As they progress toward a consumer product, Oculus announced another prototype at their Oculus Connect developer conference. Dubbed Crescent Bay, the headset contains a new display, with a higher refresh rate and higher resolution, better optics, and 360-degree head tracking. It is also lighter and includes built-in speakers.
Of course, these features were not quantified with hard specifications.
Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus, stressed that this is not the consumer product yet. He claims that this is an increase over DK2 that is equivalent to the increase DK2 saw over the original Oculus Rift. It is not all about hardware, though. This company is engaged in hardware and software, video and audio. This should make sense considering their early acquisition of John Carmack and hundreds of other engineers. They, rightly, see themselves as a platform and, while they see game engines as necessary for VR, due to the ability to reposition the camera in milliseconds of notice, compared to film's never, they are not limiting themselves to just "games" (but yes they consider it a big part of it).
Honestly, months ago, I was sitting at my desk with its five monitors, each with bits of news posts, chats, reference material, and maybe a StarCraft tournament live stream, and Oculus was being discussed. I started to wonder if monitors, especially multiple displays, are just an approximation — our current best effort — of how to receive video cues from a PC. I could see a VR platform take on entertainment and even productivity with its infinite, virtual environments.
Currently, there is not even a hint about pricing and availability (as far as I found).
Five monitors. Wow, that is a
Five monitors. Wow, that is a lot of real estate. Does the headset fulfill the same need? I never used one of these things, so do not know how to think about it.
They just need to get this
They just need to get this bastard to market for gamers. The revenue will pay for future models with more features. I feel like they’re trying to cram too many features into the 1st generation device.
history of 3d has stated if
history of 3d has stated if it’s not perfect to start, it aint gona catch on.
That last paragraph blew my
That last paragraph blew my mind. How I yearn to be released from the shackles of screen bezels!
Note: That’s my speculation
Note: That's my speculation and not something the Oculus is planning (as far as I know). It was just an example of what Oculus could do beyond gaming. They didn't give examples, themselves, just that it could be used for more than gaming. (It sounds like they meant things like movies rendered in game engines and so forth — but there's a lot more room than that.)
Feed Ryan lots of milk and
Feed Ryan lots of milk and cookies, and let him play for a while. This could be called the milk and cookies benchmark, and the time it takes before hurling, would be the metric.
Yes, one of those Japanese Mecha games with lots of action, quick random movements and seizure causing flashing.
I think vr headsets will be
I think vr headsets will be great, but for a slightly more limited set of applications compared to what people seem to think. Even if they get the head tracking perfect, there is still the issue of your in-game character moving while you are not. This may still cause some people to get sick. I am super sensitive to such things and I cannot ride in a car as a passenger for extended periods of time without getting slightly nauseous, especially in the back seat. I have also gotten slightly nauseous just playing a regular 3d game in a darkened room on a 2d display. It should work well for things where the in-game character sits still. This can be aproximated by flight simulators and such where you have a cockpit wrapped around you which provides a (vitual) stationary frame of reference. I don’t have issues in airplanes, so I may be able to do that. Movies are not very well suited since they are not being rendered in real time; there isn’t any way to do the head tracking.
I think oculus technology may not be going in the right direction. It seems to me that other types of display tech may win in the long run. Some thing more similar to projection possibly. Certain types of projection technology may be able to take advantage of eye tracking to provide much better image with a lot less processing.
Natsu Dragneel, is that you!
Natsu Dragneel, is that you!
A great toy for specific
A great toy for specific content when it eventually in releases in 2016.
21:9 1440p monitor still gonna pwn all anyway.