“Oculus has gone from strength to strength. Industry
giants have joined the company, including John Carmack”
Virtual Reality is finally becoming
less virtual, and more real, with 2013’s release of the Oculus Rift Developer
Kit. This $300 headset of silicon wizardry finally proved that we’re at the
doorstep of a gaming world based around working virtual reality, and we’ve got
the mobile phone industry to thank for it. Well, mobile phones and the
endeavours of a 22 year-old VR enthusiast by the name of Palmer Luckey.
Virtual
Reality is finally becoming less virtual, and more real, with 2013’s release of
the Oculus Rift Developer Kit.
Palmer spent years hunting for the
perfect gaming VR experience, only to realise that he could build it using
common components found in today’s mobile phones, utilising their high
resolution screens and accurate motion sensors.
A hugely successful Kickstarter got
the ball rolling, with the cash used to form the Oculus company and ship over
45,000 dev kits to intrepid developers (and at least one eager Aussie tech
journalist).
While the first kit used a very low
resolution screen, the low latency, massive field of view and accurate tracking
nevertheless leave us convinced that VR is the future of entertainment.
A
hugely successful Kickstarter got the ball rolling, with the cash used to form
the Oculus company and ship over 45,000 dev kits to intrepid developers (and at
least one eager Aussie tech journalist).
The effect the Rift has on the
participant is hard to put into words, but we explained it as being
“immediately struck by the feeling of presence”. As in, we were really there. Like,
really.
A year later Valve is using the exact
same phrase – Presence – to describe what makes VR so special, stating
“Presence is an incredibly powerful sensation, and it’s unique to VR; there’s
no way to create it in any other medium”. Once you’ve felt it, going back to
the 2D window of traditional gaming is hard.
Throughout 2013, Oculus has gone from
strength to strength. Several key industry giants have joined the company,
including John “needs no introduction” Carmack and RAGE creative director Matt
Hooper, to name a few. Meanwhile over $100 million has been invested in the
company, with key investor Marc Andreessen behind a huge chunk of the change.
He’s the guy responsible for the
Netscape browser, and also sits on the board of Facebook, making him a potent
partner for this impressive startup.
The Rift developer kit has also won
countless awards, with the newer Crystal Cove high resolution prototype
recently winning Best Tech at the world’s biggest electronics show, CES.
If
Rift lives up to the hype, prepare for gaming to undergo a paradigm shift even
more revolutionary than the leap from 2D sprites to 3D polygons.
It’s going to be a long road of
development before VR reaches the levels of immersion of Star Trek’s holodeck,
but PC PowerPlay will be there from the very first fumbling footsteps in this
entirely new world of PC gaming.
And as a PR-based technology, only PC
gamers like you will get to experience it for the first few years.
