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Applemung
Participant
June 28, 2013

Should I buy a development kit now or wait?

Hello everyone!

I have a question to ask the forum or more so pointed towards the Oculus Rift Dev team.
Roughly how long would the waiting period be if I was to order a dev kit today and would it be
worth the waiting time? Is a consumer Rift version close to being announced or a 1080p dev kit
on the horizon? I am not fussed about the lower resolution model but it would be a shame for me to purchase
the lower resolution dev kit only to have the consumer version or higher resolution dev kit be available for
purchase by the time the dev kit arrives.

I have been an avid gamer for all of my life and have always been fascinated by the idea of a
fully immersible virtual reality environment. I plan on building quite an elaborate simulator, similar
to the ultimate battlefield 3 sim. I am constructing a shed in my backyard which will house my sim.
It will consist of an omni directional treadmill similar in design to MSE Weibulls system ( I will be building this myself). Razer Hydra will be the interaction/aiming device and an ovehead positioning system will keep track of the location
of the player to control motor speed. The final piece of the puzzle if of course the Oculus Rift.
Which brings me back to my question, should I wait or get a dev kit. If the wait for a dev kit is a few months
away that doesn't bother me, more so if there is going to be a release within that period of time.

Cheers!

    17 replies

    Show previous replies
    LittleGuy
    Participant
    June 30, 2013
    Bit the bullet and just ordered it! Now to play the waiting game for the next 3 - 4 months :(
    Mike
    MrGeddings
    Up and Coming
    July 1, 2013
    you may wish to wait too as Battlefeild 3 has some very detailed graphics (BF4 will more so) and i think the low res of the screen really will take away from some of your experence, if you want it to be the "ultimate" setup. I think a good quality screen in VR will be the best...also because of the low res it may be hard to make out friend or foe from a distance right now.
    ApplemungAuthor
    Participant
    July 1, 2013
    The set up is not intended to only play battlefield 3, i pointed towards that to show what omni treadmill design i wanted to use as the gadget show used bf3 to show off their simulator. Lol everyone seems to think that I'm building this to only play battlefield. No where in my post does it say that. Anyhow, I'm reading quite allot of posts about the poor resolution.
    could someone post a picture of the actual picture quality? as in what you would actually see in the oculus, but change the res of the picture to view on the screen. I'll still get the dev kit because it would all need to be integrated and I'm not going to waste two years waiting for a high def screen.
    LittleGuy
    Participant
    July 1, 2013
    Applemung, see this site on what it looks like when wearing the Oculus Rift.

    http://www.roadtovr.com/2013/05/26/what-does-it-look-like-in-the-oculus-rift-6090

    Personally I don't think it's all that bad, kinda reminds me of a type of scanline effect :D
    Mike
    kariiato
    New Participant
    July 4, 2013
    I think that I'll wait. Given a couple of points based upon my own assumptions.

    1) You don't create and share a prototype unless you see it as a future product it hurts your current sales. Given that a major drawback of the current rift is the display, I think a lot of hobbyists are waiting on it.
    2) The current LCD management chip in the rift can handle 1080p displays so no hardware change (may be a pcb board change) is required if they find a 5.5 in 1080p display compatible with a REALTEK industry standard chip they currently use.
    3) It's much easier to retrofit the head-tracking board than a LCD display. The head-tracking board is a small PCB that could be replaced in a few minutes if the head set disassembled a little differently.
    4) The current sales rate verses the reported production rate will mean all back orders should be filled by September (my estimate and very back of an envelope one). There are just so many developers out there. Given the project sales plans and Oculus size and funding cash is important even with the VC funding. They have quite a high head count for such a small company, small start up do not want to to be sitting of a lot of inventory (dk1), it hurts cash flow to have inventory. Even at 1000 units a week that's still a million dollars a month in inventory if their sales fall.
    5) If they want to make there sales figures they need to expand outside the developer community even 40,000 units this year might happen with the current sales rate (estimate) of 500 a week. I can't see selling 500,000 units in 2014 if there are not a good number of early adopters with DK2's. I don't think the DK1 will spread enough to create a ground swell in the 3rd/4th quarter, they would have to sell 20,000 units a week in the second half to meet their goal of half a million units unless they are selling higher numbers of units in Q1/Q2 than they are now.
    6) Other players may make their own hardware specifically Microsoft or Sony. Other than the sensor board these companies already have experience in this very hardware field.

    Given all that above I'm guessing using the magic tea leaves that we will see a DK2 go on sale late Q3 13 for delivery late Q4 13. With an updated sensor package late Q1 14 which can be retro fitted.
    ZachPrinz
    New Participant
    July 4, 2013
    It's so hard to resist buying the current Dev kit. I code 3D games, but just as a hobby and I'm starting school next year so I figured I'd wait for the consumer version. But this wait is becoming maddening.

    I wish they would throw us a bone. I want to love Oculus but them giving no updates on any type of consumer release is really frustrating.
    ApplemungAuthor
    Participant
    July 6, 2013
    Development kit has been ordered!!! Now to play with unity and make an fps suited for the oculus!!!
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