For those of you who watched Johnny Quest growing up, you’d be familiar with the virtual reality world where the team would tap into to fight the bad guys. While VR technology is already here and is changing the way we do things in the most unusual of ways, the truth is that we still have a long way to go before we could just snap on our 3D glasses and go off to save the world.
While virtual reality is already being used in video games like Nintendo’s Wii, its growing popularity is spilling off to other game manufacturers who are looking to take the virtual reality experience even further with the help of new cutting-edge technology.
Oculus Rift is the buzzword when it comes to new technology 2015 nowadays. And while the headset is going to be released no sooner than the 1st quarter of 2016, news of the technology is already making waves in both the entertainment and the gaming industry, and for good reason. The Oculus Rift virtual headset went from a $2 million Kickstarter to a Facebook acquisition worth a whopping $2 billion, and this was even before its public release. Now, the device is looking to make headlines once again by partnering up with some of the biggest names in the gaming industry.
According to an Oculus executive, while the headset can only work on PCs it is possible for it to be integrated into a gaming environment which is the reason why the company is currently in talks with two prominent names in the gaming industry, Microsoft and Sony. The fact that executives from Rift and Microsoft and Sony have sat down together isn’t used in itself because when it comes to Silicon Valley, everybody is always in talks with everybody else. But, what makes this interesting is the fact that Oculus is even thinking of hooking up with one or both of these gaming companies.
Furthermore, what makes this news even more exciting is the fact that it could become a reality. Why you ask? Because there is already one such company that already has the VR hardware in place. Sony’s PlayStation has admitted to having its first-party VR hardware in the past. On the contrary, the company has also gone public with its comments that it doesn’t see Oculus as a serious threat when it comes to competition, but rather, as an ally in making virtual gaming a reality.
Apart from that, both companies also seem to have a general chumminess with each other since there really isn’t much of a difference between the Oculus Rift and Sony’s Morpheus, which is their version of the virtual reality headset. Some of the most striking similarities between the two is the fact that both VR headsets use cameras to track the movement of the user’s head. Apart from that, the popular Oculus Rift game, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is also planned to be released for Sony’s Morpheus headset, which will be rolling out for the users not too long from now.
But, there is still the question of why would Sony allow Rift to plug into the PS4 when the company has its own headset, Morpheus? This is where the reason why the two will eventually join hands gets even more interesting. The reason why Sony is most likely to allow Oculus to plug in to their PlayStation gaming console is because Sony isn’t interested in selling its Morpheus headset, per se, but it is however very interested in getting more and more people on its VR customer base, and this is where Oculus comes in.
Secondly, newest tech is expensive in general and even more so when it comes to virtual reality technology. VR hardware is very expensive, which is exactly what makes asking customers to purchase a hardware add-on to work new software even more difficult. Especially after the customer has already chugged out some serious cash for the basic hardware, as in the gaming console, in the first place.
In the end, it works for the gamer who would much rather buy a Oculus Rift headset which will work on the PlayStation 4 and as a standalone device, instead of the Morpheus, which is also an expensive piece of hardware and only works with Sony’s hardware.
