Oculus Rift lets you enjoy virtual reality experiences without needing a smartphone or a laptop.
Oculus Go, the standalone VR headset, is now available for sale in 23 countries worldwide. The announcement was made during Facebook’s F8 conference in San Jose, California. Oculus Go, priced at $199 (or approx Rs 13,274), lets you enjoy virtual reality experiences without needing a smartphone or a laptop. Oculus Go hardware is built by Chinese tech company Xiaomi.
Originally announced in October last year, Oculus Go is a wireless, standalone virtual reality (VR) headset that aims to bridge the gap between expensive PC-powered VR headsets such as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive Pro and less-expensive mobile-based Samsung Gear VR. Oculus Go is made from a mesh fabric, and has a WQHD LCD screen per eye. The headset is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 processor – the same processor found inside the original Google Pixel and Pixel XL.
As mentioned earlier, Oculus Go doesn’t require a phone or a PC. Users will be able to use Facebook, watch 360-degree videos, play music and games, and run games. Facebook says over 1,000 games and apps will be compatible with Oculus Go from day one.
The virtual reality (VR) space has been a modest growth so far, with Sony’s PlayStation VR has managed to gain some ground, thanks to the massive popularity of the PlayStation 4. Other than Sony, Samsung, HTC and Facebook’s Oculus have been trying hard to crack the VR market. The latter company has invested billions of dollars in virtual reality, but is yet to see users getting excited about the technology. In 2014, Facebook acquired the virtual reality gaming headset maker Oculus Rift, for $2 billion.