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Oculus CEO: Consumer VR headset 'months, not years away'
Humanity might be exploring virtual space sooner than expected as Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe claims his company's Oculus Rift headset is now months away from being released to the public. "We're all hungry for it to happen," Iribe said at Dublin's Web Summit 2014. "We're getting very close. It's months, not years away, but many months." The biggest issue facing the device currently, according to Iribe, is a proper input system. Standard keyboards, mice and gamepads aren't up to the task, Iribe claims, and gesture-control is still too primitive a technology to complement an immersive virtual space. Despite whatever failings may cling to the Oculus Rift headset at the moment, Iribe is equally worried about other companies rushing products to market and damaging the future of VR in the eyes of the general public. "We're a little worried about bigger companies putting out [VR products] that aren't ready," Iribe stated. "Disorientation and motion sickness is the elephant in the room. We're encouraging big companies not to put out a product before it's ready." [Image: Oculus]
Oculus VR reveals new prototype, Crescent Bay
Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe revealed Crescent Bay during today's Oculus Connect event, the latest virtual reality prototype from the hardware manufacturer. Crescent Bay boasts a higher resolution, refresh rate, 360 degree tracking, LEDs on its back, and removable integrated audio. Iribe stressed that while Crescent Bay is still not the consumer version of Oculus' vision, Crescent Bay's improvements over the Crystal Cove are comparable to the advancements made from DK1 to DK2. [Image: Oculus VR]
Google Glass lead electrical engineer joins Oculus VR team
Building a new entertainment medium requires lots of money and very talented engineers. Facebook ensured that Oculus VR has plenty of the former, and now the company has set its sights on the latter goal, by hiring Google Glass lead electrical engineer Adrian Wong. Though neither Wong nor his new employers have publicly announced the move, TechCrunch recently discovered that Wong's LinkedIn profile now lists him as an Oculus VR employee. According to LinkedIn, his tenure at Oculus began earlier this month, following an April 2014 departure from Google. It's currently unknown what Wong is doing at Oculus VR, though he describes his role as "building the metaverse." Normally that would read like a succinct, non-answer designed to avoid offering any useful information, but it takes on interesting connotations following recent comments from Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe in which the executive envisions a massively multiplayer online world populated by a billion living, breathing humans. We've attempted to contact both Facebook and Oculus VR for more information on Wong's new role, but have yet to receive a response. [Image: Oculus VR]
Oculus wants to build a billion-person MMO
Say what you will about the Oculus-Facebook marriage, but one thing the partnership doesn't lack is ambition. Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe told a TechCrunch Disrupt audience that his firm is looking to build "an MMO where we want to put a billion people in VR." How MMO this MMO will actually be is at this point theoretical, and Iribe admitted that it's both far in the future and that it may end up as a number of separate worlds rather than a single one.
Oculus CEO envisions billion-person MMO
Adding a handful of zeroes to your bank account overnight can inspire lofty goals, such as Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe's plot to create a virtual world populated by over a billion real people. "This is going to be an MMO where we want to put a billion people in VR," Iribe told an audience at the recent TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Iribe admits that this project is a long ways off (and may not be a single world, so much as a number of disparate, connected worlds forming a virtual metaverse), but claims that Facebook's substantial monetary resources grants Oculus VR the freedom to tackle big ideas. Iribe believes Oculus wouldn't have the same opportunities if it has joined forces with a gaming developer or even one of the major console manufacturers. "Do you want to build a platform that has a billion users on it, or only 10, 20, or 50 million?" Iribe added, underlining the massive reach of Facebook. While Iribe's dream of a billion-person MMO is a ways off, Oculus is taking the first steps toward that goal by improving virtual conversations. Perfectly photorealistic faces are still a ways off, but Iribe remains confident in his team's ability to escape the uncanny valley. "[I]f you let go, you can have a real conversation with a person," Iribe said. "That's the holy grail we're trying to get to." [Image: Facebook]
Oculus Rift: From $2.4 million Kickstarter to $2 billion sale
Facebook's acquisition of Oculus VR stunned the game industry. In less than two years, Oculus VR and its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset have gone from (literal) overnight Kickstarter success to subsidiary of a social networking giant. To put it another way: John Carmack, one of the principal creative forces behind the original Doom, is now a Facebook employee. Wild. The transition of Oculus VR from a $2.4 million dollar Kickstarter to a $2 billion dollar acquisition seems unreal. To put things in perspective, and for the benefit of anyone who hasn't kept up with Oculus VR's meteoric rise, we've decided to retrace the company's story all the way from its humble beginnings in 2012.
