Have you heard about the Oculus Rift? That was a rhetorical question. Of course you have! You are reading a wearable technology blog for Pete’s sake. In any event, the Rift is a gaming device that quite literally puts you inside the game. You throw on the virtual reality goggles and, from that moment on, wherever you move your read in physical space your avatar moves its head in virtual space. It’s primed to really take the gaming world by storm when a consumer model launches sometime next year. In the meantime, you can get your hands on a beta version or you can just read about whats new with Oculus and their nifty little Rift.
First of all, the Rift is going to need games if it is gonna be successful. To that end, Oculus has hired former EA executive David DeMartini to head up their game development arm. He has quite a pedigree, handling a similar task at EA. During his tenure, he championed titles such as Rock Band, Left 4 Dead and Mass Effect. In short, the guy knows his stuff. According to Oculus, he is going to take that know how to make lasting partnerships with developers to create exclusive content for the Rift. What is virtual reality without content, after all? It’s just a blank room with a bunch of laser-looking green lines or whatever.
Again, the consumer model doesn’t launch until sometime next year. Let’s hope that gives DeMartini plenty of time to get some great titles. If it just launches with Angry Birds and some kind of Snake-clone, there will be a lot of unhappy Internet denizens.
