FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Los Angeles - August 1, 2012 - The long-awaited goal of virtual reality (VR)
for video games came a step closer today as Oculus, a developer of virtual
reality technology, launched a Kickstarter campaign for its new headset-the
"Oculus Rift." The campaign aims to speed the distribution of early
development kits to game developers and enthusiasts around the world.
People can join the initiative by visiting the Kickstarter page at
<http://kck.st/MLCaEC> http://kck.st/MLCaEC.
Oculus, led by a number of successful video game veterans and virtual
reality visionaries, has set the funding goal at $250,000 USD. A
contribution of $300 or more gets the donor a Rift VR headset dev kit,
access to the software development kit (SDK) and a copy of Doom 3 BFG, which
has already been integrated with the headset. The package enables developers
not only to experience VR gaming for the first time, but to easily integrate
the Rift with their own games or 3D applications.
"All of us at Oculus are excited to bring truly immersive VR to people who
love video games like we do," said Palmer Luckey, Founder of Oculus.
"Virtual reality has been the long sought after Holy Grail, which most
people only ever dreamed of... until now. The Rift is a true game changer
that will help make VR the standard for gameplay in the very near future."
The Rift allows players to step into game. It produces a stereoscopic 3D
experience with a huge field of view-110 degrees diagonally-so you don't see
the screen. It also overcomes the resolution and latency problems that have
plagued previous VR headsets, where movement in the game lags behind
movement of the head.
"We've already gotten great feedback from the press and buy-in from major
game developers including id Software, Epic, Unity and Valve," Luckey said.
"We know the gaming community will be as excited as we all are when they get
their hands on it."
"I'm a believer," said Cliff Bleszinski, design director at Epic Games.
"We're extremely excited here at Epic Games to get the Unreal Engine
integrated with Oculus!"
"I think this will be the coolest way to experience games in the future. It
will simply be that big," offered David Helgason, CEO of Unity.
"It looks incredibly exciting. If anybody's going to tackle this set of hard
problems, we think that Palmer's going to do it. So we'd strongly encourage
gamers to support this Kickstarter," said Gabe Newell, president and owner
of Valve.
The developer kits acquired through Kickstarter will include access to the
Oculus Developer Center, a community for Oculus developers. The Oculus Rift
SDK will include code, samples, and documentation to facilitate integration
with any new or existing games, initially on PCs and mobiles, with consoles
to follow.
Oculus will be showcasing the Rift at a number of upcoming tradeshows,
including Quakecon, Siggraph, GDC Europe, gamescom and Unite.
Any developer or publisher interested in meeting with Oculus should email
<mailto: XXXX@oculusvr.com> rift@oculusvr.com. For more information, visit:
<http://www.oculusvr.com> www.oculusvr.com
About Oculus.
Oculus is a technology company revolutionizing the way people experience
video games. The company's first product, the Oculus Rift virtual reality
headset, is currently in development and is set to launch in 2013. The
company was founded by Palmer Luckey and veterans of RedOctane, developers
of the acclaimed Guitar Hero series, Scaleform, the #1 user interface
software in the gaming, and Gaikai, the cloud gaming company. For more
information on the Oculus Rift, visit: <http://kck.st/MLCaEC>
http://kck.st/MLCaEC or email: rift@oculusvr.com.
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