Oculus Rift Earns High Repairability Score From iFixit



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I was under the impression that they hadn't released the finished product yet. So, is this report based on the development kit that has been shipping for a while? It would make sense the dev sample would be easy to assemble and easy to take apart.



When is the darn thing coming out????



I really hope this works and sells extremely well.



At the risk of being the wet rag... don't get your hopes up. Having a screen strapped to your head a few inches from your eyes presents all sorts of ergonomic and long-term usability issues. Additionally, the lack of keyboard and controller visibility when playing games is a much bigger deal than most people seem to think. If you want virtual reality, I recommend a good triple-screen setup and a TrackIR device. I've been using that for years and it's amazingly immersive.

Maybe I'm all wet and it'll be the greatest thing since sliced bread. But I've been on this ride before, and it's never ended well in the past. Nobody will be happier than I will if they can manage to overcome the significant hurdles and revolutionize gaming with the Oculus. But based on what I've seen to date, I seriously doubt it. The Oculus, if you buy one, will most likely end up collecting dust alongside your Microsoft Strategic Commander and other ill-considered peripherals.

Okay, spark up your flamethrowers, Oculus fanboys... I'm all suited up. =)



Well, there's one major difference between the junk products you mentioned and the Rift: the 'public beta' approach Occulus has taken.

With those other products, the company came up with the idea, presumably tried it out with small test groups, gave the greenlight and then they failed. The Rift, however, already has 1500 or so of the developer kits out to consumers (there's a total of 7500 that will be shipped by May or something like that) and then you have time for people to say what they love or hate about it and have it fixed before the retail release. The schematics were also released and there's a significant group of people who have built their own (Google: DIY Occulus Rift) and love them.

On top of the wiggle room they have from the pre-release, and that which most convinces me this won't be a flop are the major players in the gaming world who have used it extensively and love it so much that they've already added support to their games. I mean, if it were just one big name that was like "Sure, this is good," I'd be suspicious, but you have huge names and entire studios saying "Holy crap this is amazing." In fact, in that long list of supporters are Epic, Valve, id and Unity Tech, which happen to be the owners of the four most widely used game engines, and support in those engines is already implemented or in the process of being implemented.

The last factor is how it will affect technology outside of gaming. Look at the Kinect. That thing ultimately ended up sucking balls for gaming, but the hacker community that blew up around it using it for things nobody had even thought of is huge and they create some amazing things. I think the Rift will probably end up the same way.
Think about the possibility of panoramic cameras and being able to look through them with the Rift; no game, just a visual experience. Being able to visit somewhere else remotely. Or what if someone strapped cameras on the outside of the Rift and fed the video into some augmented reality software? Suddenly you have some pretty badass stereoscopic augmented reality goggles. Now combine these new goggles with a Kinect and you have an immersive virtual/augmented reality experience bordering on the level of a personal holodeck.

Think outside the obvious uses, and it becomes obvious how extremely amazing the Rift can be.



I think you're spot on with every point you've made. I've been down the same rabbit hole and previously it's been full of junk.

Honestly, I think this would thrive with a controller setup as opposed to a keyboard/mouse setup like you mentioned. It would certainly do very well with next gen consoles if it was somehow compatible and worked as advertised.

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