GDC: Oculus Debuts Rift Development Kit 2, Shipping in July for $350

GDC: Oculus Debuts Rift Development Kit 2, Shipping in July for $350 

Oculus today announced another huge leap toward bringing its Rift virtual reality headset to market with the debut of the Rift Development Kit 2 — the first version of the headset to made available for sale since the original dev kit began shipping last year. Priced at $350 and available for pre-order now, the Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2) leap frogs over the last-generation, integrating all of the new features and technology of the Crystal Cove prototype unveiled at CES in January, including a higher resolution OLED display, low-persistence motion tracking, latency reducing software, and included infrared camera.

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Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 Hands-on

While still targeted at developers, the Rift DK2 establishes what Oculus considers to be the baseline experience for the consumer model, though it still hasn't committed to a launch timeframe for the retail variant. In terms of build and design, the DK2 is less boxy than the original development kit and is fairly lightweight. It's still wired via USB, however, the company has eliminated the external control box in favor of a direct connection to any PC via USB and HDMI. As we discussed back in January, the Rift now employs an external infrared camera that tracks the headset's position in 3D space, allowing players to lean and tilt their perspective inside of a game world.
While Crystal Cove utilized LED trackers mounted on the exterior of the Rift, the DK2 actually hides the markers underneath its shell — a unique plastic material that infrared sensors can see through.

Experientially, the quality of the DK2 is even better than Crystal Cove, due to software improvements made since January. The motion blur that plagues the original development kit is more or less gone — your perspective can transition fluidly with no distortion, which in turn limits nausea and discomfort. The higher resolution OLED display also vastly enhances the experience, making worlds more detailed and life-like. Lines of resolution are still visible to the user, but considerably less so than the previous iteration.

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Oculus on When You Can Buy a Rift and the New DevKit 2

Oculus has also built an integrated USB port at the top of the device, which allows developers to experiment with wired peripherals and add-ons, such as motion controllers or other sensors.
The Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 ships in July.