On its official blog, Oculus has said, “Today, we’re excited to announce that pre-orders for Rift will open on Oculus.com at 8am Pacific Time on January 6! We’ll be sharing everything you need to know to order your Rift on Wednesday when pre-orders go live.” As of writing this article, there is no official information available about the pricing of the device. Speculations, however, suggest that the VR headset will be priced around $350 (Rs. 23,500 approx., directly converted). All those who pre-order the Rift will get Lucky’s Tale by Playful, and CCP’s EVE: Valkyrie, for free. Lucky’s Tale looks like a platforming adventure game just like Mario or Crash Bandicoot. EVE: Valkyrie, on the other hand, is an immersive dog fighting game.
The Oculus Blog goes on to say, “This is going to be an exciting week for VR, so Oculus founder Palmer Luckey will be answering all your questions during a Reddit AMA this Wednesday, January 6 at 6pm Pacific Time. We look forward to hearing from you”.
Facebook bought Oculus VR last year for $2 billion. There are a few major players when it comes to VR gaming, with Steam and HTC joining hands to bring consumers the HTC Vive. Sony has its own VR headset, which will work with the PS4, called the PlayStation VR. Microsoft, on the other hand, has taken the augmented reality route with the HoloLens. Apart from Oculus, no other AR or VR headset have release dates. We think, the biggest question that will be answered tomorrow is the pricing of the Oculus VR headset. If information circulating the Internet is to be believed, Sony will price the PlayStation VR at the same price of a new console, which should be around the $500 mark.
We also think VR wont gain a mass following in its initial years, till a few odd bugs are sorted out. To begin with, the headsets are very uncomfortable for those wearing glasses. Additionally, prolonged exposure in the VR world makes users feel nauseous. Having experienced a bunch of VR headsets, I can second these claims. To be successful in the gaming world, VR will not only need to provide an immersive, intuitive gaming experience, but will also have to be a device that can be worn for hours at a time. The reason for which motion gaming wasn’t successful with hardcore gamers is because of the amount of effort it took in comparison to jabbing fingers on a controller. Like motion gaming, VR and AR will require the player to be deeply immersed with not only the controls, but with head tracking too.
Another thing worth mentioning is that, with every Oculus Rift sold, consumers will get an Xbox One controller. At E3 2015, Oculus unveiled the Rift controller, which like the Nintendo Wii controller, had one module for each hand. Christened with touch controls, these Oculus Rift controllers will debut in the second half of 2016. On its official blog, Oculus had said, “On Touch hardware, we’ve made significant advances in ergonomics, and we’re implementing many changes that make Touch even more comfortable, reliable, and natural. We’re also implementing changes that improve hand pose recognition. We’re also outputting larger numbers of pre-production runs, which means we can get a lot more Touch hardware in the hands of developers who need it. The delays also allow Oculus more time for developers to begin testing and creating experiences with them. Oculus has been very vocal in their desire to ‘get it right,’ and we’ve seen other hardware manufacturers and VR experience developers make similar decisions in delaying their product release cycles.”
Its good that Oculus has delayed the launch of the controller and is working on perfecting it. Valve recently launched the Steam controller, and during its development, it was hailed as an innovative gaming controller. But, upon release, the controller failed to woo gamers.
Samsung Gear VR is another VR headset that’s looking to capture the market with mobile VR gaming. The headset is compatible with Samsung smartphones. The Galaxy Gear VR is powered by Oculus. At CES 2016, Samsung has announced the “Rink”, a wearable motion controller for the Gear VR. The controllers are quite similar to the ones that Tom Cruise wears in the sci-fi flick, Minority Report.
Another thing to keep in mind is that console and PC gaming is successful today because the controller is comfortable and intuitive to use. If you look at the PS4 and Xbox One controller, they are ergonomic and easy to use for prolonged hours. The keyboard and mouse combination is considered as the ideal weapon of choice for first-person shooters and RTS games. With the variety of controllers on offer with Virtual Reality gaming, we think it will be a while before the ideal controller is developed for this emerging genre of gaming.
Personally, I think that VR and AR gaming will be a hit when games like God of War, Uncharted, Gears of War, Halo, Tomb Raider and more can provide an immersive action-adventure experience. What do you think? Is the world ready for VR gaming, or are we better off as couch potatoes sitting in front of the TV?