Virtual reality is slowing becoming mainstream and some of the biggest tech companies on the planet are making sure that VR has a solid future. With $99 headsets like the Gear VR the cost of entry has been substantially lowered, barebones VR viewers like Google Cardboard are essentially free, so it’s just a matter of improving the technology and providing good content. Amazon appears to be working on the latter by developing a new virtual reality platform.
The company has started hiring talent for a new team that’s going to work on the virtual reality platform. One job posting mentions that the team will be “building the Virtual Reality experience within Amazon Video.”
The team will also be working on “an ingestion and playback platform for Virtual Reality experiences,” this makes it clear that building a VR headset might not be Amazon’s first priority, getting a playback app out the door that provides content in VR is the priority instead.
Netflix, an Amazon Video competitor, has already released a virtual reality app that works on the Gear VR headset. Hulu is expected to come out with a similar app so it makes all the sense in the world for Amazon to do the same.
Since the company has started hiring for this VR team now it may take a while before this new VR platform is ready.
Filed in . Read more about Amazon, Gear VR and Virtual Reality (VR).