
Oculus Rift - aaronbrethorst
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/rift/
======
joshstrange
I really want VR computer monitors so that I sit at a desk with no monitors so
that I can run 4,5,6, any number I want or just 1 big monitor. Also it would
give me a lot more privacy as no one else could see my monitors unless I
shared the monitor to them which I imagine would be a little easier to do with
virtual monitors than when physical ones (even considering screen sharing
which is iffy sometimes).

~~~
psychometry
Your use case is particularly apt for frequent fliers. I've almost had a tray
table-supported laptop destroyed on more than one occasion by a reclining
passenger in front of me. It would be amazing to just set up a small
keyboard+trackpad on my lap and not have to even pull the computer out of its
bag.

If I could do this, I wouldn't even care how ridiculous I looked.

~~~
matmann2001
You won't be able to see the keyboard though. So, how confident are you in
your touch-typing skills?

~~~
vectorjohn
Really? Is this actually a concern to anyone who's been programming for over a
year?

The only remotely challenging part might be symbols on the number row (that's
for me at least). And for those, there's actually NO reason you couldn't have
a virtual keyboard you can look down at.

~~~
matmann2001
There's a bias here. Most of the users of this site likely use a keyboard as
part of their daily jobs. Proficiency in touch-typing is essentially part of
our jobs descriptions.

Can the same be said for all potential users?

------
ForHackernews
Haha, thanks HN mods for changing the title to the uselessly generic "Oculus
Rift".

~~~
ljk
what was it before?

~~~
ForHackernews
Something like "Oculus Rift announces commercial availability Q1 2016"

~~~
skeletonjelly
So weird that they'd change that. Seeing the title now just made me think it
was a throw back discussion.

------
shmerl
Is this the reason they stopped Linux development?
[http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/11/oculus-rift-
consumer/#.xwct...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/11/oculus-rift-
consumer/#.xwctap:fWU7)

 _> The partnership with Microsoft will also see the Rift work “natively” with
Windows 10, plus play Xbox One games in the headset._

~~~
yaeger
They better not _dare_ making this Win10 exclusive and hosing people who plan
to stay on Win7 for the foreseeable future.

People were all up in arms when facebook entered yet there was never an
overlapping issue that would mean the Rift would be gimped or held hostage or
anything. People who were suggesting FB login to use the Rift were quite
frankly talking out of their behinds.

But this deal now with MS is awful. There was no need for Oculus to do that.
None. It clearly wasn't a money thing. It wasn't for the controller as they
clearly work on their own one. What on earth was riding these people to go
with MS when it is clear that they are fully focused on their console and
tablets. This does not paint a good picture to what the rift might be reduced
to just to make it fit onto all of MS stuff. Pretty much like they are
currently in the process of "consolification" of the desktop OS.

~~~
shmerl
I bet backers who supported the project initially and expected it to be cross
platform and not locked into some MS nonsense are pretty upset now.

Luckily there are other alternatives which don't try to force any exclusive
requirements on their users.

------
jonknee
The Xbox controller is really surprising to me. Years in development and it
will ship with an Xbox controller. Oculus Touch didn't even get demonstrated
and "prototype" was mentioned time and again.

~~~
pyrocat
Why reinvent the wheel? The xbox controller is widely considered the gold
standard.

~~~
Bahamut
The gold standard is Nintendo's controllers, not Microsoft's.

~~~
pyrocat
Really? I certainly liked the N64 and Gamecube controllers, but they're not
exactly ideal designs for a "universal controller". The wiimote had kind of
crappy motion controls and was borderline useless for anything that didn't
involve motion. The Wii U uses upgraded wiimotes that suffer the same problem,
and the gamepad is more like a giant gameboy than a controller. Plus we can't
use any of those controllers on a PC without additional adapters or
significant hardware hacks. The Xbox 360 (and to a similar degree Xbox One)
controller is designed to be universal, and if you look at what people are
using for PC gaming it's pretty much just those two.

~~~
morsch
The Wiimote is just a bluetooth device, there's no hardware hack or adapter
necessary to connect it to a PC, you just need a driver. Not that I ever used
it outside of an emulator.

------
meesterdude
I was a little disappointed to not find the one thing i really wanted to see
on this site: a buy button. But I want it NOW!

