Facebook and Oculus announced the Oculus Rift S, a follow up to their Oculus Rift headset in 2016. The Rift S is announced to show up Spring 2019. The Rift S will be able to run everything the bulky Oculus Rift was able to do. The smaller, lightweight Rift S includes just one wire that goes from the headset to a USB port to the computer. With just a USB cable running from the headset to the computer means no extra cables for sensors. The original Oculus Rift required sensors to know where the joysticks were. Oculus Studios Jason Rubin was asked if there is any development on a wireless version. Unfortunately, he told reporters there is no official first-party wireless adapter to go with the headset. Even with the USB cable, the extra room means more places to use the Oculus Rift S.
The new equipment comes with a higher resolution than the original, reducing what Oculus called the screen door effect. The images on the Oculus Rift gave way to every pixel due to the resolution and closeness. The new Rift S is said to have fixed the screen door effect with the improved resolution. The Rift S also comes with increased visuals alongside the improved resolution and some improved lenses. The improved lenses will make for easier visibility, so no more fishbowl effect when looking around the edges. The headset includes an improved headband that was worked with Lenovo. To make wearing the new headset easier, Oculus Studios introduced Passthrough+. It allows players to see through with a fifth camera showing the outside world without taking the headset off.
The price of the new Rift S is another amazing feature for the smaller Oculus. The new price for the Rift S starts at $399 USD. The original Oculus Rift demanded $600 USD for it. The original did come with every cable needed and even a wireless adapter for an Xbox One controller to play the games with the headset.
The original Oculus Rift took video gaming to the next level with VR. The original Oculus began as a Kickstarter program to gain funds to build it. The Rift S is the next stage in VR equipment for gaming. It will support cross play and cross buy so anything purchased on either device will work on both. The Rift S is aimed to come out for Spring 2019, so it will be right around the corner. If anything about the new VR headset was missed, comment below and let us know what you think about the cheaper, lightweight VR machine! As always keep keeping on!
