Oculus released new videos of its Toybox tech demo providing a new perspective into how much fun VR can be. Overall, the three videos give a look at the near future of VR when we have multiplayer with voice chat, hands and tools to use, all inside a robust sandbox.
The first video shows multiplayer interactivity in Toybox from a perspective watching two people play with the various tools in the Toybox demo. It provides a sense of the playfulness we can have in multiplayer VR:
The next video shows a side-by-side first-person view of what the player sees inside VR and what a camera strapped to the headset sees on the outside. Combined with the previous video, people watching this one should be able to get a great sense of both what is possible in VR and what it feels like:
Robert McGregor took the side-by-side footage and merged it so people can get a sense of the quality of the hand tracking:
These three videos represent great showpieces for people who want to explain what’s possible in VR but don’t have the equipment available to show first-hand.
The Oculus Rift powering these experiences is scheduled to ship early next year and the Touch controllers enabling the hand controllers should arrive before the middle of 2016. While we don’t know the exact prices of the hardware yet, we know the headset will cost more than $350, PCs driving the graphics will start at under $1,000 and the Touch controllers will ship separately with a second camera and they probably won’t be cheap. Together, they make for a package that costs a fair bit more than a mobile VR setup ($100 headset, $50 gamepad controller and $600 phone), but the kind of fun experiences you can enjoy for that additional cost is hinted at in these videos.
While Bullet Train is great fun, I’m hoping Oculus can produce similar videos for Medium, its art creation app.