~~~
christoph
I was fairly disappointed by most of the keynote, but maybe my expectations
were just too high?

I was hoping for some real innovation that elevated it above Vive, but it just
didn't seem to deliver. The new controllers look great, but they aren't going
to be around until mid 2016, whereas I will probably have the Vive ones in my
hands by the end of year.

I think possibly Oculus are more focused on being consumer friendly than
Valve, but the inner techy in me is certainly more in love Vive and their
ecosystem at the moment.

The entire cinema mode integration with Microsoft just seemed like a total
misstep to me - why would I want to play a game in a virtual living room? It
just looked cheesy, gimmicky and silly. The fact you have to stream it over a
PC as well and can't just hook the headset straight into the Xbox seems like
it's just way more hassle than it's possibly worth.

~~~
Pxtl
I think the cinema mode is to ensure that you don't have to take the device
off when you switch between a game that's designed to support the Rift and
software that does not. With that it mind, it seems like a reasonable
compromise. I mean, do you want to have to take the thing off every time you
alt-tab to Windows Desktop, or do you want to be 2" from the Windows Desktop?

~~~
eco
I think it's two fold. First, you can't just slap VR into existing games. It
needs to be considered and implemented deliberately. Second, I don't think the
XBox One powerful enough to drive an Oculus Rift. The recommended specs for
the Oculus Rift are "NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD 290, Intel i5-4590" or better. The
XBox One doesn't have that CPU power and it certainly doesn't have that GPU
power.

------
mladenkovacevic
Separating the controllers into 2 devices for each hand is a natural way to do
input in VR, but I feel that the hand and finger motion should also not be
limited by the need to hold the controller. The pointing and thumbs up
gestures are ok, but imagine if the computer could respond to the full range
of motion a-la Leap.

Maybe it would look something like a cone that's at its base wrapped around
your wrist but at its height contains Leap sensors that can recognize the full
3-dimensional range of hand/finger movements.

~~~
POiNTx
I really completely agree.

But I think the intention with this device is to make something 'more' than
just gestures. They wanted to make a device that can understand gestures, but
also gives you more fine controls (buttons, analog sticks, grasping). It seems
like they really want to get the basics right, and then expand on all sorts of
forms of input in the future depending on the reaction and ideas of devs and
gamers. In their way of thinking you could buy a leap motion right now, strap
it to the headset and have complete finger tracking. The only downside is the
probable fact that there will be more applications using Oculus' Touch device
and some few novel unpolished apps using something like a leap motion.

Maybe there will be a device like you explained in the future.

------
sunnynagra
Anyone else disappointed that they announced a new interface controller
(Oculus Touch), but did not show any type of demo?

~~~
joshuak
Yes. Also lackluster considering cooler possibilities like leap motion[1].

1\.
[https://www.leapmotion.com/product/vr](https://www.leapmotion.com/product/vr)

~~~
robertfw
Leap Motion has been a pretty big let down, though I have not yet tried the
latest tools they have released.

~~~
leapmotion_alex
Hope you'll give it a shot; Image Hands significantly reduces the kinds of
jitters that can ruin a decent user experience. In case you haven't yet, be
sure to calibrate and optimize your tracking:
[http://blog.leapmotion.com/troubleshooting-guide-vr-
tracking...](http://blog.leapmotion.com/troubleshooting-guide-vr-tracking/)

------
davesque
What's the news here? Is this just a press release of sorts or new look for
the website?

~~~
lucb1e
The news was in the original title:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9701727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9701727)

------
pkaye
They missed the opportunity to get it out by Q4'15\. Would have been a great
Christmas seller.

~~~
Kapura
I think you overestimate the draw of device that isn't really market tested
and doesn't yet have a lot to recommend it besides its newness. Christmas of
2016 will give it time for good games to have bubbled up and make the value
proposition of the Oculus + supporting hardware much stronger.

~~~
christoph
This.

It appeals to a very specific market at the moment. Most consumers will
probably never experience VR on a PC at home.

The real seller to mass market will be a combination of integration with phone
handsets (a la Gear VR) or console (Morpheus/PS4) devices. The mass market
doesn't want a big, expensive black box chugging away in their living room.

