News The launch of the CV1 Rift is live now

The launch of the CV1 Rift can be seen here:

The FOV, OLED screens and VR audio are pretty much as expected, it is claimed to be judder and screen door free. It does include a dial to adjust IPD.

Interestingly the CV1 Rift is cloth covered.

The CV1 Rift will include a wireless Xbox controller, in partnership with Microsoft.

Oculus have shifted from the Rift being a seated experience to now include standing, but with limited movement.

Content wise the CV1 launch will include Eve Valkyrie, which has been known for a long time, Chronos a chronically based labyrinth game, Edge of Nowhere a Rift exclusive 3rd person arctic action adventure game, Damage Core, Sports Challenges, Esper and a Mech game.

Oculus is investing 10 million dollars to encourage indie game developers.

The Rift is going to leap strait into Oculus Home when it starts up, which seems to be an Oculus VR version of Steam.

Palmer announced Oculus Touch, a set of wireless haptic enabled input track controllers, which includes gesture recognition. However they will be released after the CV1, not with it.

I have the DK1 and DK2. However, while I will get the Vive for sure and may also get the Rift, as VR is my passion, I am a lot more hesitant about that for a number of reasons and will likely not even consider the Rift until the Oculus Touch controllers are available.

I also want to know how the Rift tracking of controllers goes in practice, particularly with respect to occlusion.

I really don't like exclusive titles being linked to the Rift, that is the console wars all over again.

And there are more bricks going up in the Oculus walled garden over content, while Valve is pushing openness including supporting the Rift.

I don't expect Oculus will do an about turn on a generic way to do motion cancellation, so don't expect it with the CV1 Rift.

The Vive is set to launch the end of this year and will not only be first but will also include wireless input controllers and Lighthouse for tracking multiple things in a large volume. It is not clear if the Vive will allow a generic way of doing motion cancellation, nor is the price known. But for me it is a 'complete' gen 1 consumer grade VR kit, so is on my Christmas list as a must have.

I did the whole get in quick for pre-orders with the DK1 and DK2. Oculus really stuffed up Aussie DK2 pre-orders and ours were months behind, plus we had to pay a premium price for shipping. So I don't have much faith in the ability of Oculus to manage pre-orders well.

I also won't consider the CV1 Rift complete until Oculus Touch controllers are available and that is likely to be some time after the CV1 Rift is released. Hence I have no compelling reason to stampede for the CV1 Rift, though I will be as close to the front of the pre-order line for the Vive as I can possible get and suspect that the Vive will be the device of choice for VR enthusiasts like me, irrespective of price.

Personally I think the Vive's LightHouse is a far superior tracking system @SeatTime, the big question will be if we end up with a generic means of implementing motion cancellation or not.

The CV1 Rift camera is also significantly different than the one for the DK2 and it will be next year before we can even test how it goes with a powerful motion simulator.

Here is the Tested review of the CV1 at E3, as usual it is a quality review by guys who know what VR is all about and the right questions to ask:

4K for VR will happen eventually, but in practice it needs advances in many areas, not just the screen. One of the current stumbling blocks is processing the actual amount of data involved without significantly impacting on latency. Both Nvidia and AMD are working on VR specific hardware improvements, but they are not available yet.

You can expect that the spec for the CV1 Rift will remain constant for the release, though there may be some improvements in software and refining of optical lenses. The reason is that developers need to know what they have to work with, and at the moment the need for content is everything.

The UpLoadVR author has now issued a public apology for the misleading speculation: http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3auibx/an_open_letter_to_the_community/

The VR batteleground is really about content distribution control rather than the HMDs themselves, which in many key respects (FOV, screens) are technically similar. However while it is likely Valve will be keen to support both the Vive and the Rift I don't expect Oculus to aim to do the same. I think it will be some years yet before there are consistent VR standards, so you may have to face the wrath of your wife.