Oculus Schism: The Presentation

Let me preface this by saying I'm not here to riff on the Oculus, but their official press conference that aired on Twitch.tv this Thursday's morning portends some serious implications and was egregiously lackluster. Strap in, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

For anyone who's been stranded at sea the last two years, Oculus Rift is the groundbreaking virtual reality(VR) technology that is grabbing some major momentum from gamers and executives alike, especially after facebook's acquisition for a reported two billion USD.

It's a long stride from VR's predecessors and its intriguing merits far surpass any downfalls, but that's not what irks me. In fact, with the micro presentations including software and hardware exposition, I'm watering at the mouth to get my hands on a fully flushed consumer version. It was, however, the Microsoft masturbation that began to exacerbate my apprehension.

It began with the promise of a free Xbox One(Xbone) controller, an edification that absolutely detonated the Twitch chat. A torrent of memes and Microsoft bashing exploded in a matter of seconds, users reviling at the impending capitalist dystopia. Of course no one should take the word of Twitch chat, but their reaction wasn't entirely overblown.

I'm Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, and I'm excited to be here to announce a partnership between Microsoft and a leader in virtual reality, Oculus.

Oculus Rift has stepped into the domain of petty bandying and forging financial alliances with the big-budgeted barons over at Microsoft because even though they proclaim to support indie developers, it's still necessary for them to aggrandize one big player.

Don't worry, Xbone owners, you can also stream your Xbone games to your Xbone Oculus VR headset with no mention to PC streaming, however Spencer was vehemently prophetic of Windows 10's support of gaming and VR technology.

The crowd reaction to the Xbone streaming demo video garnered isolated laughter from at least one member of the audience and nary a single applaud. Spencer even remarked on the laughter out of embarrassment, and I will say, it wasn't meant to be a comedic video.   

Microsoft tucked tail and dodged the stage, paving the way for Oculus Studios Head, Jason Reuben, who is a self-proclaimed creator of terrible video games.

I immediately set out making video games. Those games were ugly, they were 2D, they were pixelated...

It's almost like Oculus forgot who they were selling their product to. I know plenty of beautiful 2D games, and if you've ever tried pixel art, then maybe you can respect the nuance that comes with infinitesimal design.

At least at this point they begin revealing made-for-Oculus video games, two of the poster boys were third-person, which kind of defeats the point, but I'll get into that in a moment. 

The first game on the docket was EVE Valkyrie, a space dofighting game with a lot of potential and immaculate assets. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fight in a chaotic and unorchestrated space battle? Me too! Good thing we still don't know what that feels like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ4gpjwJa08

Good job, Oculus, you spend twenty minutes shoving VR immersion down my throat only to reveal gameplay in 2D trailers. Cool, your game looks fine, but I seriously don't care about a game trailer when I want to see how it benefits from the VR technology that you're demoing, and Nate Mitchell seems to agree.

You can't convey what a VR game will be like through a video or a screenshot...

There's multiple of these, all funded by Oculus for the express intent of proprietary propagation. Several of the video games were third-person and I even saw one game that looked to be strategy or 4X which only leads me to believe that everyone outside of the EVE developers simply needed the money and got suckered into this fowl incubus' mandibles.

This is disheartening because the games all looked great, but they're made for Oculus which means you need the technology as a prerequisite. Pretend for a moment that Kinect is relevant to anyone and this would be like buying a Kinect to play Shitting Simulator. It's a peripheral that enhances games, but when the technology is used incorrectly I fail to glean the benefits. 

My final hypothesis is that Oculus's investors needed something to place on the new VR storefront, "Oculus Home", because we totally needed another third-party store to worry about. I can only wait for the absolute insanity when Ubisoft releases a game on Oculus Home.

Now I know that many of you came here for the merits of Oculus, and of that there are many, so let me start off by saying the VR headset went from being a bulky pair of glasses made of blacksmith anvils to a trimmed and sleek, fabric-wrapped hat, basically. It seems to slip on comfortably as the straps are form-fitting but malleable, reminiscent of the headlamps I use to hike. 

It has detachable, wireless headphones, but alas I cannot attest to their prowess because they reminded me of a $3 set of walkman headphones I had in the early aughts. They proclaim surround sound giving a three-dimensional sphere of immersion, but I'll wait for the audiophiles to get their hands on it personally at an Oculus booth before I offer conjecture. Good thing I can use my own headphones instead, even though I might have to drop a paycheck on a new wireless addition.

The headset also features an adjustable dial to configure the lenses allowing different users to tweak their experiences, and if you wear glasses like me and all the other nerds out there, don't worry, they've refitted everything to accomodate. 

Some of the more veritable assets include a "constellation" tracking system that syncs movement, much as you would see in a mo-cap setting.

This is also present in their dual-wielding Stargate controllers that give you bad case of raptor-hands, presented below by Oculus' coincidentally named founder, Palmer Luckey.

Are they unique and flashy? Sure, but the energy I lost looking at Palmer's vapid display of the VR's arguably most interesting aspect could have powered the E3 presentation for another two days. They are called Oculus Touch "Half Moons" and rightfully so, I almost fell asleep. 

All of that aside, I hope our readers have their own insight and I would love to hear your opinions. Overall, the presentation didn't try to sell the product as much as it tried to sell Microsoft and needless peripherals, even failing at that abhorrent attempt.

The Oculus Rift is available the first quarter of 2016, but I hope before then they decided to make some major changes including shaving a completely useless controller off the top and charging me £35.58 less. No price for the headset was announced, by the way.