~~~
cookingrobot
PC gaming may be bigger than you realize - it's twice the size of the console
gaming market and growing. PC might not reach everyone, but it's where the
money is.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2014/07/14/the-c...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2014/07/14/the-
console-war-is-over-the-pc-already-won/)

~~~
joshuapants
But how many of those PC gamers have large powerful computers adequate for use
with VR?

~~~
exodust
Not many considering you really want a GTX 970 minimum to keep framerate high
enough - crucial to reduce motion sickness. Those new MSI GTX 970 4Gb nvidia
cards look nice. I'd put the $400 down for one if I didn't just buy a coffee
machine.

BTW, these graphics cards are the first I've seen which spin down to a stop
for normal computing, the fans only kick in for 3d applications, great stuff.
PC gaming and graphics is more amazing than ever.

------
aaronbrethorst
Does anyone know of a list of PCs that meet (or exceed) the recommended
hardware specs for the Rift? Not that I'm going to run out and buy one of
these machines in anticipation of the Rift's release next year, but I'm
interested in knowing roughly what a premium VR experience costs today
(excluding the headset, obviously)

Edit: To rephrase my question, can anyone point me to a list of PCs
manufactured by companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. that meet or exceed
these requirements?

~~~
pinum
> To rephrase my question, can anyone point me to a list of PCs manufactured
> by companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. that meet or exceed these
> requirements?

Buying a prebuild is a bad idea. Apart from being overpriced, they often have
strange custom motherboards and cases which make upgrades complicated.

There's always those places where you select the parts and they assemble the
machine for you, but I can't recommend them. I bought a machine from
Cyberpower UK a few years ago and had nothing but problems with it.

Just grab the parts from Amazon and assemble them. It isn't difficult, you're
simply buying it in 7 parts and plugging them together. That way you'll know
it's been done correctly, all the parts are standard, and you didn't pay over
the odds.

Anyway, your question was for a hard price. I would budget $900 USD for all
the parts (including 4690K CPU and GTX970 graphics crad). For a really high
end setup for Rift (980Ti), the next step up would be about $1200.

~~~
Pxtl
Prebuilds do work for users that

a) Want something that physically looks good enough to have in their living
room - modern prebuilds are sleek and small while making a small-form-factor
custom is super-hard

b) Have more money than time. Who has time to track parts compatibility and
figure out the upgrade path for your device, only to drop half of the cost of
a new unit on your upgrade? There's a reason Apple has been so successful
while ignoring upgradeability: the hardware market has never made upgrading
easy-enough to be in-reach of the majority of users. While physically
installing the parts is simple, compatibility is always frustrating.

~~~
pinum
>making a small-form-factor custom is super-hard

Mini-ITX is easy enough. Micro-ATX is easy as pie. There are very nice cases
for both. If you know of a sub-mITX OEM build that has 4690K+980Ti level
performance, I'd like to see it.

>compatibility is always frustrating

Not really. A graphics card, for example, has two things to check to verify
compatibility: * Will it physically fit in my case? (Check the length) * Is my
PSU powerful enough and has the correct connectors?

That's it. Every graphics card has been PCI-E for a decade. If it fits and has
power, any card will work in any motherboard.

CPUs are also not too obtuse. If you have an Intel 9-series motherboard, you
can install any Haswell or Broadwell chip. This kind of stuff can easily be
googled. It's no harder than getting the correct speakers for your home
theatre.

~~~
ansible
_Every graphics card has been PCI-E for a decade. If it fits and has power,
any card will work in any motherboard._

You do want to pay attention to the mobo choice if the card itself requires
PCI-E v3.0. There are still a lot of v2.0 mobos for sale. Most mobos have at
least one 16x slot, which is the one you'll want to use. Things get a little
more complicated with multi-GPU card builds.

~~~
pinum
>You do want to pay attention to the mobo choice if the card itself requires
PCI-E v3.0.

Nope. PCI-E 3 capable cards work perfectly in PCI-E 2 motherboards. In fact,
no graphics card currently on the market can significantly benefit from the
boost offered by PCI-E 3. This includes Titan Xs in SLI:
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/7089/geforce-gtx-titan-
twoway-...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/7089/geforce-gtx-titan-twoway-sli-
scaling-pcie-2-vs-pcie-3)

>Things get a little more complicated with multi-GPU card builds.

Sure, but I would speculate that anyone going that route is an enthusiast who
knows what they're getting into and is happy to do the research.

