Here's a very well written Wired Magazine article covering the origins of Oculus, its rapid rise, and it's future.
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/oculus-rift-4/
“I’ve seen five or six demos that made me think the world was about to change: Apple II, Netscape, Google, iPhone … then Oculus.”
That’s because Oculus has found a way to make a headset that does more than just hang a big screen in front of your face. By combining stereoscopic 3-D, 360-degree visuals, and a wide field of view—along with a supersize dose of engineering and software magic—it hacks your visual cortex. As far as your brain is concerned, there’s no difference between experiencing something on the Rift and experiencing it in the real world. “This is the first time that we’ve succeeded in stimulating parts of the human visual system directly,” says Abrash, the Valve engineer. “I don’t get vertigo when I watch a video of the Grand Canyon on TV, but I do when I stand on a ledge in VR.”
Now Oculus is hard at work on its long-awaited headset for consumers, which the company predicts will be released later this year, or more likely early next year, or perhaps even not so early next year. Whenever it comes, we’ll finally have something that has eluded us for more than 30 years: immersive, affordable virtual reality. And we’ll all know what Brendan Iribe knew standing in that room outside of Seattle.
This is going to be bigger than we ever expected.
Facebook’s money also means that Oculus doesn’t need to worry about turning an immediate profit—and that will come in handy as it builds its first consumer product. “Let’s say we’re trying to pack in everything we can for $300,” Mitchell says. If the device needs to be profitable, then the company couldn’t spend much more than $100 on the hardware itself. But now that it doesn’t need to preserve its profit margin, Mitchell says, “you can take all of that margin money, apply it to components, and still keep the price exactly the same.” In fact, according to Luckey, the consumer version will be “higher-quality in every aspect” than the prototype that Valve showed Iribe last year. While Oculus’ internal units have used twin AMOLED 1080p displays from Samsung Galaxy S4s, the company no longer has to depend on the mobile phone ecosystem; it now has the money and the backing to ask a manufacturer to create custom displays specifically for VR applications.
It's a lengthy article and will at least give you a good idea of what's going on so you're prepared for next year!
One of the most interesting things about Oculus Rift is that John Carmack asked to borrow one of only two prototypes in existence from Palmer Luckey in April 2012. Luckey let him borrow it with no NDA's
Intrigued, Carmack private-messaged him. Would Palmer consider sending him a loaner unit? Palmer, who idolized Carmack, shipped it off to Texas immediately—“no NDAs, no signing anything,” Carmack says. “It was one of two prototypes that he had.”
Within two months of tinkering with it, he asked Luckey if he could show it to "some people":
Luckey was ecstatic to learn of Carmack’s work—but then Carmack upped the ante. He asked Luckey if he could “show it to some people at E3 in Los Angeles.”
“Show it to whoever you want,” Luckey told him.
A few weeks later, Luckey was in Boston, attending a trade show about display technology; a friend texted him, asking if he’d seen the article about him. It turned out that what Carmack had meant by “show it to some people” was “take a bunch of meetings with the press to promote virtual reality, the Rift, and Luckey himself.”
The reception that the Rift got was rapturous. “The level of immersion was unlike any other gaming experience I’ve ever had,” one site wrote. “It transforms the experience of playing a first-person videogame,” another wrote. “When we look at that now,” Carmack says, “it was clearly the inflection point.” Overnight, the Oculus Rift became the most hotly anticipated gaming device.
Created two months earlier in a 19 year old's house, it won best of show at 2012 E3.
Pretty amazing story even two years later, things are still moving very fast for Oculus. Less than a month away!
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If you never seen it, here's one of John Carmack's interviews at 2012 E3.
Check out the Oculus Rift when he shows it. lol. It's a ducked tape mess with some ski mask strap. Looks like complete crap and yet it won best of show. This is even before they figured out how to improve persistence, had the higher res AMOLED displayes, side to side motion tracking,etc etc. Carmack goes into detail about the crappy parts and res, etc in the unit...and it still won best of show. The tech has to be for real.
Anyway, give monster credit to John Carmack for pimping this thing at 2012 E3 to get the ball rolling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw-DlWwlXHo&hd=1
the interviewer's first words after putting it on were "oh my god". Doom 3, a strobe light, first person shooter is one of the worst things you can demo for VR due to motion sickness...and it still won.
John Carmack is a freaking genius. He deserves all the accolades he's received in the gaming industry. Worth a view. Interesting how the interviewer seems almost sleepy before demo'ing the rift and then looks much more motivated after experiencing it.
(Seriously, though!)
