5 Oculus Rift questions we need answered before its release

4:11 AM Unknown 0 Comments

Could virtual reality be in every tech-friendly home by the end of next year?

Late 2015/early 2016 is shaping up to be ground zero for the arrival of consumer-ready VR. The HTC Vive, a collaboration with Steam gatekeeper Valve Software, and Microsoft's HoloLens (it's more AR than VR, but whatever) are both expected to surface this fall. Sony's Project Morpheus is a "first half of 2016" proposition. And now, the granddaddy of them all, Oculus VR's Rift, is set to arrive in the first three months of 2016.

At this point, the Rift is defined as much by what we don't know as what we do. The specific date the headset arrives remains to be seen, but there are other pressing questions that consumers need answers to before they can make an educated purchase. Oculus promises to share more in the coming weeks, and that's great. Here's a rundown of what we'll be looking for.

The first Oculus Rift developer kit sold for $300 via Kickstarter (and later on Oculus' official website until quantities dried up). Its successor, the DK2 ("Developer Kit 2"), got a little more pricey at $350 as it added in a camera and the tech to support positional tracking. That's all Oculus has sold thus far, but the most recent Crescent Bay prototype also added headphones and 3D audio capabilities to the spec sheet.

Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard

Oculus has always insisted that the consumer-ready Rift will fall into an affordable price range, but between the tech that's been added since the first dev kit and any unannounced features that might still be coming before the wide release, it's a safe bet that we're looking at a $400+ purchase.

Thus far, playing with Oculus Rift content has required a fair bit of technical expertise.

 

You can't just plug in the headset and step into another world. There are drivers to install and tinker with, and any apps — available from Oculus' community space for developers — need to be installed outside the headset like a normal piece of PC software.

 

That kind of clunky process is to be expected with a dev kit, but the final release could really use a more user-friendly approach. Could the Gear VR's virtual storefront be an indication of what to expect from the Rift? Nate Mitchell, VP of Product at Oculus, suggested as much in his recent appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Image: TechCrunch

"On Gear VR, we have the Oculus store available now. We actually have a curated experience where the developer will upload their build and we'll work with them to distribute it worldwide," he said. "I think you can expect something very similar on the Rift."

One of the most frequently asked questions fielded by Oculus is what VR inputs look like. The traditional mouse/keyboard setup that we use with computers is less than ideal for VR, since even the best typists need to occasionally look down at the keys.

Video game controllers are a better solution, since there are fewer buttons and a gamepad is easier to operate blindly. Mitchell even pointed out at Disrupt that many VR developers content are working with in these early days.

Image: Oculus VR

That said, Oculus has its own ideas about input solutions. One team at the company is tasked with taking a longer view of how we might interact with VR in five years, but Mitchell also hinted at a more immediate solution to be revealed in the run-up to June's E3 trade show.

Plugging in the first Oculus Rift dev kit was relatively straightforward: just a few cords and a converter box. The DK2 added positional tracking, necessitating a monitor-mounted sensor and additional USB ports. The most recent Crescent Bay prototype (which wasn't and won't be sold) introduced built-in headphones and 3D positional audio, and there's no telling at this point how many cords/setup steps that stuff adds.

With no specs released — Mitchell promised a rundown prior to E3 — it's hard to guess at how many cords the Rift will require or how much space needs to be set aside at home to take full advantage of VR. Early looks at the Rift were sit-down experiences, but Crescent Bay demos have all involved standing inside a marked square.

Image: Mashable, Christina Ascani

For city-dwellers especially, that's a key concern. How hobbled is the Rift experience if, for example, you don't have the space to set up a "VR area" to stand inside of at home?

It's only been over the past year that we've gotten a decent sense of what kind of VR experiences to expect — and what kinds simply won't work — at launch. EVE: Valkyrie, a space combat simulator from CCP Games, is a confirmed launch title and a good indication of a game that can work in VR.

First-person shooters like Call of Duty are disorienting in VR because our brains stumble around the idea of walking in a virtual space while our physical selves are seating and operating a controller. Valkyrie gets around that by putting your virtual self inside a cockpit and sticking a controller in your hand that is roughly analogous to the virtual space fighter's controls.

Image: CCP Games

It's the top prospect at this point to be the Rift's first killer app, but it's also the only VR game experience we've seen thus far that feels fully baked.

There's also Oculus Story Studio to consider. The relatively new internal team of filmmakers and game developers is tasked with building minimally interactive experiences that hew closer to watching a movie than playing a game. They've got five projects (that we know of) in production, and these types of experiences could also help to establish the early path for VR content to follow.

Source: Mashable

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.