~~~
ansible
_Nope. PCI-E 3 capable cards work perfectly in PCI-E 2 motherboards. In fact,
no graphics card currently on the market can significantly benefit from the
boost offered by PCI-E 3_

Ah, OK. When shopping for a GPU compute server, I was paying attention to
PCI-E 3.0 vs. 2.0 on the server motherboards.

I had assumed that it was a similar situation with consumer graphics cards
these days, given how long v3.0 has been out.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
I recently returned my Oculus Rift, not even two weeks after buying it.
Dropping Linux support is not okay.

~~~
fr0styMatt2
It's strange, but when I think about it, DK1 was a much more positive
'product-y' experience for me than DK2 was. Perhaps part of that is that DK1
was my first VR headset, so much of the initial awe factor had worn off by the
time I got the DK2.

The DK2 was/is plagued with software teething issues. Totally acceptable as
it's a developer kit, but still frustrating and a little worrying. The other
thing I found disappointing coming from DK1 to DK2 was the vastly decreased
field-of-view. I think it's a combination of things that
contribute/contributed to that (over-zealous vignetting in the earlier SDKs
being one of them), some of which may have been fixed since in software. I say
this as, to me, the Gear VR FOV seems wider than DK2's despite having a
slightly lower quoted value.

My DK2 is basically a brick now. There's been a compatibility issue with AMD
cards running it in extended mode, which goes all the way back to September of
last year which has not been fixed on my system by any driver updates or
Oculus SDK updates since. Given that the cool stuff I'd like to use with it
(specifically VR Desktop and VorpX) doesn't support direct mode and only does
extended, I've almost given up on it (this affects dev too - I believe the
latest Unity editor still doesn't support running stuff in Direct-to-Rift mode
from the editor, for example).

~~~
TwoBit
That's an acknowledged AMD bug which is fixed but I don't believe it's
available yet. Oculus v0.6 apps can always just run in direct mode and avoid
that problem.

~~~
fr0styMatt2
Do you have a reference? I'm really curious to read about it.

------
tiffanyh
Off topic, but PHPBB would not have been the first forum software I would have
expected Facebook to use.

[https://forums.oculus.com/](https://forums.oculus.com/)

~~~
ameen
They could've at least gone with Discourse. But I guess owing to the abundance
of PHP talent at hand, they might've chose to stay with a widely used one.

~~~
Someone1234
I really like Discourse. But having looked into it quite seriously, it has a
lot of gotchas, drawbacks, and limitations. The interface is very nice, but
the feature set isn't as "mature" as other older forum software. It seems like
if you're using it exactly the way they use it on the official demo/Discoure
site, then you're good, if you need to use it in any other way then tough
luck.

PHPBB is fine if you skin it well. Plus PHPBB's system requirements are
extremely easy to meet (PHP and MySQL). Discourse requires a more niche tech'
stack and requires a much more powerful machine to run. Good luck running it
on a $10/month VM.

~~~
codinghorror
Many customers run Discourse sites on the $10/month Digital Ocean instance
just fine. It is true that you can't go below that, though, as 1 GB RAM is the
minimum.

------
tcfunk
I am seeing a keynote mentioned in the comments, but I don't see anything
about that on this website.

Could someone point me toward this keynote? I would very much like to watch
it, thanks!

~~~
green7ea
I found this on youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdM3jT5swRA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdM3jT5swRA)

------
p1mrx
I'm curious to see how they intend to solve the glasses problem. Ideally,
they'd partner with someone like Zenni Optical to provide $10 drop-in lenses
for any prescription.

~~~
errtnsd
It isn't a problem.

Just like monitor manufacturers don't offer prescription glasses along with
the purchase, Oculus won't offer lenses.

Corrective eye-wear is very individual and requires some amount of expertise(
exam, specialist ), so it doesn't make sense, and it isn't very feasible, for
Oculus to provide that for you. Also contacts are very cheap.

~~~
sixothree
I thought the dev kit came with lenses specifically for near-sighted people.

