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There were a number of important announcements at the Oculus Connect ii conference this week. First, Samsung's Gear VR is expected to be on store shelves past the cease of November, with support for a wider number of Android handsets. The first version of the device was only compatible with the Galaxy Note 4, which naturally express its appeal. This new flavour will proceed sale for $99 (one-half the cost of the original) and will be uniform with the Note 5, S6, S6 Edge, and S6 Edge Plus. The foreign thing — and I'g not kidding, I observe this more than passingly odd — is that the Gear VR final version apparently isn't compatible with the Note 4.

At present, granted, you could argue that Samsung already rewarded terminal year'due south group of customers with the hardware they paid for, but Samsung is claiming that the final Gear VR is 22% lighter and much more comfortable to wear for extended periods. You'd think that the customers the company would want to support the near would exist those that shucked out $200 for last year's model, simply obviously that's not the example. Oculus is also bringing a new arcade feel to Gear VR, billed every bit a novel way to play classic arcade games in a more immersive environment. Hopefully this doesn't involve pumping virtual quarters into slots, much less the $ii-$three per play that most arcades charged when I last visited.

Oculus-Controller

If you've been trying to wrap your head around what kind of hardware you demand for an Oculus-ready feel, meanwhile, the company has heard you and wants to make the unabridged buying experience less painful. Oculus is going to develop a new "Oculus prepare" brand for inclusion on systems that run into a certain standard of quality. Exactly what this will look like is unclear, but everything we've seen suggests that the hardware will need to be quite powerful to deliver cutting-edge performance in VR. In traditional games, players can often tolerate frame rates in the thirty-50 range without nausea, but low frame rates or erratic frame timing are both the kiss of death for VR — unless you like your virtual reality with a piece of very real-globe nausea.

Finally, there'south Oculus Touch. We haven't previously talked much nearly Oculus Touch (above), beyond a brief description of the initial demo before this summer. This system is designed to requite users tactile feedback in VR environments; Gizmodo has published an incredibly positive easily-on review of the applied science earlier this twelvemonth. This is where the bad news comes in — while Oculus Rift is yet expected to transport in early 2016, the Oculus Touch won't exist part of the system. The Rift is ready to debut in Q1 2016, with Touch delayed until Q2 2016. As for hard launch dates for software or game conversions, information is still a fleck fuzzy. Expect the VR space to take some time to really go kick — at that place's a lot of heavy lifting yet to be accomplished.