If you believe that virtual reality is the future of entertainment than now might be the time to jump in and find yourself the new Oculus Go. Oculus is the most famous of the virtual reality interfaces to be developed over the past decade and a big reason why is because they have the backing of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has been steadily turning the Oculus gaming system toward more casual players for the past summer, first lowering prices and then introducing a new bundle entierly called the Oculus Go. Today we are going to look at the brand new Go in order to see the changes it brings to the already popular system.
Marck Zuckerberg was in San Jose, CA at the Oculus Connect 4 event in order to unveil what we now know as the Oculus Go. This all in one VR headset was lauded by Zuckerberg as, “The most accessible VR headset yet.” The price of the headset was announced at just $199 and it will be ready for launch early in 2018. The Oculus Go is being marketed as a 3DOF style headset which uses just one individual orientation locked controller. This change is adjusted from the full Oculus system which includes a pair of Oculus Touch controllers which run $100 per controller. The standalone Oculus Go will also take away the requirement of having some sort of console to play games such as a computer or phone. The Go will focus on mobile 3D and has been made in collaboration with game development engines like Unity, Unreal, and the Oculus Mobile SDK.
In terms of actual specific details, there were very few bits of information released regarding the Go. Zuckerberg said that the screen was a “high resolution, fast switch LCD screen” and that the whole unit was ‘super lightweight’. There are built-in speakers to Oculus Go and external headphones are not required for the system. It really does seem like Zuckerberg and the team at Facebook wanted to make VR more accessible to everyone by making a simple device that just about anyone could turn on and use.
Hugo Barra, the VP of VR at Facebook, lauded the device as “The hands-down easiest way for developers to get involved with VR.” Barra would go on to claim that the Oculus Go was incredibly comfortable to wear and compared it favorably with the Rift.
Dil Bole Oberoi
