Oculus Rift gets USD16-million funding boost

Oculus Rift’s Kickstarter campaign ended up smashing its $250,000 target, eventually turning in just under USD4-million when the campaign ended. The firm has now additionally secured more funding from a private investor to the tune of USD16-million.

By and large, virtual reality gaming just hasn’t taken off like everyone expected it to. Like the 3D craze, virtual reality headsets and kits seem to have a craze every decade or so. Sega tried it, Nintendo tried it, and some arcades still have one or two machines that run games like Mech Warrior rip-offs and this one baseball simulator I tried.

However, Oculus Rift changes the way the technology works and now adds proper motion control and creates a more believable world thanks to improved technology. It uses a tablet-sized screen at 7 inches diagonally, at a maximum resolution of 1280 x 800. The Rift also does stereoscopic, passive 3D with an effective resolution of 640 x 800 for each eye.

Oculus Rift

“The additional funding will enable will enable Oculus to hire more developers and make the final consumer version better than the prototypes currently being shown”, said founder Palmer Luckey. In addition, the extra money will be used to give the company access to newer technology for starting development on the Rift’s successor.

Currently the company is planning a consumer version of the device with a 7-inch 1920 x 1080 screen with passive 3D vision. Its possible that the Rift will be compatible with Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology and this may be the turning point for virtual reality technology to finally take hold in the consumer space.

The Oculus Rift has been endorsed by John Carmack (id Games), Dean Hall (DayZ developer), Gabe Newell (Valve), Cliff Bleszinski (previously at Epic Games), Michael Abrash (Valve), Tim Sweeney (Epic Games), Chris Roberts (Star Citizen developer), Markus Persson (Minecraft developer), David Helgason (Unity Technologies), as well as president of Sony Worldwide Studios’ Shuhei Yoshida (How to Share PS4 Games).