The Oculus Rift has its final consumer hardware. We’ve seen it. Now, it’s time to share what we know about it with you.
Oculus VR held a media briefing today where it announced some of the details of its virtual-reality headset, which will launch in the first quarter of next year. We’re still waiting on a few other important pieces of information, but first, let’s cover what we do know.
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We finally know what the consumer version of the Oculus Rift will look like. Check it out:
Above: The Rift headset with the Touch controllers.
Oculus has made a sleek-looking product that look futuristic and comfortable. The company says it has worked on the ergonomics and design to make that it’ll fit just about anyone’s head.
We’ll stick our own heads into the thing next week, and we’ll report back what it was like.
Rift comes bundled with an Xbox One controller
One of the more interesting developments at the Oculus Event was when Microsoft’s Xbox boss Phil Spencer took the stage. The two companies are working together, and the result of their partnership is that the Oculus Rift will include an Xbox One controller.
Above: Phil Spencer onstage at the Oculus event.
Windows 10 can stream Xbox One games to the Rift
Oculus and Microsoft didn’t stop at the included controller. The two companies have also worked on a way to play Xbox One games in a virtual cinema using your Rift. This isn’t the most exciting use of VR, but it at least shows that Microsoft is thinking about ways to get involved with VR while it waits for its HoloLens augmented-reality device to hit the market.
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We went into today’s event expecting a lot of games, but Oculus only really took time to show off three during its stage show. This included the spaceship dogfighting game Eve: Valkyrie from CCP Games and two new experiences: the action-adventure game Edge of Nowhere from Insomniac Games, and a third-person adventure called Chronos from Gunfire Games.
But Oculus is planning to bring those two along with games from the following developers to E3 next week:
- Playful
- 4A Games
- Climax
- Coatsink Entertainment
- High Voltage
- Harmonix
- Glu
- Carbon
- Square Enix
- Signal
And the company is also planning a $10 million fund for indie developers who want to make VR games.
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Finally, Oculus ended the event by showing off its new input devices. Called Oculus Touch, it is a pair of wireless controllers that track motion, touch, and more.
“We’ve been working on input since the beginning of the Rift,” Oculus VR cofounder Palmer Luckey said.
Oculus wants people who use these controllers to get something called “hand presence.” The company wants you to feel like your hands are in the virtual world along with your eyes. This is something else we’ll get our hands on next week, and we’ll have more then.
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What Oculus didn’t announce
We’re still waiting for Oculus Rift to share some important details about its device:
- Price: Unknown
- Release date: Sometime in Q1 2016
- Launch games: Unknown
We’ll probably get a few more details at E3 next week, but it looks like the company is going to hold off on announcing a price for a little while longer.