Bigscreen now supports watching with friends using streaming services like Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Twitch, and YouTube.
The “first big drop” from the long-running virtual reality startup promises a key feature for both Quest and PCVR headsets. Bigscreen says it offers “real-time screen lighting, avatars, and synchronized screen content so you can watch stuff together” in multiplayer by way of its optimized built-in browser.
“You get the full native experience for each streaming service – identical to what you would get by visiting Disney+ in a web browser. It contains all the features and content you would expect,” Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar shared over email. “We’re excited to roll out more websites, games, and streaming services to Bigscreen in 2023.”
Each person will need subscriptions for Disney+ or Amazon Prime, and the email noted “content you have access to may vary by region. People in a room may see a different selection of films. If content is not available in your region, you won’t be able to watch it together with friends. Each streaming service operates differently, so your experience may vary.”
Bigscreen is similar in some respects to Virtual Desktop but has been focused around watch together features for a very long time, essentially working toward becoming VR’s best movie theater. Back in 2020, Shankar publicly took issue with Facebook’s in-app purchase policies. In the app today there’s a videoplayer for local files, movie rentals via Bigscreen, and a remote desktop app to access a Windows PC in VR.
Shankar says Bigscreen is also planning a friends systems and new avatars in early 2023 and they’re planning to support hand tracking at some point in 2023. In recent months, Bigscreen has been teasing a “secret project” the company is building toward. We’ll be curious, then, to see what Shankar’s next “drop” reveals.
