Ahead of the upcoming E3 Entertainment expo,????Oculus VR has officially announced the consumer version of their much-hyped Oculus Rift VR headset.
Starting out as a Kickstarter project, the Oculus has since been acquired by Facebook and has joined forces with another industry giant as Microsoft has been revealed as partner of the project.
The partnership with Microsoft will ensure the Rift’s native compatibility to the upcoming Windows 10 operating system, furthermore Xbox One users will be able to stream games to the headset.
The Consumer version will be able to accommodate people wearing glasses as well as both lenses will be fully adjustable, including adjustable eye spacing. Furthermore, the headset will also incorporate 360-degree VR audio headphones.
As part of the official reveal, the system requirements for using the Rift have been revealed as well:
- NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
- Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
- 8GB+ RAM
- Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
- 2x USB 3.0 ports
- Windows 7 SP1 or newer
Alongside the VR headset, Oculus has also revealed the Oculus Rift Touch, wireless motion controllers that are able to track both hand and finger positions:
Oculus Rift Touch Features
- Hand presence: ???Once you have your hands involved, you really need tracking to be perfect or you???re going to feel like your hands are dead.???
- Precise manipulation: ???You need to be able to pick up a gun from a table and then fire it, throw it, or drop it, effortlessly.???
- Low mental load: ???Something that would let you use these controllers effortlessly.???
- Communicative gestures: a matrix of sensors will allow Rift to recognise gestures like pointing and giving a thumbs up.
- Traditional inputs: ???Buttons and analog sticks are still around for a reason. Those types of inputs are not going anywhere,??? said Lucky. Oculus Touch will have two trigger buttons and give haptic feedback.
- Design: there are two controllers, one for each hand, and the tracking technology used is exactly the same as that used in the Rift itself.
Perhaps the most important details are yet to be revealed though as the announcements have not confirmed a price for both products. The release date of the Rift is still Q1 2016 with the Touch becoming available shortly after.
