Facebook says its new Oculus Quest and Rift S VR headsets will begin shipping May 21–each for $399.
The Quest is a mobile VR headset that needs no tether to a PC and runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset. The headset uses built-in sensors to track the user’s position in the room–it needs no external sensors to locate the user and map the room.
The user uses one of the (newly designed) Oculus Touch controllers to establish a perimeter for game play in the room. The user sees a green grid around them within in the headset view, and if they exceed it the headset uses an external camera to show a “passthrough” view of the world outside the headset.
The Quest can also “cast” the user’s VR view to a smartphone screen so others can see what’s happening in virtual space. The headset uses the local Wi-Fi network to cast, and the smartphone must be running the Oculus app. In some games, the smartphone user can play along. Quest can also cast to a TV monitor.
The Quest comes preloaded with five demos, including the hand-eye coordination game Beat Saber, the boxing game Creed, the fantasy fighting game Journey of the Gods, the droid-fighting game Space Pirate Trainer, and the comic sports game Sports Scramble. And, importantly, Facebook announced that the new Star Wars game Vader Immortal will be available on the Quest.
The Rift S, which requires a tether to a PC, offers improved optics and a higher resolution display than its predecessor the Rift. It’s designed for more serious gamers that want to play higher-resolution games. The Rift S can access the same gaming library as the Rift.
“For those with a Windows 10 PC and graphics card suited to PC gaming, Rift S gets you into the most immersive content that VR has to offer,” Facebook says in a blog post.
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