Kickstarter Madness: Ouya Console, Oculus RIFT, Project Holodeck, and the Hardware Shift in the Games Industry

There are a lot of blockbuster first-person shooters that are going to be made compatible with the RIFT head-mounted display in the coming months.  Both DIY communities (MTBS) and large companies (Valve, Id Software, etc) will be supporting this kind of development.  These are very exciting times, and we are right in the middle of a a paradigm shift in how games are going to be played and experienced.

We’re lucky to be developing a game specifically for this VR hardware with Project Holodeck, our 25-person VR development project at USC’s Interactive Media Division.  The game we are developing, Wild Skies, will be using Oculus RIFT head-mounted displays and a number of other hardware peripherals to implement a fully tracked 360-degree VR play space.

Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus and also our Lead Hardware Engineer for Project Holodeck, shared an update with us on his Kickstarter campaign through the discussion forums at MTBS. The campaign begins now on July 19th or so, allowing it to coincide with Quakecon and GamesCom next month. In conjunction with John Carmack, there are also negotiations with Valve, Bethesda, Epic, Crytek, and Unity.  Here’s the exact update, re-posted here:

Okay, time to update:

Things are on hold just a little bit longer. Why? Because the Kickstarter should be 30 days long, and it should also overlap with QuakeCon and GamesCom, both huge events that Oculus is going to be at. Kickstarter is still going to launch in July, but we need to wait till the 19th or so. That way, we can ride the huge amount of publicity that those events can bring to VR. I hate delays too, but it only makes sense in the long run, and the good news is that none of these delays are due to technical issues!

Here is what I know I can say without getting in trouble (I might be able to say a little more, technically, but I have to be careful a little longer):

1) I am talking to Valve.

2) I am talking to id/Zenimax/Bethesda

3) I am talking to Epic

4) I am talking to Crytek

5) I am talking to Unity

6) I am talking to several other development companies

The extent of their relationships with Oculus varies, but I can promise at least a few partnerships.  Oculus is going forward in a big way, but a way that still lets me focus on the community first, and not sell out to a large company. I am working with hardware engineers who have designed some extremely well known gaming peripherals, software developers with very extensive middleware integration and partnership experience, and a small amount of funding from people who really, really want VR to happen. I should be able to order the parts for the kits before the Kickstarter even starts because of this!  The kit is going to be even cheaper than before, and after the kit is out, development of a higher res, well polished consumer head mount is going to go forward at a lightning pace.

I hate to succumb to hype, but in an attempt to keep people from being to upset about the delay: Imagine an HMD with a massive field of view and more pixels than 1080p per eye, wireless PC link, built in absolute head and hand/weapon/wand positioning, and native integration with some (if not all) of the major game engines, all for less than $1,000 USD. That can happen in 2013!

The Ouya Console has also made an incredible splash in the games industry this week, making $3 million in under 48 hours.  Ouya offers the flexibility of developing for Android with the robust capabilities of console systems,  breaking down the barriers for indie developers to see their games featured on the television.  There’s also a lot of criticism that the console won’t be as useful as it proposes – but the fact that it made so much money so quickly definitely shows that their vision was very enticing.

Currently the project is at close to $5 million and its only a week in.  Its still going strong, and will likely triumph over the Pebble E-Paper Watch as the largest Kickstarter project yet.  Clearly the demand for new hardware in the games industry is strong, and consumers are ready for an incredible new era.