Official Oculus Rift Consumer version one announcement

I'll be ready. Only issue I had with the DK2 was the res.

 

I'm going to ignore the name calling and tell you what triggered my short temper (should have just deleted the post): You talking about how you hoped Valve or Sony don't ruin the market with a rushed product. Which is something a lot of people troll with. And maybe it's not trolling, but it's definitely a lazy argument that gets thrown out a lot. Because Oculus has been releasing VR Gear equipment for quite a while now. And that's vastly inferior to anything Sony, Valve, or CV1 is going to be. So how is that a legit complaint? If the Gear VR isn't ruining VR, Valve or Sony sure aren't (since it runs circles around that).

It's just important to note that much of what constitutes DK2 came from Abrash's work at Valve. So to say that Valve is piggy-backing off this isn't really fair. Honestly, if it wasn't for many of the advances from Valve's R&D, Oculus would have been a cute Kickstarter story and probably not much more. Because DK1 was pretty awful (in everything but concept). It's no coincidence that Facebook raided Valve after they acquired Oculus (not that I blame anyone for leaving. Most of those guys were friend's of Abrash and Abrash and Carmack are best buds from decades past. It made sense they would reunite once Oculus had the finances to support it.)

 

No trolling no.... was just stating what I had heard from articles and videos and such. Nate Mitchell had always been cagey in interviews (along with Palmer Luckey). The "Oculus is a seated experience" thing. It's like they needed to make sure all was well with the lawyers before even getting close to a consumer product. Gear VR (to me) seemed like a tech experiment to see what is possible with current tech. VR is going to eventually be untethered, it needs to be really. Plus Gear VR is kind of like the casual market where they don't need a monster PC to experience VR. Covering both bases if you will, VR for the masses, maybe.

I have never heard that Sony were interested in the PC market for VR, but I guess we will see in a few days at E3 to see what they announce.

What I have gathered by reading people's posts about the VR subject (not only here), people can be so fickle. Everyone claiming that Oculus can do no wrong, then suddenly Valve (out of the blue it seemed) raised the VR bar, even though NO ONE writing the posts had hands on experience then proclaimed Valve as the new VR god. The internet is all about "what have you done for me lately". Tech is only as good as the newest thing it seems

What is for sure, 2015 and 2016 are going to be very interesting. Even if I personally won't be able to afford VR for a while, it will still be interesting seeing it happen. I will be asking nearby friends if they manage to take the leap though

No offence meant by my previous post btw, I was just feeling a bit flippant

 

I am quite excited for where VR is going. I have followed Oculus since its kickstarter beginning and considering how emergent this technology is, the speed of development is astounding. I originally was one of those people who thought that Valve had simply piggybacked on Oculus' hard work. However, having looked into it deeper it is clear that they have been developing their headset just as long as oculus and should be respected for what they have done.

With respect to which headset is going to get my money (and I can only afford one headset... barely), I think Oculus and Valve have different visions for their respective headsets.

I see the Vive being for gamers, and more specifically, for steam games. This is a good thing for gamers as Valve has a great track record for supporting games and developers. This will lead to developers building games with VR in mind. Regardless of what your feeling toward Steam, their approach has helped both big budget games and small indie developers.

The Oculus Rift appears to be developed with a larger audience in sight. The purchase by Facebook has undoubtedly assisted in the quick development through sheer numbers and money. However, I believe Facebook purchased Oculus to develop it for social networking and a broader usage than gaming alone can bring.

Valve may be first to a consumer release, at least an announced release time frame, but Oculus may have the better solution for a broader category of HMD users.

Which approach is better? It is hard to say. But in the end the end user benefits from both developers being in this market.

 

Oculus live stream starting in just under 4hrs from this post. ( might be worth tuning into )

https://www.oculus.com/en-us/

 

[video]http://www.twitch.tv/oculus[/video]

 

Sony isn't going after the PC market. In fact, I fully expect they'll refuse to release drivers to let it work on PC. I was just pointing out that PC is about as unmainstream as things get. The mainstream is going to get their VR content through mobile and consoles. PC will be best, but mobile and console will be far larger markets. Mobile >>>>>> Consoles > PC in terms of initial userbase. Now maybe PC and console can swap positions, but the fact of the matter is mobile is where people are going to get their taste and form impressions. That's why Facebook has prioritized it. And why they've going onto they're third iteration there. And the VR market has already survived these inferior Oculus products (so no need to worry about other "inferior" products ruining things).

I get the skepticism some might feel towards Valve, but I'm coming at it from two different angles. I loved the concept of the Wii remote when it was introduced. Until I found out what a broken turd it was in reality. Every tech site/mainstream site and many developers have posted LONG write-ups on Lighthhouse. It really does live up to the hype. This was the idea we were promised when the Wii mote was shown. And finally, someone has solved all the technical issues so that everyone universally raves about it. And they've also released the technical details on how it works. So there's no mystery as to why it's so great. It's an ingenious solution. It's also super dumb, so it requires almost no processing power to work its magic. For anyone who ever loved the concept of the Wiimote, this is just nirvana that the tracking problem has finally been solved. So I'm excited about it.

My other point for switching allegiances (at least at this point) is Oculus was always a communal idea. When Carmack went to E3 and started pimping Lucky's prototype, I was all in. Carmack is a living legend. I was sold. And everyone in the PC community gathered around the idea. There were no boundaries. Carmack was helping while still at Bethesda. Valve was doing advanced R&D on what consumer devices needed to be in the future (and sharing everything with Oculus). Epic was creating software for Oculus. Everyone was pitching in and sharing towards a greater idea. Oculus was just the center where everyone met and shared what they had. This changed when Facebook bought it. Go and look at all of Lucky's quotes before and after and there's a stark contrast in almost everything of any importance.

