Just before Christmas, Bigscreen released a holiday update offering new environments and features. In addition, the developers see strong statistics and retention of Quest 2.
The biggest part of the update is the new drive-in theater environment, which according to the developers is the number 1 feature of users.
In addition to driving in, the app has also been redesigned over the past few months and now features a brand new user interface. The developers believe that the new user interface will make it easier to discover new rooms and content, which is convenient as it also adds 60 new TV channels in Bigscreen. The channels “including big crime drama series like Narcos and hilarious games like Wipeout.”
A new TV category called “To Infinity and Beyond” is also being added to Bigscreen for live streams and repeats of rockets. According to the developers, SpaceX launches are some of the biggest social events in Bigscreen and VR in general, with thousands of people all watching at the same time.
The developers also noted that the launch of Quest 2 was big for Bigscreen and that the team needed to upgrade their servers. According to the developers, the core statistics have been 3-5x higher since October and people are spending more time in the app than ever. ‘The average session is almost an hour and power users spend 20-30 hours in Bigscreen every week. Quest has become the most popular headset in Bigscreen’s user base, followed by the Oculus Rift S, Valve Index and HTC Vive. ”
Thanks to the server upgrade, lobbies now support 12 people (compared to 8) and the plan is that the size of the room size will increase to 25 or even 50 people next year.
With this update, Bigscreen is no longer supported on Oculus Go, as Facebook stopped accepting app updates for the headset from December 4th. The Oculus Go Bigscreen servers will be shut down ‘in the coming weeks’. ‘
Next year, Bigscreen plans to deliver several features, including a friends system, new avatars, a new environment, major improvements to our video streaming, a new feature for an ultra-low latency Remote Desktop feature and more. Support for PlayStation VR and Mac apps is also ‘on the roadmap’, but without a strict timeline.