Hasta La Gadget!

For veteran gamers who enjoyed Doom and Quake, it’s the end of an era — id Software co-founder John Carmack has left the game studio to concentrate all his efforts on his Chief Technical Officer role at Oculus VR. It was just too “challenging” to divide attention between the two companies, he explains. id’s Tim Willits says in a statement that the departure won’t affect any existing projects, but it does leave the firm without the insights of one of the game industry’s brightest programmers. However, his exit is good news for VR fans; Carmack can now pour all his energy into developing cutting edge wearable displays. Check out our recent video interview with him after the break.

Filed under: Gaming, Wearables

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Via: Joystiq, IGN

Source: John Carmack (Twitter)

It’s not clear if Icelandic game studio CCP is extending its crazy MMO, EVE Online, into the world of virtual reality, but the company is working on some form of EVE-based VR application using the Oculus Rift. CCP teased the concept during the keynote event at its Fanfest event this afternoon, showing off what looked like a modern Wing Commander-style space shooter set in the world of EVE (similar to the first-person shooter extension on PlayStation 3, Dust 514), built using the Unity game engine. EVE fansite The Mittani notes from a hands-on demonstration at Fanfest that the game is currently 3v3 dogfighting employing the VR headset and an unnamed “console-style game controller.” Sadly, it sounds like the project is little more than an internal curiosity at this point, but color us unsurprised if this pops up in a more polished form down the line. We’ll add a video of CCP’s presentation to this post as soon as it goes live — we were marveled by the gorgeous visuals and gameplay promise of a space shooter which employs VR.

Several games are currently in development for the Oculus Rift, and Valve’s Team Fortress 2 already supports the device. However, the headset that’s currently available is a development kit, and not meant as representative of the final retail product.

Update: We’ve added the video from Fanfest below the break!

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals, Software

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Source: Twitch.tv

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

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