Starbreeze teams up with Acer for StarVR headset

Move over Valve and HTC, there’s a new virtual reality couple in town.

PayDay developer-publisher Starbreeze has hooked up with PC and tech manufacturer Acer to work together on the former’s StarVR headset.

Announced at last year’s E3, the VR hardware was previously produced by Infinite Eye, which Starbreeze purchased for $2 million.

Positioned as a rival to the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift on PC, StarVR includes a 210-degree field of view and positional tracking, and is equipped with two 5.5-inch quad HD displays outputting at resolutions of up to 5120×1440.

Announcing their joint signing of a letter of intent, Starbreeze and Acer said the partnership would see them unite on the “design, manufacturing, promotion, marketing and sales of the StarVR head-mounted display to the professional- and location-based entertainment market”.

The reference to ‘location-based entertainment’ likely means outlets such as arcades, bolstered by Starbreeze’s experience running its own LA-based, VR-driven StarCade venues.

“By partnering with Acer we shift gears yet again to firmly position us as the leader in top-end VR experiences,” said Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson Klint.

“Acer is an excellent, experienced and prominent hardware partner that will accelerate us in realising and producing a high-definition, high-fidelity VR headset.

“We’ve been working with a clear roadmap for our VR strategy from day one, and are now about to realize one of the first major collaborations we set out to achieve."