Put away your credit card — Oculus Rift isn’t going on sale this week.
Virtual reality developers from around the world have assembled in Hollywood for the second Oculus Connect conference, and Oculus VR — the Facebook-owned company that has kickstarted the latest revolution for head-mounted displays — is planning to work closely with artists, engineers, and designers to help them make better immersive games. But one thing Oculus has made clear it won’t do this week is put the consumer version of the Oculus Rift headset up for preorders.
In a post on Reddit, Oculus VR cofounder Palmer Luckey reiterated that this show isn’t about that kind of consumer-facing announcement.
“We won’t be launching Rift preorders during the show, so don’t wear out your F5 key while you are watching the keynote,” wrote Luckey. “I would not normally make this kind of post, especially since it is not really news or a change in plan, but I want to make sure nobody is disappointed or surprised.”
Luckey went on to write that Connect is a “developer show first.” The company isn’t forgetting about enthusiasts and consumers for its conference, but they are secondary and tertiary concerns.
Of course, this doesn’t mean Oculus Connect will have a dearth of interesting news.
“There will be some consumer-facing announcements, but all in the context of their relevance to developers and the growing VR ecosystem,” he wrote. “We will be announcing and co-announcing some really cool stuff.”
The Oculus cofounder also noted that fans should not expect positional tracking for the GearVR head-mounted display it has built for Samsung’s smartphones. While Rift and HTC Vive have a way of telling where you are in a room, that tech is beyond the capabilities of modern mobile chips.
“It’s not going to happen,” wrote Luckey. “Our computer-vision teams are doing some amazing work, but VR-grade inside-out tracking is not currently workable on mobile devices.”