Today Oculus gave 1,500 developers at the Oculus Connect 2 conference (as well as those at home via livestream or on Gear VR a chance to watch) a look at how the consumer version of the Oculus Rift will roll out in Q1 2016, how Oculus plans to bring virtual reality to millions through the Samsung Gear VR, and how new platforms and controllers will expand the uses of Oculus Rift from games, photos, videos and art.
Click To View The Oculus Connect 2 Developer's Conference recorded earlier today
Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe said.
“This is the dawn of VR and this is a once in a generational moment that we can create something that inspires millions of people.”
Iribe brought Mark Zuckerberg on stage, who said.
“[Virtual reality is] like teleporting to some other place by putting on a headset. I was so excited with it because I realized I was seeing the next big technology platform. After video, the next logical step is fully immersive virtual reality. VR is the next platform. In just a few years, VR has gone from being a science fiction dream to reality. All of you are inventing the next major platform.”
Later in the keynote, Iribe said the Oculus Touch handheld motion controllers will be shipping in the second quarter of 2016. However they will be available to developers earlier and will include a second Rift sensor.
Toybox, which is being demoed here at the event, is an example of how Touch can be used in a virtual world. Iribe said.
"Toybox demonstrates the power of social VR and is just stretching the surface. It has the potential to be more social than any platform we’ve seen yet.”
The Touch SDK will include the APIs, controller position, as well as avatar hands.
Samsung Gear VR headset works with the complete line of 2015 Samsung Galaxy smartphones and is powered by the Oculus VR virtual reality software (Click Image To Enlarge)
Medium, which Oculus’ new painting app, will open up a new medium, Iribe said.
“Every great platform needs a paint app and this is going to be our paint app.”
Medium will also be demoed here at Connect. It allows you to use your hands to create 3D sculptures in VR.
The Oculus and Samsung partnership to build the Gear VR will open virtual reality to a more mainstream audience with its $99 price point. Though not as powerful as the forthcoming Rift, it only needs a Samsung phone to run and will make it affordable for more consumers to experience VR, starting when it ships in November 2016.
Nate Mitchell, VP Product at Oculus, announced that the consumer version of Oculus Rift virtual reality will be out Q1 2016 (and it will come with an Xbox one controller). Mitchell discussed the launch of the Oculus Ready PC program, which works with NVIDIA and Intel. PCs that work for developers will have an “Oculus Ready” badge on them. The partners include Asus, Dell, Alienware, NVIDIA, and Intel. The specs will be NVIDIA GTX 970/ AMD 290 or greater, Intel i5-4590+, and 8GB+ RAM. All the rigs Oculus showed off cost under $1000.
The Rift SDK 1.0 will be available in December. The number of developers continues to grow: Mitchell said there are more than 200,000 Oculus Developer Center Users.
The Rift is not only for games. Oculus has made an effort to explore new forms of storytelling through its Story Studio department. The first short film Lost was followed by the second short film Henry, which is about a hedgehog that tries to make friends despite his prickly nature. Today on Oculus Share, Henry is available for viewing by anyone with a DK2 and will be available for download for anyone who wants to see how it was produced.
The Oculus Platform will have social features, games and app services, and commerce. There will be more features around user profiles including Oculus IDs and avatar pictures. The Oculus Platform will also have its own robust friend graph. There are rooms so people can connect with a group of people before they go into a virtual world.
For developers wanting feedback on their content before sharing it on Oculus Share, the new Oculus Concepts program will let developers distribute content early to testers. It will launch on Gear VR and next year on the Rift.
Palmer Luckey, founder and visionary of Oculus, announced Minecraft is coming to Oculus. It is available for purchase on the Minecraft Windows 10 Edition and Oculus Share in the spring of 2016. Luckey then threw out some Minecraft swag to the crowd, elating fans of the Lego-like building game.
The 20 new VR experiences in Gear VR, Rift, and Touch will be demoed today. All of the Touch demos were built with Unity or Unreal Engine. One that’s sure to be a favorite is Netflix, which comes to Gear VR today, and Twitch is coming soon.
While today lacked any blockbuster device reveals, it strengthened the foundation of Oculus’ hardware, software, and platform. The Gear VR now has seductive experiences that will draw rookies towards virtual reality. And the Rift has the developer capabilities necessary to unlock games and apps that will convince people it’s worth the price. In short, after years experimenting in the basement, Oculus is ready for the spotlight.
COMMENTARY: Other highly anticipated games are coming to the Samsung Gear VR:
- Monument Valley, a new title from game maker Ustwo.
- Lucky's Tale, a cartoonish adventure game from Texas game company Playful.
- Eve: Gunjack, a high-energy space shootout game from Ieland game maker CCP.
- Bullet Train, a new Unreal Engine VR experience from Epic Games, which is a first-person shooter game where players can use their own hands to aim, fire and throw weapons.
Oculus is also working with Microsoft to adapt its technology to the popular Xbox video game console. and it's working with media companies like Netflix, 20th Century Fox and Lionsgate to bring hit films including Alien, Die Hard, Predator and Birdman and TV shows to the device as well.
To make the Oculus Rift more appealing to customers, Oculus said it has partnered with companies like Alienware, Dell and Asus to sell PCs that are Oculus-ready and able to power virtual reality games and experiences. Some of those PCs, Oculus said, will cost less than $1,000.
Oculus isn't the only company building VR devices.
- HTC is partnering with game maker Valve to release a competing headset, Vive, later this year.
- Sony is working on PlayStation VR gear.
- Oculus plans another headset, Rift, that will work with computers when it's released early next year.
A long time coming
VR has been a common trope in science fiction -- think Star Trek -- where it's seen a key element of training and entertainment simulations. But its history in the real world has been marked by frustration as clunky technology and high-price tags discouraged both companies and consumers from embracing it.
After decades of false starts, including the high-profile failure of game giant Nintendo's Virtual Boy, the industry may have a product it can sell at an affordable price. VR headsets contain hundreds of high-tech parts, many of which are also used in smartphones, a booming market where leading companies have driven down costs for everything from high-quality screens to gyroscopic sensors.
Palmer Luckey, the 23-year old inventor behind Oculus, is also behind the optimism. His Rift headset reignited interest in VR when it was announced in 2012, promising to make the technology affordable and easy to use. Oculus quickly became one of the leading companies making the technology, attracting some of the most high profile names in the technology industry such as VR researcher Michael Abrash and game making legend John Carmack, who headed development of key games like Doom and Quake.
Oculus Rift headset unveiled in 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)
Michael Abrash, Oculus Rift chief scientist, said the attention the industry is getting and the speed with which it's growing has been surprising. He said.
"Just a few years ago, all of this would have been totally inconceivable."
Oculus also offered details about the Oculus Touch controllers it's developed for the Rift headset. The company said they'll be offered to consumers by the middle of next year, and will have a compliment of games and experiences prepared when it does. One will be called Toy Box, in which people can stack blocks, throw balls and shoot guns.
All of this will likely attract enthusiasts to buy its device, but whether general consumers will buy in is still unclear. Zuckerberg said even smartphones didn't sell in large numbers initially, and suggested VR may follow that trend as well. Zuck said.
"Facebook is committed to this for the long term."
Courtesy of an article dated September 24, 2015 appearing in TechCrunch and an article dated September 24, 2015 appearing in C|NET and an article dated September 24, 2015 appearing in Forbes
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