GamesBeat recently conducted an interview with Oculus VR Brendan Iribe, who talked about where the Oculus Rift is today in terms of development, how the team stays organized, some of the new emerging technologies, and so on. He also revealed that company CTO John Carmack, who just left id Software so that he could focus on his position at Oculus VR, is heading the team's mobile focus.
"He and his group are very focused on the mobile side," Iribe said. "We are throughout the company, but he's spearheading a lot of that mobile work. We can't give any details on it, but so far, from the glimpses we've seen, we're going to see another 'How did he make that work?'"
That comment refers back to Epic Games' Tim Sweeney who reportedly asked that very same question when he saw id Software's 2.5D engine running Doom on a low-end computer.
"We have a team of real senior, rock star engineers," he added. "Of course, Carmack is at the top. He's been spearheading a lot of the mobile effort, working with a group of talented engineers on that. He largely works out of the Dallas office. Most of the engineers, though, are in Irvine here, working remotely with John. There's a handful of other developers in Dallas that John is working with."
He goes on to say that Carmack is known for being head-down. "We're trying to respect his wishes, where he wants to get in and code and solve these problems on such a small platform. To do that well, he needs to focus and have his isolation. That's what he's doing," he said.
Earlier in the interview, Iribe said that VR is going to reignite the PC race and the GPU/CPU race, which has largely plateaued. The industry really isn't talking about Gigahertz and cores, but how many triangles they can achieve. The race has seemingly calmed down. But once you put on a VR headset like the Oculus Rift, you'll want even more.
"What does that mean for mobile, when suddenly we're at the edge of making this all work in a PC that's five or 10 times faster than a smartphone or tablet? There's a big challenge there," he said. "That's the kind of thing that a guy like John Carmack loves to sink his teeth into and pull something off there, something where people look at it and say, 'How is that possible?'"
To read the full interview, head here.