~~~
rdw
It does but this is because you can't easily wear glasses under the devkit.

------
falcolas
I'm a bit of a sound nerd, but the on-ear headphones are really underwhelming.
No noise isolation, most likely low quality drivers... this would make for a
pretty terrible VR experience.

Simply upgrading them to closed back, over the ear headphones would make a big
difference - you'd be able to use lower volumes (at which point even cheap
drivers aren't oto bad), and you'd be more isolated from the environment,
similar to how the rest of the headset works with your vision.

~~~
errtnsd
Palmer claims the headphones are very high quality. If you don't like them you
can replace them with your own.

~~~
pyrocat
Oh yeah? I can't find where it says you can replace them with their own.
That'd be cool though.

~~~
hauget
It was mentioned in the keynote event today that the headphones were
detachable.

------
arca_vorago
Since Oculus sold to Facebook I dropped them like a hot potato, and am instead
embracing Valve's main platform for SteamBox the HTC Vive. That being said,
where I think VR will really take off is going to a combination of VR and
human brain interface (including gaze tracking) in order to get past some of
the limitations of human interface design we have been stuck on for so long
(mouse/keyboard/joystick)

------
mankyd
What do the rings on the controllers offer that could not be put into the base
of the handle?

~~~
POiNTx
The ring serves 3 functions as I understand.

-Tracking of the controller: There are leds on it that emmit IR light so the tracker can accurately track the controller. This accuracy is not achievable at the moment with just internal sensors (although the controller has these, presumably for even better accuracy)

-The inside of the ring has sensors to track your finger gestures. I can imagine this would not be possible with just the internals of the controller.

-The ring acts as a sort of extra handle. Imagine opening your hand totally (as in waving). This is a gesture you would maybe like to do in VR. The ring will hang between your thumb and index finger while you do this. Other more traditional tracked controllers would fall out of your hand.

------
baldfat
I am still not sold on VR, but I feel that AR (Augmented Reality) really is
the future.

1) AR seems to help in real world situations vs VR which actually makes you
feel vulnerable due to lack of vision and impaired hearing of what is around
you.

2) VR also has the issue with physical issues with nausea and 10% of people
with lazy eyes or other optical issues that make them unable to see 3D
clearly.

3) Star Trek Holosuite is AR and that is my dream one day.

4) If Wii motion controls didn't continue their popularity how will making a
helmet make that physical exertion more appealing?

~~~
Pxtl
But AR requires several technological leaps beyond VR in terms of transparent
screens and location tracking. So I'd expect to see usable VR headsets to
appear in homes a generation two before AR ones.

I mean, the HoloLens is _additive_. That means if you want to show a dark
object in a room with white walls, you _cant_.

~~~
Arelius
> I mean, the HoloLens is additive. That means if you want to show a dark
> object in a room with white walls, you cant.

You sure? Do you have a source you can cite?

~~~
rosser
[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-
hard-...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-ar-
anytime-soon/)

~~~
eco
I'm kind of delighted that the author of that article, Michael Abrash, worked
at Microsoft (twice), at Valve, and is now at Oculus.

------
hartator
What are the specs of the display? Is it the same one than the V2?

~~~
POiNTx
They are better than V2 (also called DK2, as in developer kit 2). The total
res is 2160x1200 at 90 hz. 1080x1200 per eye. You can find out more here:
[https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/powering-the-
rift/](https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/powering-the-rift/)

------
crusso
It needs a camera on the front so you can have a PIP view and avoid having to
take the goggles off to see something in the outside world.

~~~
rwmj
Agreed. Back in 2013 when I played with the original DK1, I wrote that it
needed an external camera:

[https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/oculus-rift-first-
impr...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/oculus-rift-first-
impressions/#content)

------
mbell
Any data on the SDE of the new display?

I'm really excited about VR, have a DK2 and am really impressed with the
experiences available already. But, I've found it very hard to use for long
periods of time (more than 20-30 minutes) as my eyes eventually focus on the
screen door and I can't seem to break that without taking some time away from
it.

