Oculus Rift Confirmed To Be Not Supporting Consoles

[grossaffe]

So, if I may ask for somebody to clarify this for me...

The Oculus Rift will not be supported by consoles. Does this mean just that the motion controls and gyroscopes will not work with them and that the headset itself can be used as an alternative to connecting to a television, or that even the display itself will not function and absolutely nothing will work? Up until now, I've been under the impression that even if I were to never use this as it's intended, I could always just set it up to work as a one-person wearable television set, using it just as a monitor to watch movies or play games. Am I correct in assuming this, or not?

Because of how the Oculus Rift works, you would technically still get a picture, but it would not be at all what you want.

 

[Kurt91]

I've never used one before, either at a presentation of the device or as a dev kit model. Would you mind explaining what I would get? I heard that it would just be like having a large screen in front of you that would display the image rather than like virtual reality. Kind of like a virtual movie theater.

 

[Veho]

I've never used one before, either at a presentation of the device or as a dev kit model. Would you mind explaining what I would get? I heard that it would just be like having a large screen in front of you that would display the image rather than like virtual reality. Kind of like a virtual movie theater.

With software that supports the Rift, you would get actual virtual reality. It has built-in motion sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer), that track your head movement and orientation. In an application (video game, VR surrounding) with full Rift support, this allows you to look around you by turning your head. When you turn somewhere, the in-game camera turns that way too. Since each eye gets its own picture, you also get stereoscopic 3D. So you get virtual reality in 3D.

 

[Kurt91]

What? No, no, you misunderstood me. I know what happens when you use software that supports it. I'm asking, if I were to put on a headset and try to connect it to something that doesn't have the supporting software, what would I get? Would I be able to use it as a single-person monitor or television screen? If I were to try to connect it to something like a DVD player or to my computer and just turn on a media player, would I be able to watch a movie on it?

 

[grossaffe]

What? No, no, you misunderstood me. I know what happens when you use software that supports it. I'm asking, if I were to put on a headset and try to connect it to something that doesn't have the supporting software, what would I get? Would I be able to use it as a single-person monitor or television screen? If I were to try to connect it to something like a DVD player or to my computer and just turn on a media player, would I be able to watch a movie on it?

No. Your eyes would each be getting one half of a single distorted picture. And I don't mean that the two halves would stitch together as you saw it to create one big picture, but rather your brain would be seeing conflicting images with each eye seeing something completely different.

A person could potentially build a device that would convert normal image data into something rift-compatible by applying the necessary distortions to the image and then displaying the same image to each side of the screen. If my senior design project goes as planned, that's a possibility for me to make in the future.

 

[Veho]

What? No, no, you misunderstood me. I know what happens when you use software that supports it. I'm asking, if I were to put on a headset and try to connect it to something that doesn't have the supporting software, what would I get? Would I be able to use it as a single-person monitor or television screen? If I were to try to connect it to something like a DVD player or to my computer and just turn on a media player, would I be able to watch a movie on it?

Sorry, I misunderstood the question.

Like grossaffe said, plugging the Rift into a device without support would give you a garbled image. The software distorts the video before sending it to the Rift, and the Rift then distorts in back. In order to use the Rift with devices without software Rift support (like a DVD player or a set-top box), you'd have to use a converter like grossaffe mentioned, or you'll get a distorted garbled image. That is the state of the current dev kit. The retail version might have a "standard video glasses" mod built-in or come with an optional converter box for that purpose, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

That being said, there's software support available for Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android support is in development, and there are already several video player apps that let you watch movies or see your desktop on the Rift, either in "giant screen in front of you" mode (like standard video glasses), or displayed on a virtual screen inside a virtual movie theatre/room.