So, yeah, all things being equal, I think it's in my interest for the open platform to win. The PC market is too small to be fragmented by anyone locking down their warping shaders. A PC game needs to support all VR headsets. And I feel there's some real evidence that Facebook would love for VR to equal Oculus. Which, considering it was an outside communal effort that made Oculus a success, goes against what I believe was that initial spirit.

P.S. Don't take it to mean I feel I have ownership because I pledged early enough to secure a DIY kit for DK1. I'm talking about all the outside companies (Valve at the forefront) who basically handed Oculus everything they could.

EDIT: Just a couple final points. This is all public knowledge, because before Facebook acquired Oculus, Oculus basically had zero censorship. Lucky and Carmack detailed everything. Also, I'm not exactly sure on the exact timeline, but Valve may have had a dual screen, 90hz, low persistence VR headset before DK1 was even shipped out to backers. That Abrash led work at Valve formed the entire foundation for these upcoming headsets. So it's a false narrative that Valve is iterating on others work. Everything of value is interating off that early Valve prototype that Valve handed to Oculus. At minimum, it was a co-calibration between the two. They're inseparable.

 

nice, key points (that I picked up, whilst eating dinner )

Q1 2016 (no change)
headset :
x2 CUSTOM oled screens ," super low latency ", "super wide fov", (no actual spec figures given )
"lightweight "

Xbox style controller ( + Xbox integration )
x2 (one for each hand ) oculus "touch" controllers that are wireless and are tracked ( "low low latency, works well" etc ) , these are hand trackers + include buttons/mini thumb joystick

they seem to be promoting the fact of partnerships with software devs etc, seem to have some decent looking VR titles in the works

no pre-ordering available yet

full recording here

https://www.oculus.com/en-us/


p.s I suspected the delay on the cv1 was due to them opting for custom screens to be developed especially for the oculus VR, think we'll really benefit from a user point of view
(think there is a chunk of Facebook flotation cash now missing lol )

 

View attachment 16963 View attachment 16964 View attachment 16965 View attachment 16966 View attachment 16967

 

View attachment 16968 View attachment 16969 View attachment 16970

 

can see the tops of the 2 separate screens, must be clever optics + visual distortion & correction going on,
as I'd have expected the panels to be larger/wider for the super fov they mentioned at the live event, but then what do I know

 

They can use lensing to create a wider FOV.

Anyway, did they say yet when you can order?

 

no.

They mentioned H1 and not Q1 now.... what does that mean?

 

hiya Tim

no reference to a pre-order date at all & I think for good reason ( they've re-stated release Q1 2016 though )

my guess they'll be shooting for pre-orders available on the run up to Xmas -sept. to Early Nov time
(with maybe a voucher to print off for an Xmas gift), if not then maybe release right at the end of Q1 or run late again

I'm guessing oculus is hoping that valve will run late ( which is lightly to happen ) on their (valves) stated release of "this year",
oculus I'm sure are ready & will quickly put the ability to pre-order & a pre-order system in place if valve suddenly release ( or allow pre-order themselves earlier than Xmas run up ) their unit ( using a mobile phone screen(s) I believe )

the VR custom developed screens in the oculus is the most interesting thing -this I think is what's caused the delay
( & took a chunk of facebooks floatation monies no doubt )

lots happening behind the scenes quickly, above is only my best guess's, it's interesting to follow too


I did consider that oculus stated Q1 2016 just to surprise us with an earlier date (& preorder) around now, competition could have relaxed a bit too prior to the surprise (but sadly this did not happen )



E3 next week, I'm assuming no new news ( from oculus ) just demos/ hopefully people will be using the CV1 then some reviews ( hopefully CV1 vs DK2 )

 

no they said again Q1 ( & confirmed as such on their updated website https://www.oculus.com/en-us/ )

( H1 would indicate 1st half of year although I don't hear people using that phase )

 

was nice to receive new news from oculus earlier,
Palmer should have thought about how he was presenting his new hand track air controllers though

 

also crescent bay could have been the cv1 this year ( with a mobile phone screen in it )

then this latest model ( announced today with custom screens ) could have been cv2 later next year

oculus seem committed to deliver a super VR headset, so we are not doing bad I guess

 

Quoted from ISRTV:

Oculus did say that the two OLED screens have been upgraded for better resolution and a wider field of view. On the flip side, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe did leave us with this somewhat sobering comment of, “maybe not quite as high-resolution as you one day want.” Hmmm…I see.

Does that worry anyone? I've not got the DK2 and reading what most people say about Elite: Dangerous (it's hard to read the writing) a few of them are now a bit concerned that it still won't be good enough, of course it's all up in the air until the Tech Specs get released of course.

 

We'll be wanting higher resolutions through the next multiple generations of headsets,

Maybe for the next 4 to 7 years untill resolution is no longer a concern

Also bear in mind that more resolution = more pc loading so
Vr resolution capability & affordable pc power can go hand in hand

For high fps I'll be even tempted to run at same dk2 on the cv1 but the visual quality will be higher (resolution in another sense) as will be better due to a higher screen pixel count. ( & hopefully better optic setup + better quality screens ) less screen door effect