When E3 2015 kicked off last week in Los Angeles, there was a growing sense that this was virtual reality’s official bar mitzvah or Quinceañera—the celebration of a format that was finally coming of age.
“Right now, you seeing a lot of exploration of things. We are learning about the interaction mechanisms, what feels good to do and what’s not good to do,” said Richard Marks, the head of the Sony PlayStation research team behind the Morpheus virtual reality headset. “Once the mechanics start to be well understood, then you will really see the high-quality storytelling and experiences that are crafted, not just with the mechanics, but with the emotions underneath. It becomes about whomever can create the best experience or tell the best story.”
OCULUS RIFT
Sony may be one of the biggest players at the E3 conference, but Oculus got the show started early. The company that kicked off the revival of VR held a special event in San Francisco a few days before E3 began. There, it unveiled the final version of its Oculus Rift headset, due to arrive in that first quarter of 2016. Oculus also announced a partnership with Microsoft: bundled with the Rift and its camera sensor would be an Xbox controller to use with PCs running the headset. The company also unveiled the Oculus Touch motion controllers, which would also be released in the first half of 2016, albeit some time after the VR headset.
Days later, the Rift headset—which was streamlined after Oculus acquired the Carbon Design Group last year—and a Touch prototype were on the floor for demos at E3. The gaming fans and industry professionals on hand found a VR headset with a refined design, comfortable ergonomics, and a bevy of technical and software improvements over the developer kits previously sold online to companies looking to make VR software. Here was virtual reality that was almost ready for retail and then people’s homes.
“It has crossed the threshold where it delivers a comfortable, sustained presence. The ergonomics are highly defined,” says Nate Mitchell, VP of Product at Oculus. “We tried to focus on making it incredibly easy to set up and use. You can drop the sensor on your desk, put on the headset like a baseball cap, and you are good to go.”
Read the full article at Fast Company.