Oculus Rift conference overview: Oculus Touch, Microsoft, Consumer Edition detailed

The consumer version of Oculus Rift is being introduced by Oculus VR with new information and details.

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Oculus VR held a pre-E3 conference today to introduce the world to the consumer version of the Oculus Rift.

The Oculus Rift features a custom display and optic system that helps keep the integration tight between hardware and software. It has two OLED screens that offer a wide-field of view by using the Rift’s constellation tracking system. The system allows the wearer to experience very precise, low-latency movement, and has been in development for over a year.

The Oculus Rift is wrapped in fabric and is said to be light-weight and comfortable to wear. Oculus VR wants the Rift to be as comfortable to wear as a baseball hat. In fact, that’s precisely how its wearer will be slipping it off and on their head. The Rift will have a small dial located on its top that allows both lens to be adjusted, which will help in bringing the images displayed to feel more natural to your eyes. Each wearer will have a different comfort level, although Oculus VR says it should be easy to change if you need to. The headset also has detachable headphones which can provide audio to the wearer if kept on, but they can also use their own headphones if they wish.

Using the Oculus Rift will require the user to plug in an external sensor on your desk that Oculus VR says is plug-and-play compatible. That’s not the only accessory that will come with the consumer version of the headset as Microsoft has partnered with Oculus VR to offer an Xbox One controller with each product.

Microsoft has also announced the Oculus Rift will be Windows 10 compatible from the get-go and will support the ability to stream Xbox games directly to the headset. A short demonstration was presented that showed off this feature. The demo showed a woman playing her Xbox One with the Oculus Rift inside of a virtual living room. She was able to look around to see the room around her while the game she was playing, which appeared to be Forza Motorsport 6, played on a large, virtual screen in front of her. As of now, there appears to be no real VR support for streamable Xbox One games, which makes those who want to have Forza all over our faces have to wait until Microsoft takes advantage of its partnership with Oculus VR some time down the line.

A number of developers presented a variety of games during the Oculus Rift presentation, including CCP Games (Eve Valkyrie), Gunfire Games (Chronos), and the most surprising, Insomniac Games (Edge of Nowhere). Oculus VR also listed a number of other games that will be available on the Rift, including Damaged Core, VR Sports Challenge, Esper, Air Mech VR, Lucky’s Tale.

One of the last reveals Oculus VR had was its Oculus Touch. The Oculus Touch is Oculus VR’s answer to providing a proper input to virtual reality applications, considering it’s always felt weird playing a VR game with a gamepad. The Oculus Touch focuses on six major pillars: Hand-presence, Manipulation, Low-mental Load, Communicative Gestures, Traditional Inputs, and Lightweight.

While we were hoping Oculus VR would announce the official launch date for the Oculus Rift, the company kept that information tight lipped for now as they still say it’s expected to release in Q1 2016.

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