Time again for another segment of Oculus Rift News Bits! What’s happened lately? Oculus says they’ve officially shipped 3,700 units. VP of Product Nate Mitchell was seen in Stockholm, Sweden visiting Battlefield 3 developer, DICE. And we’ve got a few funny videos showing reactions of folks riding the Epic Citadel VR Roller Coaster!
Oculus Rift Shipments
Official confirmation that Oculus has shipped 3,700 units comes from Oculus VR Inc’s latest blog update. The company says they’ve now manufacturing around 1,250 dev kits per week. They’ve also completed setup at fulfillment centers in Europe and Asia which they expect to reduce shipment/processing time to those regions. Here’s the breakdown of where units have shipped so far:
- 500 to Asia and Oceania
- 700 to Europe
- 2,500 to North America
Given this data, we can make a rough projection of future shipment dates:
| Unit # | Shipment Date |
|---|---|
| 3,700 – 4950 | May 1- 7 |
| 4951 – 6201 | May 8 – 14 |
| 6202 – 7452 | May 15 – 21 |
| 7453 – 8703 | May 22 – 28 |
| 8704 – 9954 | May 29 – June 4 |
| 9955 – 11205 | June 5 – 11 |
| 11206 – 12456 | June 12 – 18 |
Oculus has previously said that they anticipate their production rate to increase up to 1,500 units per week, so it’s possible that this schedule will accelerate by a few days as time goes on.
Furthermore, Oculus says they’re finally sending out posters and shirts for those who got them through the Kickstarter.
Micahel Antonov’s Oculus Rift Presentation at GDC 2013
Also part of their latest blog update, Oculus has now published Michael Antonov’s Oculus Rift GDC talk for your viewing pleasure. Antonov is Oculus VR Inc’s Chief Software Architect and co-founder of Oculus.
The video is part of Oculus’ ‘Running the VR Gauntlet — VR Ready, Are You?’ session at GDC 2013 in March. Here’s the official description:
Virtual reality may be poised to revolutionize the way we play our favorite games, but creating a great VR game is surprisingly challenging. Developers have to carefully consider latency, user input, rendering performance, UI design, and overall user experience. We’ll discuss what developers need to know about supporting the Oculus Rift, how to tackle the major technical hurdles associated with truly immersive virtual reality, and what we’ve learned so far from building a new platform for VR games.
Oculus’ VP of Product, Nate Mitchell, also spoke during this presentation, but Oculus hasn’t yet published his section.
Oculus Visits Battlefield 3 Developer, DICE
Nate Mitchell recently took a trip to Sweden to meet up with DICE, developers of Battlefield 3 (2011) and other big titles like Mirror’s Edge (2008).
A few months ago we caught wind of a DICE job posting looking for someone to “investigate and implement support for Occulus Rift SDK in the Frostbite Engine.” All signs point to DICE being quite serious about the Rift — the official Battlefield twitter account also made mention of Mitchell’s visit. Oculus Rift Frostbite support could mean integration with past and future titles, like the forthcoming Battlefield 4. Currently, Oculus Rift users can play Mirror’s Edge with unofficial support from the Vireio drivers (see the ‘Third-Party’ tab on our Oculus Rift Games list for other Vireio supported titles).
Epic Citadel VR Roller Coaster Reactions
User boone188 from the MTBS3D forums build a roller coaster inside the Epic Citadel level (a test level for Unreal Development Kit). I’ve had a chance to test it out; it’s quite a bit of fun and a great way to tour the Citadel grounds! Here’s a few funny reaction videos of people riding the virtual reality roller coaster:
And the last one is a great collection of reactions from Norwegian site DBTV, see it here!