On the first day of Oculus Connect 6, Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to generous applause from an enthusiastic crowd of VR True Believers. True, this time there was no hardware announcement, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t big news.
VR has always been about creating an emotional connection with other people or places and the enhancements showcased today drove that forward. An interconnected geographically free society is a great challenge.
With $100 million-plus sales of content in the Oculus Store with 20% of coming from the Oculus Quest VR is more and more embedding itself into the mainstream. In the four months that the device has been out, it has been sold-out. And now, Zuckerberg emphatically stated that they are continuing to sell as fast as they can make them.
The announcement of the soon to be released, in November, Oculus Link, will enable you to connect to a PC and play all the games and apps from the Oculus Rift and Rift S. While this may sound a death knell for the Rift S, it opens up the infrastructure to so much more.
Hand Tracking with the Oculus Quest is another huge step forward, making the VR experience easier for non-gamers to enjoy comfortably. After testing this feature out myself with an enjoyable wizard adventure experience where I got to have different hands throughout the game, I have to say it is a world-changing experience.
Zuckerberg went on to tease us with neural input as a future improvement. Just “think” of what that will mean. No he’s isn’t talking about implanting electrodes into our brain. This neural interface will come in the form of a bracelet on your wrist. And Control Labs is already shipping a device.
Lastly, Zuckerberg revealed FacebookHorizon, a social interface for VR. Described as “an interconnected and ever-expanding social VR world where people can explore new places, play games, and build communities – launching in beta in 2020”.
What Did Mark Zuckerberg Tell Us In His Keynote?
