Scalper1 News
What’s clear from the swath of reviews of the Facebook ( FB )-owned Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset is that the technology has most certainly arrived, but for the most part, the content still needs to follow. From the reviews and my own experience with the Rift, it’s hard to argue that — at the very least — new types of video games are right around the corner. The Rift is a solid piece of technology that works reasonably well under most circumstances, and video game reviewers mostly agree . Hardware-wise, the main gripe among the reviews was that the Rift didn’t ship with motion sensitive controllers that Oculus demonstrated this month at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The Rift shipped with a Microsoft ( MSFT ) Xbox One controller. Such controllers would allow anyone donning the headset to make gestures and manipulate VR content in a more life-like fashion. The motion-sensitive controllers are coming later this year, Facebook says. But as IBD reported from GDC on March 17, the hardware is here (or within a whisker), but the content has yet to come. It’s not clear whether the software shipped with the VR headset will match the impressive hardware. Of the titles I tried at GDC, none were too compelling, though I sampled a mere seven games. Reviewers at the New York Times , the Wall Street Journal Digits blog (but not the newspaper itself ), and gaming website IGN (among others) agree with my assessment. The Rift debuted with 30 titles, ranging from $10 to $60. The majority of the reviews that IBD looked at for this post were in gaming publications, and reviewers acknowledged little out there yet in the way of worthwhile non-gaming VR content, such as VR movies that video-streaming companies such as Netflix ( NFLX ) are exploring. The Rift headset’s $600 cost was cited in many reviews as a deterrent to all but the most dedicated of gamers — especially considering the headset requires a PC with advanced graphics hardware that runs about $1,000. And it doesn’t yet work with Apple’s OS X. Many reviews of this first-generation Rift, such as the review by the New York Times, said reviewers eagerly await better content and future generations of the device. And Facebook will soon have company. HTC plans to launch its VR headset, Vive, in April. It will retail for about $800 and feature hardware similar to that of Facebook’s Rift. Sony ( SNE ) also has a VR offering coming for its PlayStation console, likely to hit stores in Q3 or Q4. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News