Oculus is giving Microsoft a run for their money as the company joins Valve/HTC and Sony in offering commercial units of their virtual reality lenses.
It recently announced that it will be accepting pre-orders later this year for its Rift VR lens and will start shipping by 2016.
While the specifics of the unit was not yet fully disclosed, the Oculus Rift will have an improved tracking system compared to the Crescent Bay prototype, according to company's official blog site, to""support both seated and standing experiences."
Images of the commercial unit show a more ergonomic design as Oculus sticks to the idea of having aVR lens that's lightweight and comfortable to wear.
As for the experience, users may expect that the actual commercial unit Oculus Rift will give a better viewing angle and latency (which means there's less lag in the video as the user turns his head).
Consumers are already asking about the devices which the unit can be connected to, how it will connect to audio devices (or will it have one built into it), and the possibility of using it into other applications aside from gaming.
Oculus also haven't mention about the number of compatible games and software the Rift could be used with. The company had previously created the Gear VR Innovator Edition, a development kit for mobile virtual reality lens that's only compatible with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. This somehow seals VR role in mobile devices.
A Kickstarter campaign was launched by Oculus in 2012 gave way to the further development of the Oculus Rift. It had a funding goal of $250,000 and those who pledged $300 and above were entitled to an Oculus Rift developer kit version.
Those who got a working prototype were given access to the company's software development kit (SDK), Unreal and Unity integrations, and a copy Doom 3 BFG Edition game.
The campaign had 9,522 backers who pledge $2,437,429, exceeding the initial goal of the campaign.
HTC and Valve had teamed up to create the HTC Vive VR head-mounted display and was officially unveiled during the Mobile World Congress last March.
Meanwhile, Sony created Project Morpheus virtual reality headset which is said to be fully functional with the Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita game systems. The latest prototype was unveiled at the 2015 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Specifications of the device showed it will have a field of view of approximately 100-degrees, a 5.7-inch OLED display, and has a HDMI and USB connection interface. It was also mention that a commercial unit will be made available during the first half of 2016.