------
Rockdtben
Going to a page and the first thing I see is someone with their mouth gaping
open and looking up. Horrible design.

~~~
aaron-lebo
That was my immediate thought as well. Their choice of a scruffy looking guy
(nothing wrong with it in and of itself) says a lot about their intended
audience.

Hard to imagine Apple or Google marketing a product with that kind of imaging.

~~~
robertfw
As a "scruffy looking guy", what does it tell you? I'm curious what you are
able to glean about me and other "scruffies" by virtue of our facial hair

~~~
aaron-lebo
I don't have any problems with you being scruffy looking :), I'm just saying a
lot of people do have a reaction to it, which is why most companies go out of
their way to use clean cut people.

It's not personal, just an observation.

------
manu29d
They really didn't think about people with specs or is it just that they're
not marketing that aspect?

~~~
hrnnnnnn
They mentioned in the presentation yesterday that they've actually improved
the ergonomics for people wearing glasses.

------
lighthawk
Does anyone know if the issues people were reporting with simulator sickness
have lessened with the version they plan to sell?

see:
[https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=5127&start=20](https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=5127&start=20)

~~~
BillTheCat
I used the rift with the full head tracking this year at PAX East and felt no
motion sickness at any point. A lot of the issues in 2013 were fixed when they
started tracking full head movement instead of just rotation.

Of course I don't think I'm prone to motion sickness and the demo lasted only
about 20 minutes max but I believe that I could wear it for over an hour or
more with zero adverse effects.

~~~
exDM69
> I used the rift with the full head tracking this year at PAX East and felt
> no motion sickness at any point.

You're one of the lucky ones. I've tried all the Oculus devkits as well as
some other VR solutions and I get terrible motion sickness within minutes and
it lasts for hours after I'm done with the game. This is a very personal thing
but anecdotal evidence suggests that this is a major issue for a significant
portion of people.

Oculus DK2 was a major improvement, though.

The Oculus is a very personal device, you'll have to adjust the lenses and the
headgear to suit your eyes, and then it might be off for someone else.

This is a real issue they're going to have to solve, so far they've been
excused because their products have been called "development kits". But if
they start selling a final product that will make half or a quarter of people
sick, they'll be getting bad reviews and reputation.

I'd really like to be able to use a VR solution, it's a competitive advantage
in the kind of games I play (racing and flight simulation), but nothing I've
tried so far works for me.

------
peter303
I heard Jaron Lanier speak about this 30 years at Xerox PARC. And the general
principles of VR have changed little since then. Computers are at least a
million times faster now. So you don't puke moving your head and the computer
is a half second behind.

------
evo_9
Some observations and concerns:

1\. Oculus is a display, therefore it should work with almost anything (aka
modern devices that put out HDMI, etc). A 4k monitor doesn't require me to buy
a whole new computer to use it. I don't understand why Oculus (or any other VR
display) _needs_ to be proprietary to the point that I may end up owing one
device (Oculus) for PC and another (Morpheus) for PS4 gaming. This makes as
much sense as companies launching nearly identical video formats (BluRay vs
HD-DVD most recently). And again, this is a display not unlike a 4K display
and should work similarly universally, I would think/hope.

2\. It seem too big to me to be truly immersive. To lose oneself you have to
not notice you are wearing this, which at its current size seems unlikely.

3\. It needs to be wireless, any cables will detract from the immersive
experience. I'm sure they are working on this.

4\. The controllers they created look pretty interesting but I don't see how
they will be conducive to touching, picking up, grasping items which would
seem to be a more important thing than re-inventing FPS controllers if VR is
truly going to take off this time.

5\. I worry that too much focus is being placed on adapting FPS to this (and
other) VR tech. While it would seem a 'natural', and probably will prove to be
the easiest style of game to adapt, it's also lazy. It will be far more
challenging (and I think rewarding) to adapt VR for other purposes such as
viewing live events (concerts, sports etc), driving games/sims, sports
games/sims and action adventure games such as Witcher and Dark Souls, just to
name a few off my head. Maybe the new controllers will work great with those
types of games/activities but my gut is these are really optimized for FPS,
which is a shame.

