Without a doubt, the impending debut of the Oculus Rift platform will be one of the biggest moments of 2016 – at least for the video game industry – but it sounds like one of the most-revolutionary aspects of the Rift platform won’t actually be ready until later in the year.
For the past couple of years, much of the hype surrounding the Oculus Rift has centered around the return of VR, which hadn’t been a significant part of pop culture in decades. The impressive headset is leaps and bounds above anything we’d ever seen previously, which was mostly limited to the terrible (and expensive) VR games you see at amusement parks. That changed, back in August, when the Oculus team unveiled the Touch; a new VR-ready take on the traditional game pad. In the months since, fans and developers brainstormed thousands of potential uses for the Oculus Touch controllers.
Unfortunately, it sounds like the general public will be waiting a few extra months to get their hands on the Oculus Touch, following a new announcement from the Oculus team. No specific reason is given for the delay; however, the Oculus team says it plans to use the extra time to continue improving Oculus Touch functionality. That includes “[improved] hand pose recognition”, along with smaller design changes intended to make the Oculus Touch feel a bit more natural when held.
“There will be a huge amount of ground-breaking new content launching alongside Touch,” the Oculus team wrote. “The feedback on Touch has been incredibly positive, and we know this new timeline will produce an even better product, one that will set the bar for VR input. We appreciate your patience and promise Touch will be worth the wait.”
On the plus side, our latest update on the Oculus Touch also arrived alongside a brief update on the Rift; the highly-anticipated virtual reality headset slated to debut in the next few months. According to the Oculus team, whatever is forcing the team to push back the launch of Oculus Touch won’t have any impact on the launch of the Rift. To make things even more exciting, the team also promised (again) that Oculus Rift pre-orders will open “very soon.”
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for additional Oculus coverage, including coverage of the virtual reality headset’s launch, throughout 2016 and for however long Oculus continues to support the Rift platform.
