Oculus Rift - Update on dev kits, new display, new sensor (shipping in March)

Well, this was completely expected.<p>I was an early backer of this project and thought the timeline completely unrealistic from the start.<p>Funded in September on the back of a render and an ugly prototype with John Carmack's seal of approval - ship in November.<p>Say what?<p>I'm sure a lot of folks will be miffed at the lack of communication about the shipping delay until now, but I'm thinking keeping quiet until they're able to set a hard date probably saves an awful lot of needless discussion.

FYI, the source code that iD Software released for Doom 3 BFG edition[1] includes support for the Oculus Rift[2].<p>1: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4833987" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4833987</a> 2: <a href="http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/11/27/1535206/doom-3-bfg-edition-on-github-timed-for-oculus-rift" rel="nofollow">http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/11/27/1535206/doom-3-bfg-...</a>

There is, of course, a huge difference between making a few things, and having someone manufacture a few thousand things. It is interesting to see people learning these skills under such pressure. Perhaps there is an opportunity here for a training class on manufacturing.<p>I was a bit confused about their comment on the display "We tested every available (non-proprietary) display we could get our hands on." At their volume most manufacturers would hand over details of connecting to their display.

Is anyone else excited at finally being able to work in an immersive 3D environment? We'll no longer need two/three/N screens, we can either draw up as many screens as we need in the VR area, or just resize and position windows as near or far, and make them as large or small, as we like. I'm looking forward to decommissioning my screens.<p>It seems theoretically possible, does anyone know if it can happen?

I'm trying to get a sense as to how exactly the head tracking will correlate with the controls. From the videos I've seen, it looks like the implementations so far have your head movements working in some combination with movements coming from your mouse/game controller.<p>Maybe it's just me, but I'd much prefer controlling my character's body (i.e. where the gun points) with the traditional controller/mouse, and use head tracking to move my character's head/camera only.<p>I think it'd be less tiring that way, and probably more immersive too. As I'm moving around in the game world, I could easily look around without changing the direction I'm travelling.

This type of thing really shows the value of having viable 3d printing available to the masses. The delays involved in just getting ready to manufacture it are more than 3 months! If enough people in the rift community had 3d printers we could probably print all the housings for this order.<p>The delay is disappointing but ultimately not surprising. I was shocked that they were going to have a fully manufactured product out by December. Not including the more than 2 months required to make the injection mold and then running into the month long Chinese new year holiday is pretty unfortunate.

This announcement doesn't speak to the 100 people that ordered the 'Unassembled Prototype'. I'm in this group and wondering when I will be getting my prototype to play with.

The way they chose to present this delay is really infuriating - they have doubled the time to delivery from when the kick starter campaign ended, and made the product worse (a heavier screen farther away from your head).<p>I understand how hard it is to predict a timeline for a product in development, but I would expect an apology instead of "We’re happy to be able to finally announce that the Oculus Rift developer kits will begin shipping in March 2013."<p>I am still excited to get mine in March, but this attitude from occulus makes me question weather it is worthwhile to spend much time developing for it.

Here's a link to that Discovery Channel video on how to make injection molds that they mentioned, but didn't actually link to: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seZqq1qxW30" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seZqq1qxW30</a>

Moving to a 7 inch display seems like a much bigger compromise than they are willing to let on... Wish it could have had the 1080p droid DNA screen...

The delay is a huge bummer, but if it means we might be able to swap in a higher resolution display at a later date I'm all for it. Maybe something like this:<p><a href="http://www.technocular.com/tech-news/japan-display-inc-developers-7-inch-2560-x-1600-pixel-screen-for-tablets/" rel="nofollow">http://www.technocular.com/tech-news/japan-display-inc-devel...</a>

Is that how you'll see the image? Doubled? And won't this backlit display have a negative impact on your eyesight in the long term, being so close and all?