It's exciting times for VR but I sure hope it doesn't get overtaken by FPS
games because there are so many more potentially awesome applications out
there to also focus on.

~~~
POiNTx
To react to all your points view with my points of view:

1\. It's not a display, it's a device that contains a display. It has motion
and tracking sensors. What the rift wants to achieve is the latency from input
(moving your head) to photon to be really really low. This problem is hard.
And to solve it you need to create your own solutions first. In an ideal world
everyone would work together to make the best "Rift" that works on all
devices, but that is not how capitalism works. This does not mean that we will
not see this in the future. Some companies will win the VR battle, and they
will probably be the ones to provide the best HMD for multiple devices.
Hopefully we will go to a world where we have a HMD standard, but that is just
not how new technologies evolve.

2\. The Rift is lightweight, and people who have tried the Rift don't even
notice the HMD on their head after a couple of minutes.

3\. The technology isn't there yet (or too new/not mature) to do it with as
low latency as with a cable, but like you said it will be eventually.

4\. Agreed. Although they have a grasping button I'm not sure if it will
mimick grasping convincingly enough. Playtesting with the actual device will
tell us more I think.

5\. I think we will see a lot of games that are not FPS oriented to be honest.
I didn't see any FPS announcements (except for the dogfighting in space game
but that's not really FPS to me). I'm personally not too worried about this.

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johansch
When I finally tried OR DK2 last month it didn't meet my expectations. Latency
was not an issue, but the fielf-of-view was simply to small to be convincing.
It felt like looking through a toilet paper roll sawed in half.

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kup0
I'm just waiting for some internal fallout in the company between execs so I
can make a well-timed "rift" joke... It's interesting to see these images now
in comparison to the leaked ones that came out.

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wmil
Has there been any news about the Zenimax lawsuit since last June?

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Pxtl
I like the split controller. I hope they sell those as a stand-alone device -
I'd like a 1-handed controller for gaming on my phone, for example.

~~~
freehunter
I've used a couple phone controllers, and the problem always comes back to no
game really supports them because not everyone has one. The best games for a
controller are the Modern Conflict games, and even then they have quicktime
events that require me to drop the controller and touch the screen.

~~~
Pxtl
At the very least 8-bit era emulators will be able to capitalize on them well
since those games just require 2 buttons and a D-pad, which a single hand of
this controller supplies.

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nickhalfasleep
This really seems like something so personal I would want to try one on before
buying, I wonder if in towns like Denver we will get the opportunity?

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arcameron
Why does nobody make a noscript version of their site?!

There's absolutely no body text on this page unless you allow their JS

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0xdeadbeefbabe
It would be fun to fly a drone this way. How many cameras do you need? How
much bandwidth?

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sjs382
I love that the Oculus Touch controllers are positioned to look like eyeballs.

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puranjay
I'm not going to buy this. Ever. Because I know if I do, I'm not going to come
out of the rabbit hole.

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tehchromic
this is what M$ is good at. it's the heart and soul of the company.

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elektromekatron
Somebody shoot the graphic designer for laziness. If you are making
promotional artwork for a VR headset, try not to have the view in each
eyepiece being the same picture slid horizontally. Surely it wouldn't hurt to
do two renders.

~~~
reedlaw
It's a well-done site. I had to go back and look carefully to even notice that
the views in the eyepieces were not rendered in proper perspective.

~~~
elektromekatron
Perhaps I stare at 3d graphics too much, was the first thing I noticed.

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9999
Years in the making and the final industrial design of the thing is just a
slight step up from a cardboard box. Awful foam around the headset, crummy
plastic on the headbrace, flimsy open headphones, and it looks like it will
still be unusable for anyone that wears glasses. I'm still grateful to Oculus
for kicking off all of the interest in VR, but I doubt I'll ever be buying
their devices if this is the best they can do.

------
Balgair
[http://img.pandawhale.com/post-57522-oculus-rift-fat-guy-
lik...](http://img.pandawhale.com/post-57522-oculus-rift-fat-guy-like-
walle-2kqJ.jpeg)

Be aware, this man is who has bought and the OR type system, and is likely to
buy another. I'm not saying this to demean, but to put color to the world
where ORs are commonplace. If the OR is going to be common, then this picture
will be a common sight as well. People complain about friends always texting
and looking at their phones, if the OR becomes widely used, then this picture
will be the new complaint

