Oculus Quest is due to launch in a matter of months but John Carmack is still hoping we’ll see one major addition to the device.
Carmack was again asked about the possibility of tethering Facebook’s newest standalone headset to a PC on Twitter over the weekend. He simply replied: “Sorry, no promises, but I hope so!”
Sorry, no promises, but I hope so!
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) March 24, 2019
Given that Carmack is Chief Technology Officer at Oculus and has been working on fine-tuning Quest, this gives us hope. Quest is an all-in-one device that features everything needed to play games like Superhot onboard. It’s got a six degrees of freedom (6DOF) inside-out tracking system that enables you to move as you would in Rift too. In theory, if you could plug a Quest into a PC, you could play PC VR content too.
Back in October 2018 Carmack revealed that Oculus did discuss a PC VR mode for Quest. At the time he said the company is looking into “maxing out WiFi streaming” on the device but, again, couldn’t make any promises that it would happen.
But there’s one thing standing in the way of that possibility: Oculus Rift S. Facebook’s newly-announced PC VR headset already integrates some of the features of Quest like inside-out tracking. Adding PC VR support to Quest would leave Rift S struggling with a reason to exist. Oculus would surely be cannibalizing the sales of Rift S in that case.
Perhaps it’s an option for the future, then. The idea of plugging Quest into a PC to play a high-fidelity game like Lone Echo and then unplugging it and taking it to a friend’s house to play Beat Saber is an exciting one.
Oculus Quest launches this spring for $399.
