Oculus VR has officlally revealed the Crescent Bay prototype, the third generation Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, at the company's first developer conference. With an upgraded display resolution, better ergonomics and improved head tracking it's a significant upgrade, which signals another step closer to a long-awaited public release.
Announced at the Oculus Connect 2014 event in Hollywood, Crescent Bay is much more streamlined than the original Oculus Rift, and is also lighter than the current DK2 headset. Head tracking has been improved to a full 360-degrees and positional tracking has been expanded, which should allow for more immersive games and more accurate translations of head movement in compatible titles, and the headset now includes integrated audio for the first time.
The display technology, which was previously based on the OLED display panel from a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, has also been upgraded. Although Oculus hasn't yet revealed detailed technical specifications, it seems likely that Crescent Bay will incorporate some of the advancements found in Samsung's own Gear VR headset, which was developed in a partnership between the two companies. Whereas the current DK2 headset has a 1080p resolution, the Gear VR uses the 2,560x1,440 Galaxy Note 4 display for sharper visuals.
To demonstrate the advanced hardware, Oculus also debuted "Crescent Bay Experience" original demo content, developed in-house by the company's content team specifically for the Oculus Connect event. Epic Games has also created the Showdown demo, built using the Unreal Engine, but it's unclear if the content being shown to developers will eventually be made available to anyone able to get their hands on a Crescent Bay headset.
Other announcements at the event included confirmation that the Unity game engine now supports Oculus VR, with a dedciated add-on with stereo imaging optimisations, 3D audio support and other VR-specific additions.
There's currently no word on an official price or availability, but Oculus has indicated Crescent Bay is the closest the company has come yet to making a consumer-ready VR headset. In the meantime, Crescent Bay is being shown off to developers at Oculus Connect while Oculus decides how to sell it.
