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Sling TV, ESPN, and Fox Now arrive on Oculus Go headsets

Sling TV, ESPN, and Fox Now arrive on Oculus Go headsets

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Stream video on a low-res 180-inch virtual TV

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Image: Oculus

Sling TV, ESPN, and Fox Now are now available on the Oculus Go virtual reality headset (via Engadget). You’ll be able to watch the content inside of a virtual room, where it can be viewed on the equivalent of a large projector screen. Subscriptions will be required to access each streaming service, but Oculus is including $80 of Sling TV credit with the purchase of any Oculus Go headset until January 15th.

Sling TV packages include access to dozens of live channels including AMC, CNN, and the Disney Channel, while ESPN supports six channels alongside the on-demand streaming service ESPN+. Fox Now supports a range of on-demand content, as well as live streaming both Fox Sports and FS1.

YouTube VR also came to the platform earlier this year

In addition to being available as separate apps from the Oculus Store (like the recently announced YouTube VR), the three services are integrated with Oculus TV where they sit alongside the likes of Hulu and Showtime. Unfortunately you won’t be able to share the viewing experience with friends, since this is a feature that’s only available in the separate Oculus Rooms and Oculus Video apps, which don’t support the new streaming services.

Alongside gaming, video consumption has been touted as a growing use for VR headsets. However, it remains limited by both hardware and software. Due to the resolution of the screens in the VR headsets themselves, the virtual screens used to stream content aren’t able to even approach the detail of a real-world 4K screen. Meanwhile, the software used to watch video content remains confusing and fragmented, with Oculus itself offering three different viewing apps including Oculus TV, Oculus Video, and Oculus Rooms, while services such as Netflix and YouTube can only be found in standalone apps.