Oculus VR headset for consumers is months away – CEO of Oculus VR

The long-awaited virtual reality headset from Oculus VR, a subsidiary of Facebook, is still expected to arrive in 2015, according to chief executive officer of Oculus VR. Brendan Iribe re-iterated plans to release the commercial version of the Oculus Rift in months, not years, from now at Web Summit 2014 in Dublin.

“We’re getting very close,” said Mr. Iribe, reports The Next Web. “It is months, not years away, but many months.”

It is interesting to note that the CEO of Oculus claims that the latest version of the headset, which is code-named Crescent Bay, is “largely finalized for a consumer product.” While the Crescent Bay seems to feature a rather clean design, it is still pretty bulky and not stylish. Still, from technology point of view the device seems to be rather decent: people who have tried it claim that it features “at least” 1440p resolution at 90Hz, improved positional tracking and full 360 degree head tracking. In addition, the latest virtual reality kit designed for software developers comes with integrated headphones.

While hardware-wise Oculus VR product may be ready, the software package, games and controllers are not. According to Mr. Iribe, keyboards, mice and gamepads are not effective for virtual reality worlds and neither is gesture-control at this point.

Earlier this year Oculus VR acquired Carbon Design, one of the premier industrial design and product engineering teams. Carbon Design is known for the Xbox gamepad as well as the Kinect motion sensor. The design team should help Oculus VR to design its first commercial virtual reality headset and its successors.

While it is dramatically important for Oculus VR to roll-out its hardware and software platforms in time, the success of the headset will be determined by availability of video games. If high-quality VR games are there, people will get Oculus VR headsets even if their designs remain bulky. If there are no proper VR games available next year, the headset will remain a toy for hardcore gamers.

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KitGuru Says: The key thing that Mr. Iribe has revealed is that Oculus VR remains on-track for commercial launch in 2015. Oculus needs to send its partners among software makers a clear message that the hardware platform will arrive exactly when it is expected by the end-users and so should games.

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