Oculus VR announced today that its Oculus Touch hand controls for virtual reality will be delayed until the second half of 2016.
In a blog post, the company said it needs more time to perfect its Touch controls, which allow you to use your hands in a virtual-reality simulation. That means the Oculus Rift headset will ship with an Xbox One controller — a traditional video game input device — when it debuts in the first quarter. Preorders for the Oculus Rift will start “very soon,” according to Oculus VR, which Facebook bought for $2 billion in March 2014.
The delay is significant because lots of developers are dependent on Oculus in the VR ecosystem. Tech adviser Digi-Capital estimates that VR will be a $30 billion business by 2020, but that is dependent on strong platform launches by companies such as Oculus.
“On Touch hardware, we’ve made significant advances in ergonomics, and we’re implementing many changes that make Touch even more comfortable, reliable, and natural,” the blog post said. “We’re also implementing changes that improve hand-pose recognition.”
Oculus VR is also setting up a larger pre-production run so that it can get more prototypes to developers. Oculus said there will be a lot of “groundbreaking new content launching alongside Touch.” Early previews will be shown at the Oculus Connect 2 in September, and the Oculus team said the Touch will be worth the wait.
That means Oculus VR will likely have less cool stuff to show than previously expected at the 2016 International CES, next week’s big tech trade show in Las Vegas.