Starbreeze and Acer will work together to design, manufacture, promote and sell the StarVR head mounted display (HMD). The StarVR HMD is a device first seen at E3 last year. This device is aiming at the high-end and thus Starbreeze and Acer are looking at targeting the professional- and location-based entertainment markets as potential customers.
While everyone has heard of Acer, Starbreeze may be unfamiliar. Stockholm headquartered Starbreeze is best known as a games software publisher. The biggest title in its back catalogue is probably Payday 2 but you might have seen it in the news as the developer of upcoming VR games based upon the John Wick films and the Walking Dead TV series.
It seems that Starbreeze is unsatisfied with the quality of VR HMDs already out there so wants to produce something higher-end for those with the cash and for pro/business customers. To start with it envisions its VR equipment being used in 'StarCades' around the US – video games arcades with its powerful hardware installed. Acer must think that it is onto something good.
Acer President and CEO Jason Chen said that his firm is devoting R&D resources in VR ecosystems to create "a coherent and high-quality experience". Furthermore, "Starbreeze and Acer share the same goal of delivering best-in-class VR applications, and we look forward to unlocking new VR possibilities together with this partnership."
If you look at the dedicated StarVR headset website you will see its superior tech specs. Notable are the HMD's expansive 210 degrees horizontal and 130 degrees vertical FOV delivered by the dual 5.5-inch Dual HD display configuration. It also promises a low latency experience.
It will be interesting to see the price of this HMD when it emerges. Perhaps the second generation Oculus and Vive HMDs will deliver dual-display VR headsets to rival StarVR.
