Why Oculus Quest is a Game Changer in Virtual Reality
Two weeks ago, I tried my brother’s Oculus Quest and I was instantly hooked and had to go and
buy one. I got it earlier this week and apparently, I was not the only one who got massively excited about the Oculus Quest. Both Walmart and Amazon are reporting that they have sold out. Best Buy has announced that they don’t have any Oculus Quests left within a 250 miles radius of either Los Angeles or San Francisco, so it has really taken off!
I’ll be honest to say that up until now, my journey with VR has been filled with disappointment and the feeling of being completely underwhelmed over and over again. The “hype curve” has been at the peak of inflated expectations. The only highlight for me, was the Google Tilt Brush some years ago, but even that was not really something that you could imagine would scale and become mainstream.
That moment arrived with the Oculus Quest and, in my mind, VR has moved from ‘disappointing’ to ‘very promising’ on the “hype curve”.
Why is Oculus Quest a game changer?
The technology is standalone: It’s Oculus’ first all-in-one gaming headset. It requires no PC connection or trackers, unlike the original Oculus Rift. This really makes a difference because you are being liberated from having a big gaming PC and all of the time you spend on maintaining it and you can move around freely which creates a much more immersive experience. The tracking is done by the forward facing cameras on your headset which means no more trackers are needed, but that you cannot track your hand movements unless you do it in front of yourself.
The design of the UI is amazing: The interface in the onboarding, setting up the device and playing is outstanding! It is very intuitive and when you have ‘drawn’ your safety boundaries, then you actually feel safe. I have not yet smashed my hands into the wall, I might have stumbled once or twice, but that’s all part of the fun. If you have enough space around you, you can turn the safety boundary off completely which is something I would love to try at some point.
It’s immersive: The tracking of your body, hands, finger movements are on point. You are quickly immersing yourself in the game and even your fine motor skills are being captured by the hand controllers
In a few years the Oculus Quest will be perceived as a crude and basic product, the technology is still under rapid development, so is the content creation and game design to the platform.
But that doesn’t take away the fact that this is the moment VR has really became a viable mainstream platform.
I cannot wait for more content to be available on the platform, we need more multiplayer games, social features and longer games!
