Once again it’s time for an update on the latest Oculus Rift news. First of all, Oculus LLC is now Oculus Inc., according to the company’s official website. This morning they’ve dropped an update to Kickstarter backers which includes photo of both an early model of the Oculus Rift housing and the head tracker that the company has been developing. The company is also teasing that they’re working on squeezing in some unnamed “key features” prior to shipping the first batch of developer kits.

Palmer Luckey to Give Keynote Presentation at Evolve Conference

Palmer Luckey, creator of the Oculus Rift and founder of Oculus Inc., will be giving a keynote presentation at the Evolve conference in December. Luckey’s presentation is titled Virtual Reality: The Holy Grail of Gaming, and will focus on “where virtual reality technology is going and how it’s advances might impact the game industry,” according to the latest Kickstarter update from the company.

Early 3D Rift Model

oculus rift developer kit 3d model
‘This isn’t even my final form’

Along with the latest update comes a photo of an early 3D-printed model of the Oculus Rift. The company has said that the Rift seen in the Kickstarter video was only a concept and that the final design would likely differ. It isn’t clear how similar this Oculus Rift prototype will look to the final developer kits that ship in December, but we’re less then a month away so we’re willing to bet the design is nearing completion.

First Image of Oculus Rift Head Tracker (IMU)

The other week we dug up some dirt on the Adjacent Reality head tracker that was picked up, along with creator Nirav Patel, by Oculus Inc. to become the Oculus Rift head tracker sensor. This is the first photo of the tracker that the company has released. They’re still keeping quiet on technical details, but Luckey has previously noted that it would have “much, much faster” than 250Hz sampling. He also says that the company intends to release the tracker separately for developers to make use of it.

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“Key Features”

The latest update from the company seems to tease that they are “trying to squeeze in a few key features without delaying, but time is against us.” These “key features” are unknown, and it is clear that they don’t want to make any announcements unless they can deliver. Some people have speculated increased resolution but Luckey has been quite firm in saying that the resolution will be unchanged for the developer kit. Furthermore he has mentioned that the company hopes to be able to squeeze a bit more than a 90 degree FoV out of the developer kits, but no promises have been made yet.

The company signed off their latest update with, “Thanks for all your support and patience. We’ll let everyone know as soon as more of our details (and surprises) are fully-confirmed. Stay tuned!” [my emphasis].

New Offices

Palmer Luckey at the new Oculus Inc. Office

Oculus Inc. has finished moving into new offices in Irvine, CA. The complex (below) looks pretty cool! The update notes the they’ve got “a full hardware lab, 3D printing room, even a small mo-cap VR space for testing and calibration of tracking hardware.”

A Star Citizen in the House

Chris Roberts, creator of the exciting upcoming Oculus Rift game, Star Citizen, swung by the Oculus Inc. office to check out the latest prototyes and to show the Oculus team his game. Luckey says that Star Citizen does not yet support the Rift so they were unable to test the game with it. However, Roberts says that the game will indeed be Oculus Rift ready, though we probably won’t see any fruits of the integration until the Oculus Rift SDK is released in the next month or two. According to the Oculus Inc. Twtitter account, the company backed the Star Citizen Kickstarter.

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That’s it for this edition of Oculus Rift News Bits. If you missed any of the previous updates, take a look below. Or see here if you are just learning about the Oculus Rift.

Newsletter graphic

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • dead

    Looking like some great progress so far. I truly hope everything goes as planned, especially the price point.
    I’d much rather have lower resolution than higher price personally. If they end up raising the price I think it will defeat part of the purpose; a true gaming revolution.
    The fundamental part of that being every gamer being able to get their hands on one! We need consumers to get developers interested! Which gets consumers interested and so forth.

    >‘This isn’t even my final form’

    I lol’d.

    • Ben Lang

      Agreed! I think Palmer knows that the success of the Rift lies in accessibility/availability. I know they want to push features as best as they can, but I don’t think they’re willing to push the final product beyond $500. The Rift is in good hands with Palmer.

      • Yossi Preminger

        The design of the rift also lends itself to experimentation with regards to resolution and FOV, I think we can expect Oculus to test and find the sweet spot. It will also depend on the content and the typical user’s computing power.

        [whine]
        My aging PC for example will barely let me play Doom 3 BFG when my Rift arrives.
        [/whine]

  • plo009

    Is there any sources for the articles? Can’t seem to find them for some reason.

  • Sean

    Regarding the price point, I agree with the above posters but also think there needs to be an Oculus Rift HD at a higher price with a higher resolution and possibly a larger FOV.

  • tobo

    “much, much faster” than 250GHz sampling.”

    It should be Hz not GHz.

    • Ben Lang

      Thanks for pointing this out, I’m too used to writing about processors! Fixed.