We have more Oculus news to report after Samsung’s latest announcement. While the Oculus Rift and Oculus VR have been in the news plenty lately, nothing has hit the retail market. Samsung has now announced the Samsung Gear VR, a product they will partner with Oculus on bringing to the market.
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With the Gear VR, users will be able to purchase the add-on for the newly announced Samsung Note 4 phone. The Note 4 will feature a 5.7 inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display. The Gear VR will attach to the Oculus head mount and will not require any cables to interact with the phone.
An “Innovator Edition” of the Samsung Galaxy VR will be the first release of the device, but is intended more for developers and tech gurus, with the public being encourage to hold of for a more retail ready version.
The Gear VR will ship with a handful of entertainment applications including: including Oculus Home (with access to the Oculus Store), Oculus Cinema, and panoramic playback of video and photos in 360 degrees.
The Innovator Edition of the Galaxy Gear VR is slated to ship this fall and a mobile software development kit is slated to ship before the end of October. Oculus has also made sure to note that the Gear VR does not signal an end to the Oculus Rift, but that both projects will continue to exist.
While it is nice to see Oculus working with more partners, especially after the acquisition by Facebook, it’s getting old hearing about all of these products with nothing tangible to show for it. The Oculus Rift has been in development for years and no retail announcement has been made.
While I’m not sure I personally want anything that VR has to offer, it would be nice to see it in the flesh at some point.