On June 11, 2015 Oculus announced that their virtual reality platform, Rift, will be streaming Xbox One games and media through Windows 10 PCs. GameCrate’s in-depth coverage of the news brought to light the potential of having a virtual reality platform. Today we discuss gaming in virtual reality with Oculus Rift and Windows 10.
Windows 10 will be a universal operating system for all devices, be it a smartphone or personal computer. Having Microsoft supported devices interact with Oculus Rift will create really unique experiences and enable developers to release their imagination.
The gaming potential is limitless if Xbox and Windows 10 games will be fully available for Oculus Rift. Games will be displayed through a virtual cinema rather than in virtual reality as other Oculus specific games, however, there is potential. Imagine all your favorite titles available in virtual reality. Did someone say Minecraft? It will add a whole new dimension to your gameplay and experience – literally! It might take some time to transition regular games to virtual reality, but it will be awesome when they do. This could actually be an awesome way to reboot classic games or previous titles that so many people love.
What This Means
The Oculus Rift will be shipped along with an Xbox One controller and stream from Windows 10 computers. How will this affect users?
• Windows 10 will be the native operating system for the Oculus Rift, allowing for streaming of content directly from your computer.
• Gamers will have a controller specifically for the Oculus Rift and its games
• Gamers will be able to have an immersive experience with Windows 10 and Xbox One games without a massive television taking up the entire room.
• Xbox One titles will be available for the Oculus Rift, possibly by streaming through Windows 10
The immersive experience will be perfect for virtual reality and traditional gaming alike. The key takeaway of the list above is that Windows 10 will be the
cornerstone for integrating the Oculus Rift with games and applications stored on your PC or console.
Powerful Partners
Developing a multiplatform operating system that can bridge applications across devices is a major accomplishment. Oculus goes perfectly with Windows 10 because of the potential to create a rich virtual reality experience for games and non-gaming programs.
This isn’t the first time that Oculus and Xbox’s parent companies, Facebook and Microsoft, have worked together. The two top technology and software companies have partnered with one another in the past. The clearest example I could think of was with Bing. This helped both Microsoft and Facebook. Bing enabled a user experience that was more personal and interactive with the Facebook login and the social networking company started to launch a new business feature, having Facebook logins for third party websites.
A Virtual World
It’s exciting to have the potential to create your own virtual reality, whether it is in a game or computer science experiment.
What game or software platform would you most want to see become fully virtual with Oculus Rift? Would you want to create something new or reboot one of your favorite games? Perhaps you would like to develop a program that utilizes the cross-device features of Windows 10 and virtual immersion of Oculus Rift that isn’t related to anything mentioned in this article?
