Don't Brick the DK2

[Bagnet]

This is just a request really. When the day comes that the DK2 is no longer functional under current drivers, can we get an assurance that it will fail to upgrade to that driver thus not bricking the product i paid for?

i realise that game support will get more and more flaky and that is down to the developers and out of oculus's control. i accept this fully. I also accept that Oculus want to sell CV1's, However i have no means of upgrading to a CV1, my financial situation is not what it was a couple of years ago and its going to be a long time until i can even think about affording one. The increased price was expected but pushed it beyond my means.

All i want is for the driver that kills it to say - Sorry you have a DK2 and this driver will not be compatible so you gotta stay on the one you're on. When devs don't support it in their new games then i know it will be dead (Other than the games i play now!) but i don't want to lose VR until i have to at which point i will probably stop gaming completely as there is no way back to flat screen gaming now! I just dont want it deliberately killed. And yes i know.. developer version.. not consumer etc but i paid good cash for it and it works perfectly. I can't accept that it will be bricked at the end of the year when i could just stay on a previous driver until i'm rich and famous etc lol

[Dreamwriter]

Bagnet said:

I just want clarity. Cyber advised not buying one any more as it probably wont work after year end. Unless they deliberately upgrade them to an incompatible driver then there is no reason it will stop working. My feeling is if they roll out a driver that stops it working then they have deliberately broken a piece of hardware i bought from them. I don't understand - dev kit or not - how that would be legal or ethical to do! As i said in my original post if devs do something in games that makes it non functional in that game then thats not oculus's fault but to roll a driver out that stops it working most definitely would be their fault. It has a hardware ID that can be checked for on install and if non compatible - dont install the driver! if they dont want me using home then fine. let me have a driver that doesnt use it and i can go play assetto corsa happily forever!

I think you are misunderstanding how things work. They wouldn't release a new hardware driver or firmware that would cause your development kit to stop working, they would instead release a new version of their Oculus Home software and new SDK that would not be compatible with the old development kits. Your Dev Kit would still continue to function, it just wouldn't be able to use Oclulus Home or play commercial games built or updated with that SDK. That is both perfectly legal and ethical, as the device was specifically sold as a Dev kit and they never once promised it would ever play commercial games - in fact, they said at least once that it wouldn't play them, that it would continue to be usable to develop games until the end of 2016 but not be able to play them. Obviously they changed their minds.