Despite VR’s massive potential to simulate any environment, Oculus are initially focusing their attention on gamers. Given the heavy PC requirements to run Oculus Rift, its not surprising as this community is well versed in having to throw plenty of dollars for the best experience.
In terms of content at launch, Oculus say they have dozens of VR games, 360 videos, film shorts, and photos. There’s more than 30 games available on the Oculus Store, ready to play today including the Zelda-esque labyrinth adventure of Chronos to the high-impact space battle simulation of EVE: Valkyrie, and of course Lucky’s Tale, the colorfully immersive VR platformer that’s bundled with every Rift.
The Rift lets players meet up with friends in the same VR environment, making what is typically a very solitary experience a far more social one.
When it comes to video, they’re offering Rift users the same Oculus Video app that’s been available on the GearVR for some time. There’s thousands of Facebook 360 videos and the best of Vimeo and Twitch livestreams, its a solid app, just one Rift can’t claim as a first. Oculus say they’re going to add feature-length movies “soon” but if you’re going to spend 2-3 hours in Rift, you may need to plug in.
Facebook announced their acquisition of Oculus in March 2014 and completed it by mid-July that year. Today is no doubt a big day for Mark Zuckerber who bet big ($2 Billion) on Oculus and VR in general, that it will be an important computing platform. Earlier today he posted the following.
Today we start shipping Oculus Rift! Another big milestone towards the future of computing.
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, March 28, 2016
More information at Oculus oculus.com
