Oculus has removed hardware DRM checks

Oculus might be changing its often criticised approach to keeping Rift games on the Rift as the latest Oculus Home update removed hardware DRM checks, meaning the software is no longer checking you actually have a Rift headset plugged in before launching any software.

This is good news specifically for those who own a HTC Vive but would still like to play some of the Rift games as now the ReVive project won't have that extra hurdle to jump over. Oculus didn't officially announce this change themselves, but the maker of the ReVive tool did and swiftly let everyone know about it.

There isn't a mention of this change in the Oculus PC SDK yet but an Oculus representative did confirm that DRM has now been removed and said that hardware-locked DRM won't be used in the future: “We continually revise our entitlement and anti-piracy systems, and in the June update we've removed the check for Rift hardware from the entitlement check. We won't use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future”.

“We believe protecting developer content is critical to the long-term success of the VR industry, and we’ll continue taking steps in the future to ensure that VR developers can keep investing in ground-breaking new VR content.”

KitGuru Says: Oculus didn't specifically say why this change was made but it seems like one for the better. After all, hardware-based DRM is a worrying prospect on the PC platform. 

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