In a Q&A session at Austin’s SXSW event, an Oculus panel including VP of Product Nate Mitchell and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey confirmed that their latest feature prototype, ‘Crescent Bay’ does indeed comprise two display panels.
SXSW is underway and virtual reality’s presence is more potent than every before at the music, film and interactive entertainment festival underway in Austin, Texas over the next few days.
To kick off what looks to be a VR fuelled week, Oculus organised a panel comprising Nate Mitchell, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Brown (Hardware Engineer, Oculus) and Paul Bettner of Playful Corp. (Lucky’s Tale), discussed the “Future of Virtual Reality” and fielded questions from the audience and the community at large.
One interesting tidbit in particular, was Mitchell and Luckey’s admission that their most recent public feature prototype, the Crescent Bay headset, does indeed use two display panels. This is a divergence from Oculus’ previous designs which consisted of a single panel – the DK1’s 1280×800, DK2’s 1920×1080 for example. No details on panel specifications of course, but it does mean that the prototype that is thought to bear close resemblance to the eventual consumer version of the Oculus Rift may well opt for this route.
Also, to the question of restrictions on content developed for Oculus’ platform, i.e. will the Rift be an exclusive VR headset, Luckey was absolutely adamant this would not be the case.
As for competitors entering the fray at GDC 2015? On Valve and HTC’s announcement, not to mention Sony’s new Morpheus prototype, Mitchell was bullish. “[a] rising tide lifts all boats” he said, stating that more competitors and the excitement they generate means more developers enter the market. Nate stated that “As long as VR takes off, we’re in a great position and we’re super excited about that … congrats to the HTC and Valve team and the Morpheus team on their announcements because they were awesome!”
However, when asked by a member of the audience whether in light of Gabe Newell’s assertions that their ‘Vive’ headset caused zero nausea, Luckey was more realistic “I do not think that anyone can truly say that nobody will get sick in a VR headset. It doesn’t matter how good you make the hardware. You could flawlessly simulate reality … there’s still things that will make people sick.”
Elsewhere, while the panel was generally light on headline news, it was an interesting session which gave some insight into Oculus’ focus and direction, alas though – no sign of a release date just yet.