Oculus strikes away from PC VR with the Quest, however “would not rule out” a Rift Pro

The co-founder of Oculus, Nate Mitchell, has indicated that the digital actuality firm has not forgotten concerning the skilled VR headset house. Speaking to us at a pre-OC5 occasion, Mitchell confirmed the corporate wasn’t making any bulletins within the high-end VR house, however when requested about rivalling HTC’s Vive Pro he confirmed Oculus “would not at all rule that out”.

It’s not the affirmation of recent shiny tech that players would possibly’ve been hoping for, however it’s an indication that the corporate, which introduced a model new standalone VR headset this week, isn’t completely giving up on PC headsets powered by a connection, whether or not tethered or in any other case, between the headset and a PC with a discrete graphics card.

Oculus Quest is the newest headset from Facebook’s digital actuality arm, however it’s a purely standalone machine and doesn’t require a connection to your gaming PC. That leaves the Rift, the identical headset we’ve been gaming on for over two and half years, as the one tethered PC gaming VR headset from Oculus for the quick future.

“We don’t have any sort of pro headsets announced at this time,” Mitchell says. “But we’re always thinking about each of these different verticals or, really, audiences. How can we best serve them with the hardware, with the software, with the services, with the content. We try to think about this really as sort of a cohesive strategy and that all of those things together, ultimately, are the products”

Oculus’ competitor HTC launched knowledgeable model of its HTC Vive headset initially of the yr: the HTC Vive Pro. It was met to combined response from players – in case you are questioning why, right here’s the total HTC Vive Pro review – however, realistically, this new and improved HTC Vive 1.5 was focusing on a unique viewers than its mainstream mannequin: enterprise.

Oculus is approaching functions for VR in the identical means, with the not too long ago introduced standalone headset focusing on an informal, and wide-reaching, viewers, and the Rift one other. Potentially, a Vive Pro headset might be on the playing cards sooner or later, tailor-made to capitalise on the skilled aspect of VR and enterprise functions – that features in style ‘VR experiences’, too.

“So there’s all kinds of really neat stuff happening, it’s probably 40% games, 40% media, and 20% everything else. And we’re definitely trying to foster everything across the entire ecosystem, whether it is education, or simulation, and training, productivity, these are all really important to us over the long term.”

Oculus has confirmed the Oculus Quest would be the final of the preliminary wave of headsets from the corporate, and it feels like Oculus shall be shifting focus to content material in the meanwhile. That doesn’t depart a lot scope for a professional-grade headset anytime quickly, however no less than there’s a glimmer of hope, even when not particularly focused at players, that Oculus hasn’t completely forgotten about high-end VR.