Virtual Reality is just around the corner

The company Oculus VR, the team behind the virtual reality product, the Oculus Rift, is finally going to release the VR headset to the public on the Q1 of 2016, as they told on an announcement.

The race for Virtual Reality has been on the mouth of the public for a while now, everyone wants a share of the pie, but the Oculus Rift is finally going public, so everyone can experience games, videos, and whatever the developers can create in a more immersive way. But what is the Oculus Rift?

It began as a Kickstarer project in august 2012, that intrigued a number of backers, well a big number of backers, gathering around $2.5 million dollars. Just imagine getting that number in your Kickstarter project. So it got real, development kits (DK1) started to get shipped around the world, getting as a result, different games and prototypes of VR experiences. The first wave of DK1 got a resolution of  1280x720p, which was a good example of what you could do there but it wasn’t until summer of 2014 that the upgraded version of the development kit, the DK2, was shipped to developers. The DK2 brought the motion track system into the Oculus Rift with a frontal camera, and managed to have a 1920x1080p screen resolution, but what helped Oculus VR to achieve that?

In early 2014 Facebook got in, making the acquisition of Oculus VR for $2 billion dollars, so having Facebook to back up the Oculus Rift boosted a little bit the project. But the DK2 wasn’t the last developer kit, a more close to perfect one was released, the “Crescent Bay”. They upgraded the screen resolution, and tracking system, you move around better without the sensor failing to locate if you were crouching or standing, also you could walk now, and thy got built-in headphones for a 3D sound experience too. This is the closest version to the one that the consumers will get.

Oculus VR said that more details about hardware, software, input, and many unannounced VR games and experiences, will be getting out in the following weeks but expect to hear a lot more on the E3 in Los Angeles June 16-18. They haven’t release an official price but it is expected to be around $200-$400 dollars, and it will be available on the Q1 of 2016.