As technology companies continue to fill in the demand for virtual reality headsets, Oculus claims that the soon-to-be-released Oculus Rift device won’t include the Touch controllers, yet it will bring a staggering amount of games to choose from.
The virtual reality developer company will focus on providing users as well as game developers the chance to experience the Oculus Rift games with gamepads. The Oculus Touch controllers will be released later in 2016, most likely in the second half of the year, according to Oculus’ co-founder Palmer Luckey.
Although the Oculus Touch controllers will surely revolutionize virtual reality gaming – as virtual gaming is on the rise itself – Luckey added that it is not the company’s interest to force users to buy the Oculus controllers. This came as a response to the release of the HTC Vive’s $800 bundle package including the Virtual Reality Headset and two hand-tracking controllers.
Oculus’ new hand-tracking controllers, however, will offer users with a hands-on experience, literally, as the yet-to-be-released controllers will be able to follow the user’s movement and improve his or her gaming encounter. Additionally, by holding back the controller’s release until midyear Oculus has more time to study its competition and improve their hand-tracking devices before releasing them into market.
With the development of virtual reality or VR technology capable of transporting people to a virtual world, it’s important for users as well as game developers to take time-spent-playing into account for its design. Yet, the customer’s health risk due to high amounts of time playing virtual reality games remains to be seen.
Thanks to the VR hype from the major technology developers, the race to provide better and cost effective VR devices is surely taking the world by storm. While HTC already release it’s VR Headset including two controllers for $800, Sony has also joined the race as its set to launch a PlayStation VR Headgear priced at $399 by October 2016.
The game company giant announced the release of its PlayStation VR device at the Game Developers Conference that took place in San Diego, California this week. Despite the noticeable competition, Oculus Rift is not backing down as it announced the release of up to 41 new games for the VR device so far. Many of the games were tested throughout a day devoted to gaming at the Oculus pre-launch press event in San Francisco.
As the VR experiences provide customers with an escape from reality, it also affects the time perception of its user because he or she can loose track of time with ease. Considering health factors into account for the Oculus Rift’s design, customers will end up spending more time in the virtual world than expected, said Palmer Luckey.
“People talk a lot about 2016 being the year of virtual reality,” said Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey. “To a degree, that is going to be true.”
Source: Ars Technica