Virtual Reality - Believe the hype

Virtual Reality headsets keep popping up in a lot of posts I see on twitter and other game related news outlets.

Virtual Insanity.

So I thought I'd share my experience with you, giving you a basic run down of what the market consists of and its main competitor, 2 only spring to mind at the minute.

The main VR headset in question being the Oculus Rift, coming from my experience I can say the hype is very real and technology is mind bottling.

My experience didn't come from waiting in a very real queue for 6 hours, no, mine came from  sitting in a friends man cave, development kit 2 in hand then feeling like I was going to throw up on a roller-coaster in the process.

Virtual Pirateship.

As I sat in his chair, putting on the headset all I could see was a basic build of houses, as I looked left to right and up and down I saw two people sitting next to me, then becoming sucked into the experience 200 %, It's weird to explain how real it actually feels.

The ride started to swing back and forth like a pirate ship, so did my stomach, Instantly hitting me with what felt like motion sickness, an amazing experience with a very basic game, all I could do was sit back and take in the view!

The strangest part of the whole experience believe it or not was taking off the headset and being sat back in his room like nothing had happened.

We then automatically giggled at a horribly designed sex simulator because you have too, which then lead to the awful experience of horror games, me being the biggest man child in the world.

Virtual Reality.

He quickly set up a 360 controller, placing it in my hand, he them stood back and watched what I saw on the monitor in front of me reflecting my in headset experience.

I navigate my way through corridors that decide it will be fun to bleed, doors flinging open at the same time, creeped out by the whole experience I push on, I spend half the time with my eyes closed but no one knew that until now, eventually deciding it was to much for me when creepy  people started to appear in my view.

Completely amazed and absorbed by the whole experience I can say I'm excited to see the new development kit codenamed 'Crescent Bay' in action.

Now for a little something I like to call, 'A basic run-down of all things Virtual Reality'

Crescent Bay

The Rift is an upcoming VR headset being developed by Oculus, a consumer product is expected to become available in 2015.

The original development kit was financed by a kick starter campaign which later on March 25th 2014 was brought by Facebook for a petty 2billion US dollars, Pocket change.

In September 2014 Oculus wowed people with the new and improved, also better named version of the rift codenamed 'Crescent Bay'.

This version having a greater resolution than the previously mention Development Kit 2, improvements where made with a lighter weight unit, built in audio and also 360 degree tracking, due to LEDs in the back of the headset.

Project Morpheus

A consumer version of the Rift is in development, aimed at the general public with improved features including improved head tracking, A once again mentioned higher resolution screen and wireless compatibility all under consideration.

I personally don't think we will see a consumer product until early to mid 2016 due to the amount of work that would need to go into the unit, considering 3 years in they've just added audio. but what do I know? I'm a kid sat in his room typing shit on the internet.

Morpheus headset.

The only other real competitor in my eyes being Sony's Project Morpheus, details being very hard to find on this model the basic run down states that it is being designed to be fully functional with Ps4 and PsVita and is currently a prototype with no release date

This product being announced on March 18th 2014 by Sony Entertainment Worldwide Studio President Shuhei Yoshida claiming Project Morpheus was 'The next innovation form PlayStation that will shape the future of gaming'

Hope you enjoyed that little crash course in VR headsets.

Koi Koi

Caleb