Oculus Rift Developer Kit 2 Annouced

Oculus Rift

At GDC today, Oculus VR has announced that the second Developer Kit (DK2) is available for pre-order starting today, and is expected to ship in July. The cost of the development kit is $350, although the retail price for the VR kit is not yet known.

The new unit features a 5-inch, 1080p OLED display, a marked increase from the previous iteration. To assist with combating motion sickness, the display uses low-persistence technology in combination with positional tracking, which is achieved utilizing a custom camera and an array of IR LEDs on the device itself. This allows head motion to blank the screen instead of clipping, which allows the brain to “fill in the gaps” while in motion, while positional tracking can more accurately reflect movement. The control box has been removed from the unit, which now features a single ten-foot cable with both a USB (for power) and HDMI connector. The new device has been reported to be far sharper and more comfortable than the previous kit.

Throughout this week’s Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), VR technology has abounded. The Oculus is still at the forefront, but it now has competitors circling. The Oculus Rift boasts the largest number of development platforms to which support is dedicated, including Unity, the Unreal Engine, and CryENGINE.

Get It

You can preorder the new Developer Kit on the Oculus VR website.