Oculus Rift Won't Arrive Until 2015

By Kevin Parrish
published

Bummer, we know.

Gamers who are anxiously awaiting the upcoming Oculus Rift HMD to hit store shelves this year will have to wait a little longer, as the device won't make a commercial appearance until 2015. The ship date was confirmed by a company representative at Facebook's F8 developer conference, who added that the new parent company will be "disappointed" if the Rift doesn't ship to consumers before 2016.

Now here's a little tidbit that should brighten the bad news: Oculus VR has a version of the HMD that it's keeping hidden in a room previously used by Valve Software -- the Valve Room. Andreessen Horowitz's partner Chris Dixon, an investor in Oculus VR, told Business Insider during the event that this version is more powerful than the current Developer Kit 2 and the more recent Crystal Cove.

According to Horowitz, Crystal Cove, which recently dazzled Marcus at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, is only 50 percent of what's running in the secret room. Horowitz indicated that it "closely approximates reality," and doesn't look like the user is in an animated game environment.

"In user testing it gets to a level of realism where almost all people feel that it's realistic," he told Business Insider. "Imagine everything you can see now, but it's a little bit pixelated. Eventually, that [pixelation] will go away." He added that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg likely took one look through the secret headset and decided to purchase Oculus VR.

A separate Oculus VR rep confirmed that the Valve Room model does provide a photorealistic experience. In fact, the experience is so real that people who suffer motion sickness aren't affected by the movements. This version requires a room all to itself because of the amount of processing power needed to provide a realistic experience.

The Oculus VR rep says that this model is tethered to a giant server… for now. The company is looking to scale all that hardware down into units that can be sold to consumers, businesses and so on. Perhaps this is why we won't see the Oculus Rift in 2014; the company wants a photorealistic experience when customers strap on the headset for the first time.

Read more: The Past, Present, And Future Of VR And AR: The Pioneers Speak

Kevin Parrish
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Morbus
    Facebook sellout, could never arrive ever and I wouldn't care.
    Reply
  • John Wittenberg
    "The Oculus VR rep says that this model is tethered to a giant server… for now. The company is looking to scale all that hardware down into units that can be sold to consumers, businesses and so on. Perhaps this is why we won't see the Oculus Rift in 2014; the company wants a photorealistic experience when customers strap on the headset for the first time."

    I can get behind this.Granted, I carry no weight in the VR work (pun intended), but I like the attitude of releasing a good product.
    Reply
  • karmazyn
    "The Oculus VR rep says that this model is tethered to a giant server… for now. The company is looking to scale all that hardware down into units that can be sold to consumers, businesses and so on. Perhaps this is why we won't see the Oculus Rift in 2014; the company wants a photorealistic experience when customers strap on the headset for the first time."

    I can get behind this.Granted, I carry no weight in the VR work (pun intended), but I like the attitude of releasing a good product.

    Sure but I don't think that they are talking about consumer product. If it needs a big ass server to run it will be prohibitively expensive. But I will still be happy with a basic version.
    Reply
  • bobbyboy123
    Not true. Oculus contacted Road to VR and confirmed this story is false and did not disclose any final information about ship date of CV1. This information is inaccurate.
    Reply
  • karmazyn
    Facebook sellout, could never arrive ever and I wouldn't care.

    Being a sellout means that you are willing to sacrifice the quality of your product for higher profit. Somehow I don't see that happening here. If anything, the Rift should get a bit faster release thanks to all that cash that Facebook has.
    Reply
  • the_crippler
    Not true. Oculus contacted Road to VR and confirmed this story is false and did not disclose any final information about ship date of CV1. This information is inaccurate.

    Seemed waaaaaaaay too good to be true. Thanks for saving me the legwork on this one.

    Reply
  • Colin Harvey
    This information is completly incorrect. The reason Valve used a room had nothing to do with needing a huge server but that they placed IR panels on the wall so the VR setup tracked your entire body instead of just your head. The walls were covered with what looks like QR codes which are used to help orient the position of the body in the room. you could walk around kneel and see your hands in the vr. The idea of needing a gigantic server for compute for this is ridiculous this isn't the 1940's
    Reply
  • icraft
    *TOOT TOOT* ALL ABOARD THE HYPE TRAIN.
    This sounds amazing.
    Reply
  • Menigmand
    I lost interest in Oculus to be honest.
    Reply
  • Achoo22
    "The company is looking to scale all that hardware down into units that can be sold to consumers, businesses and so on."

    And, in accordance with Oculus' modus operandi, the next step is to announce plans to bring the tech to users worldwide with a retail price of just $200 (release date not given). Then, the press will praise Oculus' server-shrink tech. as absolutely revolutionary, and it will be licensed by Google for 2 trillion dollars. Meanwhile, Sony is the only company with a retail VR product and Oculus' "revolutionary" VR headset is aborted in the development stage after protracted stagnation.
    Reply