Oculus has been on the receiving end of vocal criticism about its practices of funding the development of VR content with the requirement that it be exclusive to the Oculus platform. For many owners of the Rift's rival, Vive, the biggest point of contention is that Oculus' PC platform is only compatible with the Rift, which means the exclusive games the company funds can't be played by the Vive without an unofficial workaround. However, Oculus say's they're interested in opening the door to their platform to any third-party VR headsets that want to come in. Powered by Oculus (or not) Speaking with Nate Mitchell, Head of Rift, at an Oculus press event in San Francisco last week, it became apparent that the company categorizes the way that other headsets could interface with Oculus' ecosystem in two distinct ways. [caption id="attachment_66573" align="alignright" width="325"] Samsung's Gear VR is the only headset today that's 'Powered by Oculus'[/caption] The first is 'Oculus partner' headsets, and for that the company likes to point to Gear VR as an example—a headset that's made by Samsung, but 'Powered by Oculus' (which means it uses Oculus as the content platform). Ostensibly, Oculus today is open to more partner headsets joining its ecosystem, though none have materialized. The category second is 'third-party' headsets: those that are made entirely by another company without any involvement from Oculus but want to plug into the Oculus ecosystem through some sort of official, open method. But today, that option doesn't exist, which means that Oculus is the sole gatekeeper into their ecosystem, and you can't get in the front door unless it's on their terms. For now Oculus has been tolerating workarounds like Revive, which essentially opens a backdoor into their ecosystem, allowing Vive users to play the vast majority of the Oculus content library without issue. But that's not exactly ideal for users or for Oculus. For one, Oculus could decide at any time to close that door, which means some Vive users are understandably weary of investing in Oculus content when they aren't sure if they'll be able to continue to access it in perpetuity. Then there's logistical issues, like Oculus games showing Touch controllers instead of Vive controllers, which can make it difficult to learn a game's controls, or result in awkward button mappings that make the game more difficult to play. Vision of the Epicenter [caption id="attachment_66216" align="alignright" width="325"] Nate Mitchell, Head of Rift at Oculus | Image courtesy Oculus[/caption] When I spoke with Mitchell, he told me about the company's ambition to make the Oculus ecosystem the "epicenter" of VR on PC. When I asked him how that vision could come to life when the Rift isn't the only headset on the block, we launched into a conversation about the nature of opening the Oculus ecosystem to other headsets. "We have a vision where basically more headsets are connecting into the Oculus platform. A big part of that has actually been the OpenXR initiative, which we’ve been one of the key contributors to since the very beginning. Not every company that’s out there is part of the OpenXR initiative in the VR space. But there are a couple of folks who have been super active, we’ve been one of those, helping really to find the spec. Both for this current generation of VR but as well as the future that we see," Mitchell said. "So it’s not impossible to think that in the future you could buy a headset that’s not made by an Oculus partner that actually plugs into the platform, and whether that’s done in collaboration with us [...] or whether it’s something built by someone else—whether it’s Ben Lang’s headset that you’ve made totally separate from us—there is a possible future where that plugs right into the Oculus platform and you’re able to drop into everything you know and love about Oculus." Industry Standard [caption id="attachment_59861" align="alignright" width="325"] OpenXR is a broadly supported initiative to create an industry standard method of interfacing between VR headsets and software | Image courtesy Khronos Group[/caption] When I asked how key OpenXR was to enabling a future where other headsets could transparently connect to the Oculus ecosystem, Mitchell's careful answer seemed to indicate that the mere completion of the standard wouldn't necessarily mean that Oculus is ready to open the door. "[OpenXR is] not the only way you could get there, but it is one of the key things that we think—what’s the best way to frame this—it’s one part of establishing [a future where third-party VR headsets can connect to Oculus]. It’s not the only way you could get there, but it’s a key part of doing it in a way that a number of us across the industry are very excited about." Continued on Page 2 » Quality Assurance Today, plenty of Vive users are using workarounds like Revive to tap into the Oculus ecosystem in a way that Oculus has tolerated, but Mitchell says that when the company decides to officially open the door to third-party headsets, they want to be able to provide the same level of support and quality assurance as they do for Rift users, but they're not ready to take that on. "Our team works around the clock to make sure that our customers—Oculus customers—have a phenomenal experience. It’s paramount to who we are as a company in terms of the products we build—we have this philosophy that we want to deliver a great experience. So today if you go and buy a Rift, go home and plug it in, you know that you have our team there to support you 100% no matter what happens. That is not true for all the VR systems out there by a long shot, right? Our sort of ‘It Just Works’ philosophy—we try to carry it through everything, "Mitchell told me. "[...] In terms of support and supporting those users [from other headsets], that’s not something that we’re ready to take on yet, because there really not only isn’t a path to actually doing that, but we’re not in a place where we’re ready to have all of those systems plugging in. That’s a lot of engineering effort, that’s a lot of operational effort, there’s a lot that goes into making that great. But, over the long term, that is something we want to do. Maybe not necessarily for Vive—or maybe for Vive—but definitely for future headsets, and we see only more people coming into this market." [irp posts="42242" name="3 Moves Oculus is Borrowing from Apple's Marketing Playbook"] Oculus Compatible [caption id="attachment_19999" align="alignright" width="281"] Cloudhead Games' Denny Unger shows off a heap of VR headsets[/caption] So what would a future look like where customers can go out and buy third-party headsets that can tap into the Oculus ecosystem in an officially sanctioned way? Mitchell explains his vision. "[...] we want the Oculus platform to be a place where people come and they go out and they look for headsets that are compatible with Oculus because that is the best place to be, bar none. And I think right now, when you look at our content lineup, and our leading graphics stack and everything else that we’re doing, a lot of people see that right now," he said. "And you have Vive users who are buying Rifts, or even PSVR users buying Rifts, coming into the ecosystem and saying ‘Oh my god, the content class here is sort of a cut above, and the experience that you have on the Oculus software stack is a cut above’, and we’re really proud of that. So when we can deliver that same great experience on other devices in a way that is both technically feasible and makes sense from an operational perspective, I would love for us to really enable that, and go big in that direction." Two (Virtual) Thumbs Up The existence of Revive, I told Mitchell, means there's clearly demand for a way into the company's ecosystem through other headsets. Does Oculus see that demand as a positive? "We’re definitely aware of it, and as I said before, the Lone Echo team—you know if you jump in Echo Arena, [and you see that] people’s thumbs are up, it’s obvious that those are Revive users. [...] I do see that as a massive positive because it means that there’s gonna be way more people in [for instance] the Echo Arena community for me to compete against [...]. [...] And we’ve always said that we’re trying to do what’s best for the ecosystem. So if there are users who were jumping into Echo Arena on their Vive’s… they will do as they will." [irp posts="64923" name="Oculus Founder Backs 'Revive'—a Hack for Vive to Play Rift-exclusive Games—With $2K in Monthly Funding"] Black Box Though Mitchell says he sees the unofficial participation of Vive users in the Oculus ecosystem as a positive, I was surprised to learn that the company claims to not have a good idea of how many Vive users are playing on the Oculus platform. "The truth is that we have all sorts of—some stats on the store itself, but it’s hard to discern other headsets versus our own. A lot of users too tend to be Oculus users and potential Vive users, and it’s hard to disambiguate all of those folks."