71 SHARES Facebook Twitter Linkedin Reddit

Oculus VR’s ‘Crystal Cove’ prototype is a huge step up from the Rift developer kit (DK1). Those who have tried the very latest prototype technology from Oculus VR say that it’s even better than Crystal Cove.

Cliff Bleszinski, best known as Lead Designer on the Gears of War franchise was an early investor in Oculus VR. Those of you who have been following along for as long as we have will remember Bleszinski from the Oculus Rift Kickstarter video.

Earlier this month, Bleszinski got his head in the latest in Oculus Rift tech, apparently a prototype even beyond the Crystal Cove prototype that impressed us last month at CES 2014.

Visited Oculus again today. Every time I see the latest my jaw is on the floor. I’m never taking it off when it’s the final version. — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) February 9, 2014

The dev kit experience is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a game changer. — Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) February 9, 2014

What’s more, Bleszinski elaborated yesterday on his blog about his excitement for the Oculus Rift:

The effort of putting on the headset leads to an overwhelmingly fantastic result. When you put on the latest demo and you crouch and lean around the new world around you your brain adapts, adjusts, and you’re there. I have memories of the places I visited in the latest demos. I felt like I could have reached out and touched things. It was the most magical experience I’ve had with technology since the first time I saw an Atari 2600 joystick manipulate pixels on my friend’s TV in their basement many, many years ago and decided then that I wanted to make games.

I have a strange feeling that Bleszinski, who left Epic Games last year, may be working on a virtual reality / Oculus Rift project.

A few days after Bleszinski, Dave Oshry, Director of Marketing at Gunnar Optiks, also visited Oculus and was blown away by what he saw. He claims that the latest from Oculus is beyond the Crystal Cove prototype and even beyond Valve’s prototype VR headset that was shown at Steam Dev Days last month.

I just saw the future of VR at @Oculus. Wow. Even if you’ve seen Crystal Cove. Even if you were at Dev Days. You ain’t seen nothing yet. — El Oshcuro (@DaveOshry) February 13, 2014

I really want to play Titanfall. But can’t stop thinking about what I saw at Oculus today. I want to go back in and stay there. It’s scary. — El Oshcuro (@DaveOshry) February 14, 2014

Oshry chimed in on a thread about his tweet on the Oculus subreddit and even confirms that he’s working on an Oculus Rift game:

I’m under NDA obviously, but the tech that Oculus is preparing for the final consumer version is the best VR I have ever seen. I wanted to stay in it and walk around, but the room was only so big and I only had so much time. Everything was perfect. The fidelity, the latency, the scale, the presence. It was the first time I truly felt like I was in VR. Do I regret backing the Kickstarter or having multiple DK1s? Absolutely not. If anything, it’s amazing to see how far the technology has come since I first met Nate and Palmer in a room at Quake Con with duct tape and ski goggles. If I’m allowed to say more, I always will. @DaveOshry is the best place to find me. I’m as excited as you guys are. Which is why I’m making an Oculus-ready game.

What could Oculus be showing that’s supposedly blowing the Crystal Cove prototype away… 4k resolution? Full body tracking? 180 degree field of view? At this point, your guess is as good as ours!