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Fixed That For You: Oculus Rift
The headset that brought VR back from the dead is coming at last – but it still needs a few tweaks.
Oculus Rift
© Oculus VR
The virtual reality headset that practically kickstarted the modern-day VR is finally on the way. That’s right, after four years, four developer kit prototypes and countless hours of extensive (and exhaustive) testing, the final version of the Kickstarter project will be yours to buy in the first quarter of next year. That’s right: you don’t need to be a developer or a hardcore hobbyist, you’ll just be able to pick one up in the shop, go home and plug and play.
Hold up though! Four years is a long time to perfect a device, but before you get your credit card out and hit the pre-order button, there are still a few kinks we’d like to get ironed out of the headset first – here’s our wishlist for what we want to see Oculus fix before it hits the shelves.
Add Console powers Not everyone has a PC, nor the technical expertise to fiddle around with all the settings to make sure it properly works, which is why we want to see the headset support consoles too, if not next year then sometime down the line. Sony’s working on its Project Morpheus headset for the PlayStation 4, which leaves Xbox One gamers in the dust if they want to get their heads into the world of VR, and there’s no word if HoloLens is even going to work with Microsoft’s console or offer the same sort of gaming experiences. We want to see Oculus and its corporate owner Facebook partner up and get the headset working on consoles, giving gamers another option to leap into the world of VR without having to fork out for a hefty gaming rig.
More than just games When Facebook snapped up Oculus VR last year, it had a vision for using the headset with more than just games, Zuckerberg outlined how you might one day jump into real world experiences with your friends, simulating what it’s like to be there or taking video chat to a new dimension. But Facebook still hasn’t demonstrated many of these ideas, beyond stating that it will roll out 360 degree videos you’ll be able to pan around in VR ‘soon’, so there’s not much on the horizon just yet. Third party developers have shown off what’s possible with the headset: being able to track your facial expressions whilst wearing the Oculus, or combining with other pieces of tech like the Omni treadmill. We want to see more experiences like this from Oculus VR and Facebook themselves.
Oculus Rift
© Oculus VR
Change the way you play With a Rift headset perched on your mug, it’s hard to see what you’re doing with your hands unless you’re very used to touch typing, and it’s even harder to remember complex key bindings without looking at your keyboard. We want to see Oculus come up with its own first-party input solution that taps into the Rift’s powers and could potentially change the way we play our games. HTC and Valve are working on a new way to play your games with their Vive headset, using sophisticated tracking methods, but we’d love to see Oculus try its hand at something that actually lets you touch and interact with the virtual world you’re transported to: using a gamepad somewhat breaks that immersion. There has to be a better solution than using a ten year old Xbox 360 controller at this point, right?
Go wireless While it’s a fairly far out request, one of the biggest problems with the Oculus is that it’s wired. That means you’re tethered to your gaming rig and you can’t freely move around in full 360 degrees if you wanted to without getting caught up in cables, and tripping up over an invisible cord to come crashing down with only your cat to break your fall is going to ruin the immersion somewhat. Which is why a wireless version of the headset is something we’d love to see further down the line. One VR rival, VisusVR, employs the use of your smartphone as the display, and streams gameplay from your PC, while HTC has promised the final version of the Vive will also be wireless. Of course, the sort of streaming tech required for this is still in its infancy, but this is going to be the dealbreaker for a lot of people that stops VR from going mainstream.
Aural infusion The Crescent Bay edition developer kit of the Oculus Rift comes with built-in headphones, and the final retail version of the headset will too – we’re just hoping they’re not totally naff. 3D positional audio is one of the tricks that Oculus is proud to include with its headset, but it’s not going to be a great trade-off if the sound quality is abysmal. With the Crescent Bay version, the onboard headphones were optional, so you were free to use your own cans; we’re hoping that’s either the same case with the final version, or they’re on a par for acoustics with the best gaming headsets the likes of Turtle Beach and Razer have to offer.
Give laptops a break The recommended specs for powering Oculus VR’s headset have hit the internet, and it looks like you’ll need a fairly powerful PC rig with at least an Intel Core i5 processor or speedier, an Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD 290 graphics card or faster, and more than 8GB of RAM – not only does that spell bad news for laptop gamers, it’s likely to hurt your wallet too. If you were hoping to enjoy Alien: Isolation on the move, you’ll be out of luck if you want to get the “optimum” performance out of the final Oculus Rift. Facebook is all about connecting everyone, not just those with liquid cooled gaming rigs the colour of radioactive waste, so we’d love to see lowered specs to get more involved, even if it meant lowering the resolution displayed on the specs themselves.
Work with mobiles Samsung and Oculus have joined forces to make a VR headset for the South Korean tech giant’s Galaxy Note smartphones, but we don’t think that partnership is enough. For starters, you need a specific Samsung phablet to get started, and actually finding one for sale is harder than you might think – plus you’ll need another €200 going spare. To counter that, we’d like to see the final Oculus Rift headset work with mobile phones too, letting you take advantage of the VR software available on Google Play or Apple’s App Store, all without having to fork out for a single, one-use headset. We reckon flexibility is key, and we’d love to see the Oculus Rift as the only headset you need for VR on any platform. Angry Birds in which you can see up close just how annoyed all the characters are? We’re sold.
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