Valve will show prototype virtual reality hardware at Dev Days

Valve has announced that it will be showing a prototype of working virtual reality hardware at the Steam Dev Days in January next year. It is not yet clear what the hardware will look like.

Game developer and publisher Valve has two sessions for the upcoming Steam Dev Days planned in which Virtual Reality will be discussed. In the first session, titled “What Virtual Reality Can, Should, and Almost Definitely Will Be Within Two Years,” Valve promises to showcase its own virtual reality hardware. According to the company, the technology shown will be ready for the market soon and it is therefore important for developers to respond to this in upcoming game titles.

A second virtual reality session is titled ‘Virtual Reality and Steam’. In it, Valve developers want to outline the plans the company has to offer virtual reality games via the Steam platform. A ‘Steam overlay’ should also be made available, presumably a 3d version for the projection of elements of the Steam interface in a VR helmet or goggles.

Valve has been working on virtual reality internally for some time. For example, the company initially worked on augmented reality glasses, but eventually the project was scrapped. Some of the developers themselves decided to successfully offer the VR glasses under the name castAR on Kickstarter. Valve itself offers support for the Oculus Rift.