During Oculus Connect’s keynote speech yesterday, it was revealed that Touch, the company’s optically tracked hand controller was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the result of hundreds of early prototypes.
While the latest prototype is incredibly comfortable, almost to the point of disappearing into the back of your mind when you’re tossing about balls or shooting off fireworks in Oculus’ Toybox demo, Oculus says the device itself is the result of over 300 prototypes. The video presented at Oculus Connect, the company’s own developer event, shows a few of the early attempts, pasteboard and hot glue and modeling foam abound.
Co-founder Nate Mitchell told Tested‘s Norman Chan a little about the process of prototyping for Touch.
“We were actually trying to figure it out, it’s probably more than 300 at this point. When you include all the different prototypes we made around different ergonomics, different buttons, different thumb sticks, different ways to integrate … constellation tracking into the product in a way that it felt natural and it didn’t get in the way of what you want to do, it was a long long road but it was really exciting when we got something that felt natural.”
We’ve tried a number of Touch demos at this year’s Connect, and will be reporting back soon. Connect ends today, September 25th, so expect plenty more previews, hands-on, and interviews to come
