Oculus Rift Unveils New Virtual Reality Headset for Devs to Play With

Game developers interested in creating games in virtual reality will get an upgraded set of tools from the Oculus Rift team this summer, the company announced Wednesday morning.

The second-generation Oculus Rift development kit is available for preorder starting Wednesday for developers. The virtual reality headset, which began as a Kickstarter campaign in 2012, now has 50,000 units in the hands of developers interested in creating games for it.

Oculus VR Vice President of Product Nate Mitchell said doesn't resemble anything like consumers will eventually see, but is much farther along the company's vision for virtual reality than the previous Oculus Rift model. A consumer version is still not under discussion, he added.

"We've learned a lot of lessons from our original vision," Mitchell said.

The new Oculus Rift headset solves many users' latency issues; it eliminates the motion blur problems that were easy to spot if you moved your head too quickly. It features a brighter, higher-resolution OLED screen with a 960 x 1080p resolution over each eye, rather than a 640 x 800p resolution over each eye on the current kit.

The new headset also boasts improved positional tracking, part of the Crystal Cove prototype the company showed off during CES 2014. Mitchell said that such new features will allow developers to bring many more complex elements into games they produce for virtual reality, including text and UI layouts. Previously, both were previously very difficult to add.

The new headset will cost $350 for developers and will ship sometime in July of this year.

Virtual reality may be the belle of the ball at the Game Developers Conference this week. Sony also used the conference to announce its own virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4, currently called Project Morpheus. Sony remained mum on setting a date for its headset to reach consumers.

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Sony Brings Virtual-Reality System 'Project Morpheus' to PlayStation 4

Sony is jumping into the virtual-reality field, bringing its own system called "Project Morpheus" to the PlayStation 4.

Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida announced Project Morpheus at a Tuesday evening session at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

"The game industry has grown by leverage experiences that people didn’t know they were expecting or think were possible. We push the boundaries of play," Yoshida said. "Nothing elevates the level of immersion better than VR. It delivers a sense of presence."

He added that Sony had been exploring virtual reality since 2010 at its research and development unit. Yoshida showed off pictures of prototypes from Sony Computer Entertainment America's Santa Monica Studios, which used a PlayStation Move controller strapped to the head for motion tracking.

Sony said it is already working with the following companies on virtual reality: Crytek, Epic Games, Autodesk, Havok, Criware, Unity and Wwise.

The company's current developer kit has 1080p display and a 90-degree field of view, according to Anton Mikhailov, a software engineer with Sony Computer Entertainment's research and development team. "It's not a final thing, but a good sweet spot for developers right now."

Mikhailov said the headset will work with the PlayStation Move controllers, the DualShock 4 and the PlayStation Move camera.

In the past year, virtual reality has become a crowded field for gaming, but no products are available yet for consumers. The Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset has been in developers’ hands for about a year. Yoshida said on Tuesday night that he had an “enormous amount of respect” for Oculus VR. The company declined to comment on Sony’s announcement.

Sony did not announce a price or timeline for consumer availability for Project Morpheus. Game developers will be able to view the headset starting Wednesday on the GDC show floor.

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The 7 Most Beautiful Indie Games

We haven't seen such a boom of innovation and great ideas in video games since the independent PC games of the 1990s. Dozens, if not hundreds, of beautiful indie games have impressed millions of eager players, and these seven are some of the most gorgeous artistic works small teams have produced in recent years.

These games span many platforms — whether you have a PC, Mac, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, iPad or even Linux, you’ll find something to check out here.

As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder — and seven is far too small a number to represent the diversity and creativity in the indie game scene today.

1. Flower

Thatgamecompany (TGC), run by Jenova Chen, Kellee Santiago and other big names in the indie scene, had a productive run in tandem with Sony’s game studios, making games for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Vita since 2007.
Flower followed the 2006 experimental Flash game flOw, and was later succeeded by the magnum opus of the series, Journey. While all three games had something beautiful and moving to say, Flower is arguably the purest of the three.
Flower was originally released on PS3, but this past holiday season it hit the Vita and PS4, too. The PS4 version’s enhanced visuals make it an even greater treat.
IMAGE: THATGAMECOMPANY

2. Braid

The game that put controversial game developer Jonathan Blow on the map plays with themes of loss and making up for past mistakes with a time-traveling game mechanic combined with Mario-like platforming.
Already a classic since its 2008 release, Braid stands out in part because of its artful visuals, whose swirling blue skies and pastel colors evoke impressionist painters. If you like Braid, keep an eye out for Blow’s next game, The Witness. It’s due to hit the PlayStation 4 within a few months.
You can pick up Braid on Xbox 360, Windows, Mac, PlayStation 3 and Linux.
IMAGE: BRAID/JONATHAN BLOW

3. Limbo

Flower petals and impressionism-style paintings are beautiful, sure, but there’s such a thing as a dark, foreboding beauty. Limbo nails just that.
The grim fairy tale of a young boy wandering through a ruthlessly hostile, silhouetted environment enthralls you with what you can’t see as much as it engages you with what you can. Just be ready to die — a lot.
Limbo is available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac, Windows, Vita, Linux and iOS.
IMAGE: LIMBO

4. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

A recent release, Brothers tasks you with controlling two boys as they wander from their village in search of a way to cure a loved one's illness. The highly stylized rolling hills, lived-in villages, and the quirky and mysterious characters populating the countryside all contribute to a lush, aesthetic experience.
So you can take it all in, the world's designers even dropped in stone benches on which you can sit your characters at the most scenic viewpoints.
Brothers is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows.
IMAGE: STARBREEZE STUDIOS/505 GAMES

5. Proteus

Las year's Proteus is the most experimental and out-there game that appears on this list. The retro aesthetic won’t work for everyone, but the dynamically generated environments full of bizarre, surreal and impressionistic signs of life have impressed and soothed many an adventurous gamer.
It only takes a few minutes to complete the game, but as with the famed Minecraft, each time you play it you experience a different world with variance in the arrangement of the numerous creatures and locales.
Proteus is available on Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 3 and Vita.
IMAGE: PROTEUS

6. Lili

Lili borrows as much from free-roaming RPGs like The Legend of Zelda as it does from other casual iPad and iPhone games, so it hardly fits into either the "casual" or "hardcore" categories. Let’s call it "middlecore."
In Lili, you play as a young woman walking around a seaside community filled with odd characters, who will probably remind you most of the work of famed animated Hayao Miyazaki. It’s a relaxing game, and the verdant 3D visuals go a long way in creating that effect. To power its cartoony look, the game runs on the Unreal Engine, long a standard-setter for advanced 3D graphics on many platforms.
Lili is currently only available on iOS devices, but a PC version recently graduated through the Steam Greenlight program -- so sit tight if you aren't an Apple user.
IMAGE: BITMONSTER GAMES

7. The Unfinished Swan

Sony really made waves in the indie community by turning its Santa Monica studio into an incubator for ambitious indies. One of the best games to come out of the studio is Giant Sparrow’s The Unfinished Swan, a truly original experience.
When you start, you find yourself standing in an all-white world. You quickly learn that you can splatter black paint on the walls and objects around you to discover your way through the environments. The complexity grows from there, but the game’s minimalism really makes an lasting impression.
You’ll need a PlayStation 3 to play The Unfinished Swan.

IMAGE: GIANT SPARROW

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