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Oculus Announces Partnership With Microsoft

Posted by samzenpus on from the working-together dept.

An anonymous reader writes: At its pre-E3 press conference today, Oculus announced a partnership with Microsoft. The company plans to launch a new Rift headset early next year that will be packaged with a wireless Xbox One controller. Oculus will ship the controllers with the recently announced Xbox wireless adapter. Xbox chief Phil Spencer said. "We believe we'll be able to create state of the art virtual reality experiences with the Oculus Rift on top of Windows."

18 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by binarylarry · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It was great knowing you, Oculus.

    Hopefully Valve has a little more sense. They seem to have better hardware than Oculus.

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    1. Re:Wow by Spy+Handler · · Score: 2

      Facebook already bought Oculus last year. Actually kind of makes sense that they'd sell units to Microsoft for Xbox use.

    2. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Certainly explains why they halted Linux and Mac OSX development

    3. Re: Wow by binarylarry · · Score: 2

      Yep, fuck them.

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    4. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      As a Mac gamer, I've heard this story from the game industry many times before, and I know how it always ends. No thanks. I'll be looking to HTC Vive.

    5. Re:Wow by hitchhacker · · Score: 4, Informative

      They didn't just pause development. They ripped the whole thing out of their source distribution along with the build utilities except for msvc project files. "Pause" would have meant at least keeping and accepting patches for what they had.

  2. The Result by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is going to produce a big rift.

  3. Visible controllers by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The article does raise one major issue with VR in regards to controllers.

    Every time I've experimented with the Oculus, I have to place my hands on the keyboard to find the controls before I put the headset on... BEFORE I being to wear the Oculus. Otherwise, I drop the headset on and feel around for the keyboard.

    This is incredibly clunky. I should be able to see my controller with the headset on. The VR system needs to detect controllers, and what's displayed on them, as it does head motion tracking.

    So there is still plenty of work to do there.

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    1. Re:Visible controllers by Simulant · · Score: 3, Interesting


      I think they need cameras on the outside so you can toggle a quick view of reality without removing the gear.

    2. Re:Visible controllers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Carmack calls it the diet coke button - video passthrough so that he can find his diet coke.

      http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/08/gear-vr-versus-oculus-rift/

  4. Remember... by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Recall what M$ is known for; Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

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    1. Re:Remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm rooting for MS here. I hope they embrace the Oculus, extend into Facebook, and extinguish it all.

  5. watch and laugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5kI4NuM33E
    oculus rift - Xbox One Sneak Peek [HD]

    "Virtual reality should put me into the game, not into a room where I play the game on a screen. I already have that in actual reality."

  6. WHAT?! You can't be serious by slashmydots · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There is no company called Oculus. It's called Facebook. Facebook bought them. Microsoft is working with Facebook. WHAT?!
    So besides that, everything MS touches dies. They can't design anything that customers want anymore and they turn everything into a money-grubbing, ad-infested, piece of garbage that they shove down users throats by abusing their monopoly. Oh now I get why they're working with Facebook.

    1. Re:WHAT?! You can't be serious by LongearedBat · · Score: 2

      Microsoft software is... well, I'm with you there. But Microsoft periferals tend to be rather good in my experience. Hopefully the Oculus will fall into the periferals category. (Please, oh please, let the Oculus software be only straight forward driver software.)

    2. Re:WHAT?! You can't be serious by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 2

      So besides that, everything MS touches dies

      Gaming on PC means Windows and DirectX. Windows and DirectX have been around for a long time.
      If you are realistic about VR on the PC, teaming up with the guys who control your platform makes sense. Especially now that Sony and Valve are serious competitors for Occulus.

      It also makes sense for Microsoft. Sony is an obvious competitor and Valve has been making strides into Linux. With Occulus MS gets a developed VR solution without having to develop their own. It's a natural partnership.

  7. What was THAT? by WaffleMonster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It was painful to watch Microsoft intermission at the Oculus event today.

    Hey so ah we're bundling an ordinary xbox controller with the rift... okay whatever I don't care except for having to pay for it with cost of the rift and your main competition offering a much better input tracking solution with their product.

    Rest of the MS demo was someone wearing a VR headset and playing xbox in "VR" by creating a virtual room with a virtual 2D display and playing the game on that 2D display within the virtual world.. one of the sorriest tech demos I've ever seen in my life. I kept waiting for a punch line that never came.

    1. Re:What was THAT? by shadowrat · · Score: 2

      i've long predicted that once we have true star trek level holodeck technology, it will be really popular to create a holo tv and nintendo to play old fashioned super mario bros. on