Hardware & Technical New VR options

[Corvino]

I'm genuinely envious of those of you already using Oculus Rift headsets, but the last couple of weeks (and indeed days) have floated a couple of new VR options as well.

There's the Sony Morpheus headset (http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/project-morpheus-what-you-need-to-know-1234984) for the PS4, but the USB and HDMI leads suggest you may well be able to use it with a PC. It's still a prototype apparently, so no release date or available versions. The current version does look pretty slick, though that's by-the-by.

The Valve VR headset has also had a new set of photos released recently (http://www.techradar.com/news/gamin...-at-boston-vr-bender-1251595?src=rss&attr=all). No real information revealed yet, but early testers claim it's better than Oculus (though the comparison is probably with Dev Kit 1). In fact, it's not even confirmed to be in development for public release.

More options is always good though, and I hope that we'll be able to have a choice of these soon enough. A bit of competition between them should ensure lower prices and improving features.

 

[jabokai]

No real information revealed yet, but early testers claim it's better than Oculus (though the comparison is probably with Dev Kit 1). In fact, it's not even confirmed to be in development for public release.

In fact, the opposite - they've actually come out and said they have no plans to release a consumer version. They seem to be feeding their experience (and personnel!) into other companies, specifically Oculus.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Moved to hardware.

 

[KING5TON]

TBH there isn't anything out that competes with the rift.
Morpheus is PS4 only at the moment.
The Valve VR HMD isn't slated for release.

From what I've seen of alternatives such as Gameface and the Glyph (or whatever it was called) they aren't really comparable as they are not aimed at PC VR gaming (and Gameface will probably be rubbish if you ask me).

There are a few more VR HMDs for PC in the works but until they get Dev kits out and look like they are going to release a consumer version it's all pie in the sky.

 

[warbaby2]

In fact, the opposite - they've actually come out and said they have no plans to release a consumer version. They seem to be feeding their experience (and personnel!) into other companies, specifically Oculus.

Not a bad strategy, actually... OR needs alle the software options it can get when it finally launches, or it will quickly fall into the nieche game market and stay there. Right now, most critics claim that the concept will only really have any use in flight sims, not so much in other first person or 3rd person games.

 

[Corvino]

People have been plugging Oculus Rifts into everything they can since the day the dev kits shipped. I remember seeing gushing prose about Skyrim in HD more than a year ago. Now that Facebook own OR and Sony are developing something similar it's only a matter of time until VR headsets move from hardcore gamer-gear to something in 50% of households, as the Nintendo Wii did with motion controls.

And while the Morpheus is "PS4 only", it connects with HDMI and USB cables. I can't see this being a huge barrier to PC connectivity. If it's cheaper than the OR (complete speculation) then I can see a community workaround emerging in days.