. How soft a launch? There aren't even images for us to share right now (and while we're away from home covering GDC 2015, there's no way to try and grab one ourselves).
In Oculus' announcement, the company calls it a "preview" of what the store will eventually become -- it's only available in the United States right now, and there's no way for content sellers to include in-app purchases just yet. Oculus says it's "working on expanding commerce to the rest of the world" and adding in-app purchases, though there's no word on when it's arriving.
Either way, folks picking up the new Gear VR this April alongside their new Galaxy S6 or S6 edge phones will have a lot more options for content, and devs finally have a way to make some scratch on VR.
