We’re thrilled to share the latest news from Oculus and our partners at Oculus Connect 2 as we look ahead at the next year for VR.



CEO Brendan Iribe live on the Dolby Theater at Hollywood and Highland

You can catch the full keynote on the Oculus Twitch channel.

Here’s an overview of what we announced today during the keynotes.

Consumer Gear VR at $99

Oculus Mobile is a key part of putting virtual reality in the hands of everyone.

Together with Samsung, we introduced an all new consumer edition of Gear VR for $99. This new version will be compatible with Samsung Galaxy Note 5, S6 edge +, S6, and S6 edge. Gear VR will be launching in November starting in the United States, with more than 40 additional countries coming shortly after.



Peter Koo, SVP, Technology Strategy, Mobile Communications Division

With the consumer launch around the corner, we’re excited to share a few of the incredible new games, videos, and experiences coming to Gear in the months ahead.



Head of Mobile at Oculus, Max Cohen

Dozens of new made-for-VR games are launching on Gear VR, including Land’s End by UsTwo, Gunjack by CCP Games, and Smash Hit by Mediocre.

Here’s a sneak peek of these games, among many more, coming to Gear next year:

Oculus Arcade on Gear VR

At Oculus, we love old-school arcade games. And today we’re introducing Oculus Arcade for Gear VR, which brings more than 20 classic games from Sega, Warner Bros. Midway, and Bandai Namco into your own virtual arcade.

Many of our favorites like Sonic the Hedgehog, Gauntlet, Spy Hunter, and Pac-Man will be available when Oculus Arcade launches later this year.

Fox, Lionsgate, Twitch, Vimeo, and Facebook join Oculus Video

Oculus Cinema has been reborn as Oculus Video, and we’ve greatly expanded the content library with a group of amazing new partners.

We’ve been working with major Hollywood studios to introduce a completely new way to experience movies. In the coming weeks, you’ll be able to watch over 100 hit movies, all from a virtual theater.

Lionsgate is bringing a slate of current blockbusters and classic library titles including The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Insurgent. We’ve partnered with 20th Century Fox to bring hits such as Alien Trilogy and X-Men.

We’ve also partnered with Twitch to bring live streaming video to Gear VR. You can even watch with friends in avatar form, showing a true social presence in VR.

And we have other great partners like Vimeo, Tivo, and Hulu who are building incredible content and apps for the platform. You can try many of these experiences on Gear VR here at the conference.

And finally, Facebook launched 360 videos in News Feed, and starting in November, you’ll be able to access all of that 360 content right from Oculus Video.

Netflix VR now available on Gear VR

Starting today, Netflix customers can watch their entire catalog of award-winning original series, documentaries and films on Gear VR.

John Carmack shared some of his thoughts about working with Netflix to engineer and design the made-for-VR app over at the Netflix blog.

Minecraft on Oculus

We’re thrilled to share that Minecraft will be coming to Oculus!

Minecraft will be shipping next spring on Rift and Gear VR. We’re looking forward to building and exploring new worlds with you.

Rift: Oculus Ready Program, Rift SDK, and New Games

We identified a recommended spec for Rift to ensure a great experience and simplify development. And we’ve been collaborating with our technology partners NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD to advance the state of PC hardware for VR.

We announced the new Oculus Ready PC program, designed to make it easy to buy a great PC for Rift.

When you see this logo you know this machine meets the recommended spec and has been tested to ensure a great experience.

Starting early next year, our partners Asus, Dell, and Alienware will offer brand new Oculus Ready machines powered by NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. Many of these systems will start at a variety of price points under $1,000.

This is just the beginning for the Oculus Ready program. We’ll have more partners to announce in the coming year.

New Rift Games and Rift SDK 1.0

The Rift SDK 1.0 will be coming this December. Games built with 1.0 will be ready to release on Rift day one. They’ll also be compatible with future releases of the runtime.

There are now over 200,000 registered users on the Oculus Developer Center. Here’s a look at a few of the incredible games and experiences the Oculus community is bringing to Rift next year:

Introducing the New Oculus Platform

We’re dedicated to building the best VR platform for Rift and Gear VR developers. And today we announced new features and services coming to Oculus platform this winter.



Head of Developer Strategy, Anna Sweet

We’re adding more robust features around User Profiles to allow people to personalize their Oculus accounts. Game developers will be able to customize information by utilizing things like OculusIDs and avatar pictures.

We’ll be adding additional platform and game services like IAP, and other social features like friend lists and achievements.

We’re also introducing Oculus Concepts, a new way for developers to distribute content in the early stages of development with the broader Oculus community.

Concepts will launch first on Gear VR, and next year on Rift.

Oculus Touch and Touch SDK

Earlier this year, we introduced Oculus Touch, a new pair of tracked controllers that let you bring your own hands into VR and take your games and experiences even further. Touch is designed around delivering hand presence — the feeling that your virtual hands are your own.

We’re making early Touch hardware available to developers, and the Touch SDK is shipping alongside developer hardware. The Touch SDK will have everything you need including API’s for determining the position of the controllers, recognizing hand controllers, and driving the haptics avatar hands. These will be fully integrated into Unity and Unreal with sample code.

Introducing ‘Oculus Medium’

Oculus Medium is a new art tool that we’ve created for Touch.

We built Medium for everyone, from aspiring creatives to professional artists. It lets you use the Touch controllers to reach out and create incredible works of art in virtual reality.

Medium will be shipping alongside Touch in Q2, and it’s also available to try here at Connect. We’re excited for you to see the possibilities.

New Games coming to Oculus Touch

We have 8 new games coming to Oculus Touch, including:

Final Approach by Phaser Lock Interactive

Moon Strike by Big Dorks

Pulsar Arena by ZeroTransformation

Job Simulator by Owlchemy Labs

I Expect You To Die by Schell Games

Nimbus Knights by Otherworld Interactive

Dead & Buried by Oculus Studios Team

Surgeon Simulator by Bossa Studios

Epic Debuts ‘Bullet Train’ Demo for Oculus Touch

Epic debuted a brand new Oculus Touch demo, ‘Bullet Train’, a VR gunfight experience allowing you to interact in bullet time and teleport around the scene.

Gear VR is bringing VR to millions, Rift is enabling next-gen gaming and true presence, and Touch is redefining the way we interact in VR.

We have another full day of talks, demos, and workshops ahead. Thanks for being a part of the good old days of VR with us.

— The Oculus team