Perhaps, Facebook is noticing a simmering on the hot plate that was the virtual reality hype train. A couple of years ago when Oculus Rift was first announced, the collective tech and gaming world salivated at its seemingly limitless potential.
Fast forward to today and the consensus regarding the Rift is that it’s great experience but with a few caveats that have general consumers offering a resounding ‘meh’ to its presence.
Today, at a special developer conference called Oculus Connect, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the Oculus team sought to remove one of the highest barriers to public adoption by announcing lower minimum specs to certify a machine from partners.
Through the “Oculus Ready” program, partners can now start building lower priced devices reaching prices as low as $499.99 based on today’s announcements.
According to developers, the new minimum specs are:
- NVIDIA GTX 960 or greater
- Intel i3-6100 / AMD FX4350 or greater
- 8GB+ RAM
- Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
- 1x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0 ports
- Windows 8 or newer
Thanks to a new asynchronous spacewarp tech, not only can the Oculus software fill in the gaps of the lower spec devices but enable users to achieve 90 frames per second.
With the conversation around virtual reality being shifted towards the HTC Vive or Sony’s PlayStation VR headset and its potential install base of 40 million PlayStation 4 upgrade customers, Oculus reimaging its spec requirements to offer lower prices options makes sense.
Do you think Oculus is on to something with the new minimum spec requirements or is too little too late to turn public opinion around?
