Nate Mitchel, the Oculus co-founder said Wednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY that they are building their games for the Rift. However, the Oculus Rift VR headset will require a personal computer to power it.
Asked whether the headset will need a super-premium personal computer to deliver its immersive experience, Mitchel said that they are not talking about a high-end machine but something that can play modern games.
Concerning the price, Mitchel said they want the Rift to be affordable. He, however, added that the Rift will cost more than Samsung Gear Virtual Reality mobile headset because it is positioned as a high-end experience.
“Overall when we look at VR we see two product categories, the high end that will be represented by the Rift and the low end served by our collaboration with Samsung,” Mitchell explained.
The Samsung Gear VR built by Oculus costs $200 right now. That’s on top of the phone that powers it which costs $649 or more.
If the demo at CES is anything to go by, the Rift will feature graphics that can not be matched by Xbox One or PlayStation 4. So, we can safely assume that the rig to power the Rift will require not only a high-end CPU but also a powerful graphics processor that can handle massive textures, high resolutions, and high frame rates.
Luckily, Oculus has quietly begun building its games. So there will be some incredible games available on the first day of Oculus. Mitchel said that they had several small teams making first-party titles and will also publish second-party titles made by developers from outside. Oculus will also allow third-party titles developed entirely independently of Oculus on its platform.
Does that mean there will be half-baked apps on the Rift? No. Games that are nauseating or too shocking could scare people away from VR and, therefore, cannot be entertained by Oculus.
Oculus will only offer high-quality apps, so we expect it to review the Rift apps and approve them before they are released.
Oculus still values openness in its ecosystem. That’s why it will allow third-party controllers and hardware peripherals to be compatible with the Rift. The company will continue open-sourcing its technologies when possible to aid developers.
The company will take pre-orders on Oculus.com, but they are also considering retail outlets that they believe will make the Rift reach millions of people.
