The Oculus PC SDK 1.3 is now available on the Oculus Developer Center! We’ve added several new features, including support for the consumer Rift, app lifecycle support, native integrations with the latest releases of Unity and Unreal Engine, and Asynchronous Timewarp (ATW).

You can learn more about ATW and how it helps deliver great VR on the Oculus blog.

You’ll need to build your app with SDK 1.3 to run on Rift. You can download the new SDK from the Oculus Developer Center, and learn more about the updated PC SDK license here.

We’re also releasing the Oculus Platform SDK 1.0, which lets you add features like leaderboards, multiplayer matchmaking, and peer-to-peer networking to your games and apps. The Platform SDK is available for free within the Oculus SDK for Windows, and you can download it here. Several Rift multiplayer launch titles, including Project Cars, Radial-G, and BlazeRush are already leveraging the new Oculus platform features.

Working with the Oculus platform and store

We’ve updated the developer center with information on how to submit your game or app for consideration on the Oculus platform and store. You can access all the details here.

We’re also excited to launch two new sections in the Oculus Store on PC: Concepts and Early Access. Concepts evolved out of Oculus Share, and it’s a place to publish your innovative experiments and tech demos. Early Access is for playable VR experiences that are still in development but are ready for feedback from the community.

Running on Oculus Rift

The Oculus platform and store are designed to provide the best VR experience and content, but we also recognize that people will want to use apps that aren’t available on the Oculus platform or in the store.

As a developer, you don’t have to be in the Oculus Store — you can sell outside, and when you do that you can you use your own IAP if you prefer, and we don’t take a cut. You can also request keys (royalty free) to sell your Oculus PC app on other stores, while making it available to the community through the Oculus platform.

If you’d like to ship outside the Oculus platform using the SDK, you can. People can access this content by enabling the “Unknown Sources” setting in the Oculus desktop app. There are considerations when building Oculus PC apps on other platforms: for example, customers must be able to return Home and see Oculus platform overlays and notifications, including the health and safety notice. You can read the full details of the updated Oculus PC SDK here.

Developer hardware

Every Rift can be used as a development kit. While DK2s aren’t supported as consumer devices, they’ll remain functional as development kits this year for developers working with the latest SDK.

If you need additional developer hardware to build for the 1.3 SDK, submit your app to the Oculus developer portal. We’ll reach out to you and talk next steps.

We’re looking forward to helping you ship great content on Rift, and we can’t wait to see what you build!

– The Oculus Team