Oculus Confirms Touch Shipping In December, Supports Room-Scale VR With A Catch

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By Kevin Carbotte
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The highly anticipated Oculus Touch controllers finally have a release date. We’re still in for a bit of a wait, but at least we don’t have to guess anymore. Oculus will open pre-orders for the hardware on October 10, and the company is preparing to ship Touch in volume on December 6.

The Oculus Touch package includes two motion controllers with 6-degrees of freedom (6DOF) tracking, haptic feedback, finger sensors so that you can use hand gestures in your games, and an array of buttons to help you interact with the VR world. You also get a second Constellation sensor to complement the one that comes with the Rift HMD. And, as we discovered recently, Oculus also includes the adapter that lets you attach Touch to a Rockband guitar for Rockband VR.

The controllers require a second Oculus Constellation sensor to function, and Oculus includes it in the box. Oculus confirmed that there are multiple possible configurations for the sensors. The default configuration places both sensors in front of you with one on either side, facing towards the center. 

If you wish to take advantage of a larger play space, Oculus Touch supports diagonal positioning, similar to the Vive’s base station placement. This configuration opens the play space up a little bit and enables 360-degree tracking, but there’s yet another optional configuration. Since day one, Oculus put emphasis on seated and standing experiences, but it turns out the company has a plan for full roomscale VR, as well. However, there is a bit of a catch.

Touch doesn’t support roomscale VR out of the box. You will have to purchase a third Constellation sensor from Oculus to take advantage of it. Oculus plans to ship extra sensors in December alongside the Touch controllers, and you can pre-order the extra sensor at the same time as your Touch controllers.

The Oculus Guardian system, which is similar to the Vive's Chaperone, is part of Touch. The safety system marks the barriers of your play space for you so that you don't run into objects or walls. Oculus revealed that Guardian could query your play space parameters and dynamically adjust where the game places objects, so you'll never run into a problem where the game places items outside your reach.

When Touch ships in December, there will be plenty of content to play with the motion controllers. Oculus revealed that 35 titles would ship with Touch and Jason Rubin, Oculus Head of Content, noted that the list could grow by that time.

Oculus Touch pre-orders open on October 10. The basic controller package will set you back $199, and you’ll have to shell out an extra $79 for a third controller if you want to take advantage of roomscale tracking.

Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jj1979
    So this basically puts it on par with the Vive cost wise? I think people (including myself) that's already got the Vive know what we are in for. I'll invest my money on V2 for better VOF and better DPI on these headsets. Room scale is cool and all, but Oculus lost their buyers to Vive on this front, sorry Mark.
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    I do vastly prefer these hand controllers over the Vive's. VR is great because of the whole immersion thing, especially with independent hand movement, but we're still going to need buttons to do stuff and joysticks to move, unless we want to play on-rails shooters for the rest of our lives.
    Reply
  • WFang
    18694627 said:
    I do vastly prefer these hand controllers over the Vive's. VR is great because of the whole immersion thing, especially with independent hand movement, but we're still going to need buttons to do stuff and joysticks to move, unless we want to play on-rails shooters for the rest of our lives.
    Not quite sure if your comment about moving and buttons 'and stuff' is in general or aimed specifically at the Vive controllers? At any rate, the shooters and games I have been playing on the Vive have not been 'on-rail' for the most part. Most allow free move on a platform OR free move + blink teleport variations in an open world.
    That said, more buttons would possibly be nice, but as they are I find them to be very comfortable to use. I hope that what ends up happening is various styles and options for controllers (for both platforms) so that you can pick the one that works best for a given game (or person).
    Reply
  • WFang
    18694541 said:
    So this basically puts it on par with the Vive cost wise? I think people (including myself) that's already got the Vive know what we are in for. I'll invest my money on V2 for better VOF and better DPI on these headsets. Room scale is cool and all, but Oculus lost their buyers to Vive on this front, sorry Mark.
    That was my first thought, but if you read the end of the article, the 'catch' is you do not actually get room scale VR for the same price as Vive VR.. You need a 3rd "Touch" sensor for another $79, so the total is 599 + 199 + 79 = 877, or a full $78 more than Vive VR to get the full room scale solution.
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    18697125 said:
    18694627 said:
    I do vastly prefer these hand controllers over the Vive's. VR is great because of the whole immersion thing, especially with independent hand movement, but we're still going to need buttons to do stuff and joysticks to move, unless we want to play on-rails shooters for the rest of our lives.
    Not quite sure if your comment about moving and buttons 'and stuff' is in general or aimed specifically at the Vive controllers? At any rate, the shooters and games I have been playing on the Vive have not been 'on-rail' for the most part. Most allow free move on a platform OR free move + blink teleport variations in an open world.
    That said, more buttons would possibly be nice, but as they are I find them to be very comfortable to use. I hope that what ends up happening is various styles and options for controllers (for both platforms) so that you can pick the one that works best for a given game (or person).

