Since the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset was presented at Kickstarter, they have collected over $ 1.3 million in investments, which significantly exceeded the $250,000 that they needed for starting serial production. The headset is a “VR helmet” which has two wide-angle high-resolution screens (1280×800); one for each eye. This creates a 3D field of vision of about 110 degrees diagonally and 90 degrees horizontally.
The headset monitors the movement of the head (head tracking) with low latency and 6 degrees of “free movement”, and will have DVI, HDMI and USB ports, while weighing only 0.22 kg. It will be compatible with the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles.
The biggest promotion for Oculus was made by ID’s John Carmack, after he showed off the helmet this year at E3, stating that the system is the most perfect virtual reality of today and the closest one to a Holodeck from Star Trek.
After that, the Oculus entered into an agreement with ID, under which every customer using the Rift virtual helmet will get a copy of Doom 3 BFG Edition, which will be the first fully supported game. Oculus and Carmack confirmed that they will have the support for Oculus Rift in ID’s latest horror FPS, Doom 4, which is expected during 2013.
The team from Oculus says it will introduce its VR headset to players sometime after Doom 4 releases. They plan to give people an unforgettable, completely new gaming experience that’s totally different from anything they’ve ever seen. The developers also think that the game and headset will be issued with a “special alert” that will remove themselves from any responsibility in case of any psychological or physical problems that could result from the combination of virtual reality and heart stopping panic attacks while playing Doom 4.
==== About the Author ===
John is the full-time blogger for Dota 2 Club, the free database of Dota 2 maps which are available for download.
