Would you like to buy the John Carmack-backed virtual reality headset?

NewsPublish Date 02/08/2012 - 10:33am GMT+1

Now you can, for $300.

If you've been keeping track of John Carmack's oddball attempt to bring Virtual Reality back to life, here's some good news: you can now help make the device become a reality.

The new version of the gadget is dubbed Oculus Rift, which coincidentally is also the name of the villain in a rubbish sci-fi story I wrote when I was 12.

So, fancy playing Doom 3 BFG Edition while wearing one of these?

If you do, you'll need to head to the Oculus Rift Kickstarter and pledge $300 or more.

You'll also get a devkit and access to the Oculus Development Center; this is very much aimed at developers, if you hadn't guessed.

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User Comments

munkee

Im tempted to drop 300bucks on it just to have a dev kit with Doom 3 running on it. That's potentially a really valuable piece of history in the making.

Posted 23:09 on 03 August 2012

How weird I commented on something else the other day on about a virtual reality thing I seen years ago not read into this but I'm presuming it's just a screen in your glasses and not actual controlled by movement like I'm wanting from virtual reality.

Posted 08:37 on 03 August 2012

FantasyMeister

I don't see software being an issue, the Rift is eventually going to be compatible with the 360 and PS3 according to Kickstarter. However, $300 only nets you the Dev Kit, the final price point for the end consumer product is yet to be decided. Sony do an $800 headset, and it'll have to come in way under that to attract mainstream attention, price has always been the sticking point for head mounted displays.

If they produce one that works with Skyrim for under £250 I'd be tempted, for £149 I'd open my wallet day one.

Posted 14:40 on 02 August 2012

BC_Animus

I was actually looking at that before I read your article, and I was thinking "neat idea, but will never sell". But heh, who knows, it might end up doing a Wii or a Kinnect, where millions of units of the hardware will sell - but even then I bet you it won't do well on the software side of things.

Further along in the future though, smaller more portable versions of this (along the line of Google's Project Glass perhaps) might make it mainstream. But at this point in time with our current technologies, this is doomed from the getgo.

Problem is even if they make the damn thing, hardware-wise they will have a hard time convincing someone to back the distribution side of things. And software-wise most developers would rather work with something with more mass appeal, platforms with more established userbases, like iOS or XBLA for example.

Posted 14:13 on 02 August 2012