Oculus Rift - Step inside the game

Do you like virtual reality? Are you a fan of 3D? If you answered yes to either of those questions, then you'll be pleased to know the future looks bright for both of those thanks to virtual reality technology developer Oculus, who recently launched a Kickstarter for its new headset - the "Oculus Rift". 

I remember the first virtual reality (VR) game I ever played. You would wear the VR helmet and beat bad guys with special gloves and ankle straps with sensors inside. I loved that game, I wished there were more like it. I would even put on the helmet and pretend I was using it to play other games. It’s pretty sad that people seemed to lose interest in it when the Wii came out and motion control gimmicks became king. But thankfully the team behind the Oculus Rift have still held on to the dream. The Oculus Rift is set to be the most immersive consumer-grade virtual reality system. There’s a good reason why their slogan is "Step inside the game"; when you wear the Rift you aren’t looking at your game, you’re inside it. Its unique way of tracking your vision ensures that your eyes are always full of your game and never off screen.

Oculus Rift is a new VR headset designed specifically for video games that will change the way you think about gaming forever. With an incredibly wide field of view, high resolution display, and ultra-low latency head tracking, the Rift provides a truly immersive experience that allows you to step inside your favorite game and explore new worlds like never before.

Designed for gamers, by gamers.

The Rift takes 3D gaming to the next level. There are a number of VR headsets out there, but none that deliver a truly immersive gaming experience. Most products either lack the technical features required for believable immersion or sit at a very high price-point ($20,000+) reserved for the military or scientific community.

But what about games compatibility? Well, they got the basics covered. Doom 3 is ready to be played on this, dubbed as Doom 3 BFG Edition. The Oculus team is working with many game companies like id Software, Epic Games, Unity, Valve. Once it releases, we expect to see more companies follow suit.

This is what they have to say about this:

• "What I've got now, is, I honestly think the best VR demo probably the world has ever seen."

          John Carmack, id Software

• "Needless to say, I'm a believer... We're extremely excited here at Epic Games to get the Unreal Engine integrated with Oculus."

          Cliff Bleszinski, Design Director Epic Games

• "I think this will be the coolest way to experience games in the future. Simply that... that big."

          David Helgason, CEO Unity

• "I’m really looking forward to getting a chance to program with it and see what we can do.”

          Michael Abrash, Valve

• "It looks incredibly exciting, if anybody’s going to tackle this set of hard problems, we think that Palmer’s going to do it. So we’d strongly encourage you to support this Kickstarter.”

          Gabe Newell, President and Owner Valve

How good it is?

Well, tech specs of the Dev Kit ,according to their Kickstarter page:

• Head tracking: 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) ultra low latency
• Field of view: 110 degrees diagonal / 90 degrees horizontal
• Resolution: 1280×800 (640×800 per eye)
• Inputs: DVI/HDMI and USB
• Platforms: PC and mobile
• Weight: ~0.22 kilograms

Developers, rejoice! The reason being that the SDK version is compatible with Windows,Mac,Linux, iOS. And already the Unity Engine and Unreal Engine support is included in SDK. Thats a huge Bonus!