On stage at the Oculus Connect 4 conference, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took the wraps off of Oculus Go, the company’s first “sweet spot” standalone headset. Zuckerberg announced it would launch “early next year” at a price of $199.
The announcement followed Zuckerberg’s statement that Oculus wants to get one billion people using its virtual reality products. He admitted how lofty that goal is, saying, “If we’re going to get a billion people in VR, we have to work on both affordability and quality. We have to find the sweet spot in the middle. The high-quality experience that doesn’t tether anybody to a PC.
Zuckerberg announced that Oculus’ “Santa Cruz” headset, which offers inside-out headset tracking and “six degrees of freedom” hand controllers, will finally be available to Oculus developers “this year” and will be available to test on the Oculus Connect 4 show floor later today. He said that this will be the first time anyone has ever shown a complete experience of both a standalone headset and fully tracked controllers.
Despite the lower price, the Go has a higher resolution display than the Rift. The Go features a 2560×1440 “Fast-switch” LCD display, which is a bump up from the 2160×1200 combined resolution of the two OLED displays in the Rift. Fast-Switch likely means a higher refresh rate, but no specifications have been announced yet to see how it compared to the 90 Hz of the Rift. Oculus is also promoting the optical lenses are new and improved for the Go, offering a wider field of view and less glare. The LCD display and new lenses should help with the screen door effect that is present on VR headsets, but we’re still a long way from having the processing power to remove this completely.
Oculus Go also includes integrated spatial audio, which is one of the big features Oculus promoted on the Rift when it launched. The speakers are built-in to the sides of the headset, so no extra equipment is necessary. They have had the courage though to add a 3.5mm headphone jack if you want to listen privately. Go and Gear is “binary compatible” so any apps that work on Gear, should work on Go. It’s helpful to have an ecosystem when you’re launching a new product. The new headset is made of a new breathable cloth, for improved comfort, and the Go can be used with glasses.
Unlike the Rift, the untethered nature of the Go means that it won’t have the full tracking capabilities, but that can be a benefit as well since not everyone has a dedicated location they can leverage VR. At the outset, the Go seems like a well priced, capable VR headset, and although it won’t have the gaming potential of a full PC behind it, the capabilities of a smartphone SoC have been improving dramatically over the years. Unfortunately, Facebook / Oculus hasn’t announced what is actually powering the Go, so we’ll have to wait and see how much performance they can get for $199 the Oculus Go ships early next year.
To enjoy more News, Updates, review, and giveaway to join our facebook group and facebook page.