Oculus VR, which is bringing out the world’s first ever commercial VR headset with Oculus Rift, has seen amazing success in the past year. Not only has it secured a large amount of funding but it has also seen much enthusiasm from developers regarding Rift.
According to CEO Brendan Iribe in conversation with Gamasutra, big-name publishers have also expressed interest but are adapting the “wait and see” approach to judge the enthusiasm and uptake for VR in general.
“For the most part, developers are serious enthusiasts, some companies are startups or independent and are willing to take a leap of faith on VR. But a lot of the bigger companies are looking at [Rift] saying, ‘probably VR is going to work, probably it’s going to be a good thing. Maybe it’s going to be Oculus, maybe it’s going to be one of the established guys.’”
Even if it takes a while to become popular, Iribe believes that Rift will disrupt the technology and entertainment status quo significantly. “One day, when you have VR sunglasses, do you really want to play a monitor anymore? If so, why? This won’t transform video games today – when computers came around, board games lived on – they still live on. There will be a lot of non-VR gaming in the future, but VR will disrupt games. Not overnight, but over the next 10-20 years.
“…This might be bold to say, but I really do believe people will look back at 2013 and 2014 as a moment when virtual reality first worked — when we realized that we had a version of VR good enough to go mass market, and kick off a whole space.”
Do you share the same thoughts? Let us know what you think of Oculus Rift and VR in general in the comments below.