Oculus Rift gets $75 million in funding from Netscape founder's firm
Oculus VR received $75 million in funding from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, led by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen. Oculus VR previously secured $16 million in its first round of funding in June. The company's Oculus Rift augmented reality hardware also earned $2.4 million on Kickstarter in September 2012 after reaching its $250,000 goal in 24 hours, which in itself was a testament to the appeal of the headset. "Over the past 16 months, we've grown from a start-up to a company whose virtual reality headset is poised to change the way we play, work and communicate," Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe said in a statement to VentureBeat. The company's growing support isn't just measured in dollars, as Iribe said the company sold over 40,000 Oculus Rift kits to developers that are working to create games and apps for the headset. Additionally, id Software Co-Founder John Carmack joined Oculus VR in August as the company's CTO before officially leaving the Doom developer in November.
One Oculus Rift for consumers, will tether to PC and Android
Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe clarified to Engadget that there will be one Oculus Rift model for consumers, despite previous reports to the contrary. "We will be delivering a single Oculus Rift which is a tether to multiple different devices," Iribe told Engadget, "and now we're looking to also support tethering to a mobile device." The report that a lighter version of the Oculus Rift would be made available specifically for Android devices came from a Gamesbeat piece where Iribe was misquoted. In his interview with Engadget, Iribe went on to say he is hopeful that Oculus Rift will not require the more modern Kepler GPU chip set on Android. "I don't think it's going to require that full Kepler capability. I think we'll be able to deliver on an even earlier chip set than that. I think people will be pretty surprised with what set of devices we're able to make this work on. We are focused on just a few right now, basically just to stay focused so that we can deliver a great experience on a couple devices first. Then over time we'll have that span out." Developers have yet to receive Android development kits, Iribe added. "It's coming soon," he said, but Oculus VR is "not ready to release a date." The retail version of Oculus Rift is tentatively slated to launch sometime next year.
Oculus Rift retail headset will tether to Android [update]
Update: Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe has clarified that there will be one Oculus Rift headset available at retail, despite the Gamesbeat report calling out a different lighter headset for Android. Oculus VR, the technology company behind the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, is preparing a special variant of its product for Android mobile. Chief executive officer Brendan Iribe revealed at the Gamesbeat 2013 video game conference the mobile headset will be a lighter version of the current headset, hoping to launch at the same time or close to the retail launch of the PC version. "We have some exciting plans on the mobile VR side as the PC VR side," Iribe said, as transcribed by Gamesbeat. "We're really looking at hitting the consumer market. We're very excited about what we're seeing. Skeptical about how good mobile VR could be on such a small platform. It's pretty incredible what [John Carmack has] been able to do." John Carmack, who signed on as Chief Technology Officer for Oculus in August, said the retail headset will likely run on an Android processor. In an interview with Engadget earlier this month, Carmack envisioned "a head-mounted display that probably runs Android, as a standalone system, that has a system-on-a-chip that's basically like what you have in mobile phones." Oculus has yet to announce when the Rift will officially launch, though some developers have had the development kit headset since March. Oculus began as a Kickstarter campaign late last year and managed to earn over $2 million through crowdfunding. The company completed its first round of investor funding in June, securing $16 million.
Oculus Rift planned for PC and mobile, consoles 'not a focus'
Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe recently told EDGE that the Oculus Rift headset will focus on PC and mobile devices. "I love consoles but internally we're a lot more excited about where mobile's going to go, and being able to plug it right into a next gen cellphone," Iribe said. "Those things are almost doubling every year, compared to a console that's just stuck it out for eight years." Iribe hopes to have the Oculus Rift on the market by next year, but he's unwilling to make any promises. "We don't want to announce any dates because frankly we just don't know when it's going to be really ready," Iribe said. "You have the form factor, HD, motion blur...we don't know how long that will take."
Oculus dreams of offering a free, subsidized Rift
The Oculus Rift being offered as a free product is just one "fantasy idea" posited by Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe. "We have all kinds of fantasy ideas," Iribe told Edge at last week's Develop conference in Brighton. Though the company is set on a $300 price for the virtual-reality headset at the moment, there is "potential that it could get much less expensive with a few different relationships and strategies." Iribe also said, "You can imagine if Microsoft and Sony can go out and subsidize consoles because there's enough money to be made on software and other areas, then there's the potential that this, in partnership, could get subsidized." He stressed caution, however, since Oculus isn't "there yet," and the company is constantly thinking about how it can offer the Oculus Rift free of charge. "You want everybody to play it and the cheaper it is, the more people are going to go out and buy it. Today it's a $300 dev kit but we're thinking about how to get it out to as many people as possible." The Oculus Rift is currently only available as a $300 developer's kit. Oculus has yet to announce when the consumer version will hit retail.
Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Oculus's Palmer Luckey and Nate Mitchell (update: speaker change)
Is 2013 the year of the wearable here at CES? It's certainly shaping up to be one of the bigger trends of the show, thanks in no small part to the folks at Oculus. We've already spent some time with the company's Rift prototype this week, and now we'll be joined by Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe, the company's co-founder and CEO. Update: In lieu of Brendan Iribe, we'll be speaking to Palmer Luckey and VP Nate Mitchell. January 11, 2013 1:00 PM EST Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!
