Facebook held their annual Oculus keynote today and the world of VR is steadily growing, as is our anticipation of a Ready Player One future of a world immersed in virtual reality. Here are the key takeaways from Oculus Connect 5.
Oculus Quest
The prime news? The announcement of Facebook’s Oculus Quest, an all-in-one virtual reality headset makes it the third member of the Oculus lineup, which includes the Go and Rift iterations. The only difference — this one’s a complete VR gaming system that can function independently of a PC.
It ships with Oculus Touch controllers that handle hand tracking, and features a resolution of 1,600 x 1,440 per eye. It also incorporates better lens spacing to for maximum visual comfort.
The device will launch next year priced at $400 (around R5,700). It’ll launch with 50 titles including Moss, Robo-Recall, and other Rift titles.
We are unsure exactly what games will and won’t run on the Quest – but apparently there are certain titles that’ll only run on the more powerful Rift.
Youtube VR
The best thing Google Daydream had going for it was YouTube, which has a ton of 360° content on it with no way to view it on the Oculus headsets. Works fine on Daydream though. And Cardboard.
Today, Facebook announced that a YouTube VR app will soon be available on the ‘more affordable’ Oculus Go (if R7,400 is affordable).
YouTube VR supports a number of VR video types including 360 spheres, 360 live-streams and 3D stereo videos running on its VR180 platform.
Vader Immortal
Facebook also showed off the first trailer for their Star Wars VR movie featuring Darth Vader. It’s a three-part series called Star Wars: Vader Immortal, the first episode of which is set to launch in 2019.
While the trailer doesn’t offer many details, at all — we thinks it will take place some time before Episode IV — but apparently the ‘player’ will be able to pick up a lightsaber and go head-to-head with Star Wars’ most iconic villain in VR.
The Vader Immortal title will launch alongside the upcoming Oculus Quest headset next year, and it might even be available on other VR platforms, too.