    Well, currently, the best control scheme for first-person games is WASD+mouselook. And I think the best control scheme for first-person VR games would be a joystick on one of the hand paddles and your own head for looking around. Because the fundamental problem with room-scale is that it is inherently niche, because very few people will want to clear an entire room just to game. A seated solution is the only solution that will ever make it mainstream. Not to mention the room-scale problems of walking/running speed, and sheer space. Unless the future of VR shooters is fighting baddies standing still in 10x10 rooms at a time, room-scale VR just won't cut it in the long term.

    Basically, there's nothing VR can do to give the player infinite space to move around in, so there needs to be another way for a player to move other than physically in any way that can't be done in a chair. And a joystick on a hand paddle seems to be the simplest, most intuitive way.
    Reply
  • WFang
    18697169 said:
    18697125 said:
    18694627 said:
    I do vastly prefer these hand controllers over the Vive's. VR is great because of the whole immersion thing, especially with independent hand movement, but we're still going to need buttons to do stuff and joysticks to move, unless we want to play on-rails shooters for the rest of our lives.
    Not quite sure if your comment about moving and buttons 'and stuff' is in general or aimed specifically at the Vive controllers? At any rate, the shooters and games I have been playing on the Vive have not been 'on-rail' for the most part. Most allow free move on a platform OR free move + blink teleport variations in an open world.
    That said, more buttons would possibly be nice, but as they are I find them to be very comfortable to use. I hope that what ends up happening is various styles and options for controllers (for both platforms) so that you can pick the one that works best for a given game (or person).

    Well, currently, the best control scheme for first-person games is WASD+mouselook. And I think the best control scheme for first-person VR games would be a joystick on one of the hand paddles and your own head for looking around. Because the fundamental problem with room-scale is that it is inherently niche, because very few people will want to clear an entire room just to game. A seated solution is the only solution that will ever make it mainstream. Not to mention the room-scale problems of walking/running speed, and sheer space. Unless the future of VR shooters is fighting baddies standing still in 10x10 rooms at a time, room-scale VR just won't cut it in the long term.

    Basically, there's nothing VR can do to give the player infinite space to move around in, so there needs to be another way for a player to move other than physically in any way that can't be done in a chair. And a joystick on a hand paddle seems to be the simplest, most intuitive way.
    I hear you, but have you actually had the chance to spend any time with e.g. Vive VR? The "move around a tiny real area to interact with close-up stuff, then point and click to teleport" works VERY intuitively within a short amount of time. I think I would actually prefer this way over a thumb-stick or something because it is faster and more intuitive to point and teleport than to widget around with my thumb or finger on a stick.

    As far as the practicalities of room-scale, everyones situation is different, I perhaps just happen to be lucky, but I found that the space between my sofa and my TV is sufficient for good fun room-scale experiences, though I now really wish I did not have that 'chaise' portion sticking out of one part of my sofa. If it wasn't for that, it would be a much 'deeper' play area.
    Reply