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Oculus has announced their next foray into VR, revealing their prototype of Project Santa Cruz as Oculus Quest. First revealed as a prototype in 2016, It's due for a full release in spring of 2019, retailing for $399.99, and will offer specifications like having a 1600x1440 display resolution per eye, and 64GB of internal storage. 50 new games will accompany the headset's launch including the likes of Robo Recall, The Climb, and Moss which were previously only available on its competitor, the Rift. The main differing feature of the Oculus Quest is that it's a standalone "all-in-one" device, meaning you won't need any extra hardware to power the headset, as it has a mobile processing chip built in.

More information is scheduled to be revealed later this week, during the Oculus Connect 5 event, where the system will be on display as demo units.

We’re excited to usher in the next era of VR gaming with the introduction of Oculus Quest, our first all-in-one VR gaming system. Oculus Quest will launch in Spring 2019 for $399 USD. Offering six degrees of freedom and Touch controllers, Oculus Quest makes it easy to jump right into the action—all with no PC, no wires, and no external sensors. We have over 50 titles in the works, including some of your favorite Rift games like Robo Recall, The Climb, and Moss. With the introduction of Oculus Quest, we’ve completed our first generation of best-in-class VR headsets. Oculus Go remains the easiest and most affordable way to get into VR, while Oculus Rift leverages the power of your PC to push the limits of what’s possible. Thanks to Oculus Quest, we’re now able to combine the best of both worlds and welcome even more people into the VR community. Visit oculus.com to learn more. This year’s Oculus Connect is all about celebrating how far the VR industry has come in the past five years—and looking ahead to an even brighter future—so it’s no surprise that we’d be revisiting Project Santa Cruz. Originally unveiled at OC3 in 2016, Santa Cruz was the very first prototype of VR’s standalone form factor. No HDMI cables connecting you to a PC, no external sensors, no need to drop in a phone—just put on a completely untethered headset and be instantly transported to any number of virtual worlds. Fast forward to 2017, when we introduced two positionally-tracked controllers at OC4 for a glimpse of the magic of hand presence delivered by Touch delivered in a standalone form factor. Although we started off building an entirely new input device for Santa Cruz, we got some great feedback from the developer community, encouraging us to use the same input as Rift. It’s important that we make it easy for devs to build for both platforms to ensure the long-term health of the VR industry, and we’ll do more to unify our content ecosystems in the months and years ahead.

 

[APartOfMe]

I'm excited for this. It has the potential to be the VR headset we've been wanting since the beginning

 

[Beerus]

woah the price does not seem that bad

 

[Chary]

I feel like this is the step that VR finally needs to move forward. Looks pretty cool.

 

[osaka35]

Looks like fun! I'm assuming it'll be able to do all the other VR stuff to, like VR videos. I'll wait for an as-is I can fix up before I buy, but should be fun.

 

[I_AM_L_FORCE]

SAO when

 

[radicalwookie]

I'm assuming it'll be able to do all the other VR stuff to, like VR videos.

VR Videos my ass, you want some good ol porno

 

[osaka35]

VR Videos my ass, you want some good ol porno

VR Porn is definitely a very valid use of VR. I personally wouldn't mind some first-person action movies or the like.

 

[HideoKojima]

The problem with VR is the lack of good games, I know they are offering 50 games but I bet they aren't really worth it.

 

[spotanjo3]

Too big. @_@

 

[Axido]

I'm really a VR enthusiast, but I don't think this device is worth it until proven otherwise.
It's the proprietary way that Oculus went from the beginning, just even more restricted this time around, because VR games would need to be ported to that mobile processor specifically. Though, I'd actually like to know how this is supposed to run well on that chip.

I'd like to see this become a hit, but that will highly depend on the library of games available for it. I hope Survios (Sprint Vector, Raw Data and some crazy DJing game that I forgot the name of) is on board. I don't really see it become the next cool device that every kid has one of, but as long as the hardware is capable enough and there's a good amount of enjoyable games coming out and a freakin' lot of marketing being done, it might not become a flop at least.

Not being able to upgrade the chip (for more demanding games or better visuals) without having to buy a totally new HMD sucks, though. That's as much of a waste of material as it is with smartphones.

 

[Vieela]

This is really interesting! I personally always wanted to test VR but didn't want to buy a computer or a phone just to play VR Games myself. This might be my first (i've used VR before, but not for games like Beat Saber or any of the known games) time playing VR games. Nice! The price seems good for what it offers too. It's an entire built in system, so it's fair.

 

[DKB]

400 is cheap for a device like this. I'm hype.

 

[CorpseFlower]

I own the rift and i can say this oculus headset is really comfortable and so are controllers. I like where oculus is trying bring vr to many instead of niche market vr is in rn.

 

[kumikochan]

Must say that the specs are impressive for the price. 1600x1440 per eye is nice for that price

 

[hamohamo]

1600*1440 is not that good a resolution imo. But getting a working standalone vr device at 400 bucks is a good deal. I just hope the games aren't impressive tech demos but actual fun games.

 

[x65943]

Price point is good, but I think the device's standalone nature is actually a bad thing.

What is this thing running anyway? Is it a fork of linux or android or what?

 

[Daggot]

Meh standalone headsets aren't the gaming enthusiast devices people are expecting. I'd recommend anyone getting into VR and looking for something high end to wait a year or two for them to make one of the oculus rift successor prototypes into a real product (imo the half dome prototype looked very promising I just hope they switch to 4k in each eye).

 

[kumikochan]

1600*1440 is not that good a resolution imo. But getting a working standalone vr device at 400 bucks is a good deal. I just hope the games aren't impressive tech demos but actual fun games.

How is that not good when the rift only has 1080x1200 per eye ? That resolution is def good per eye for that price. I think you missed the point that this is per eye resolution. even the vive only has 1080x1200

 

[pedro702]

problem of vr games is they are all just "minigames" or tech demos, barely any vr game is even worth playing, so paying 400$ to play some tech demos and minigames is very pricey.