Facebook Announces $199 Oculus Go Standalone VR Headset (variety.com)

Facebook is going to ship a standalone VR headset called Oculus Go next year. The headset, which won't require a PC or phone to run, will be available early next year for $199. From a report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg officially announced the new product during his keynote speech at Facebook's fourth Oculus Connect virtual reality (VR) developer conference in San Jose, Calif. Wednesday, where he framed the device as an important step towards bringing VR to the masses. "We want to get a billion people in virtual reality," Zuckerberg said. Facebook VP of VR Hugo Barra said that the company developed custom lenses for the headset, which allow for a wide field of view. The display is a fast-switch LCD screen with a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels, and it comes with integrated headphones. The company will be shipping first headsets to developers in November.

Comments

Re:Integrated headphones

[mindwhip]

you've never owned a Beats headset (since the Apple takeover) the cables on them fail even faster than an iphone headphone adaptor...

I love my Rift

[Thyamine]

I built a gaming rig specifically so I could get the Oculus Rift this year. I love it. Almost everyone who tries it is amazed and loves it (my mom seemed somehow completely unimpressed). Since I purchased it, any new games are specifically for it. My poor consoles are languishing for any love at all. I don't see this headset competing against a Rift setup, which more or less people have already reported it will be equivalent to a smart phone, however I can see that once people get a taste of it, they may scale up to want more.

I can also see the parallels between hardcore and casual gamers. Before tablets and smartphones, most of the casual gamers would have done no gaming at all. But give them a simple, cheap device, and suddenly VR is more ubiquitous and devs will move to that. Having used the Rift to try and work with my desktop, I don't foresee this being a device people are wearing for hours, however it could draw people into more VR content.