Hasta La Gadget!

Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One may be the big next-gen stars at this year’s Gamescom, but Oculus Rift is here as well, continuing to draw our adoration with news of a developer portal called Share. The portal facilitates easy distribution and cataloging of apps for current Oculus Rift dev kits, essentially centralizing the software world of the Rift in one convenient place. Company co-founder and Rift creator Palmer Luckey told us during GDC Europe this week that Share is just the tip of the iceberg — a precursor to the future consumer portal of VR applications that’ll exist alongside the eventual consumer model of the VR headset.

He and product VP Nate Mitchell sat down with us for a candid interview, touching on everything from the future of Share, to VR as a platform (and the challenges therein), to why mobile is the next space to watch for virtual reality (seriously!). Head past the break for the full video…and for a peek into the future of gaming’s most innovative product in, well, maybe ever?

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD

Comments

We’ve been impressed with Oculus Rift from the start, and have been following the VR headset closely ever since. The developer edition has been in the hands of devs for a couple months now, and while Palmer Luckey and Nate Mitchell have certainly received rave reviews of the headset from many, they’ve also heard lots of feedback about ways to improve it. The number one request from users and devs? A higher-resolution screen than the 1,280 x 800 panel in the dev device. Well, after months of research and tinkering to find the right hardware combination, team Oculus is finally ready to show off a Rift with a 1,080 x 1920 display, and we got to demo the thing.

Before heading into the land of 1080p, we got to explore a demo built with Unreal Engine 4 in the existing dev headset. After looking around a snowy mountain stronghold inhabited by a fire lord in low res, we switched to the exact same demo running at 60 fps on the HD prototype device — and the difference was immediately apparent. Surface textures could be seen in much higher fidelity, colors were brighter and less muddied and the general detail of the entire environment was greatly improved.

Filed under: Gaming, HD

Comments

Want to know what the future of gaming will be? Odds are that the panel we’re hosting now at Engadget Expand has the answer. Our very own Ben Gilbert is sitting down with NVIDIA Product Marketing VP Ujesh Desai, Oculus VR Product VP Nate Mitchell and Razer Systems Product Group VP John Wilson to see their latest hardware and how it will impact the way we play. Hop past the break for a vision of gaming’s new frontiers as it unfolds.

Follow all of Engadget’s Expand coverage live from San Francisco right here!

Filed under: Gaming, NVIDIA

Comments