HTC has announced that it is partnering with Valve to produce a VR headset they are calling the RE Vive. It differs from the Oculus rift in that it uses sensors to detect where you head it pointed at in the room. Apparently this change makes the VR experience more seamless and as a result people tend to not get sick as much. The Valve/HTC hardware will also support a 90 hz refresh rate and two 1200 x 1080 displays.
This wasn't the news I was expecting out of GDC but it's pretty damn incredible. If any other news about this breaks, i'll update this post as it happens.
This wasn't the news I was expecting out of GDC but it's pretty damn incredible. If any other news about this breaks, i'll update this post as it happens.
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Wow! I wonder how you physically interact with it and how it looks. I mean, is it just like attaching a small screen in front of your face? I also wonder how much it will cost, my guess is at least $1,000. It'd be cool to at least try it out. I'm only familiar with the Oculus Rift by name, but I know nothing of the OR and VR experience. It's pretty cool how some of our technology has caught up with Star Trek, but we have a long way to go still. One of my most favorite pieces of Star Trek technology is the Holodeck. If we can some how create that technology, or if these VR devices simulate it, well that would be pretty awesome!
A price point like 1K might put it a bit too far out of the reach of most people. I think a few hundred is a good price, but I really don't know what the consumer version price will be.
I've played an Oculus VR game and the input was me moving around my head. It was a simple Game Jam game but it was such a uniquely beautiful experience, it was like playing Super Mario Brothers for the first time. The game was pretty simple, you moved your head to look at what was in your virtual persons hand and then looked at the right shape it would fit into. After doing that 15 times fireworks streaked across the sky and colors started dancing across the screen. It was a really beautiful and simple puzzle game.
That said, you could port games like Minecraft and Half-life to use VR. So you can move around your head to see things and you can control the game with the typical keyboard/mouse or controller. That said, if Valves VR expects you to walk around you'd need some kind of wireless controller or some other cord free input.
I never considered that something like this might get us REALLY close to Star Trek Holodeck technology but it really does. Even with the developer Oculus Rift it felt like I was in a different place experiencing something totally unique.
That's cool. I knew Minecraft had an Oculus Rift option. You're right about my price guess. I may be off and yeah that would be kind of steep. I'm just assuming the hardware would be expensive, but you make a great point that at that price tag, it wouldn't really be affordable to many consumers. Maybe, also, they would have had to wait for the technology not only to be able to create such a thing, but also so that it would be affordable. Maybe since the PS4 is about $400, this technology will be similarly priced.
Ah, this is another reason I wish I lived over there on the West Coast. If I did, I might actually be able to go to one of those events and try this cool stuff out. Maybe GameStop will have the Steam VR and have a "demo" console that gamers could try out before buying (like they do with some consoles).