Xiaomi to Bring Oculus Go to China Under Its Own Brand

Xiaomi, the Chinese electronics giant, officially announced that they’ve partnered with Oculus to not only manufacture Oculus Go, the company’s upcoming $200 standalone VR headset, but also produce a China-only standalone VR headset called Xiaomi Mi VR Standalone. Xiaomi’s headset is said to incorporate everything Oculus Go does hardware-wise, albeit with Xiaomi branding and its own Mi VR content store.

According to Xiaomi’s official announcement, the Mi VR Standalone will be available exclusively in China, while Oculus Go will be available in the rest of the world. Oculus has yet to officially offer Rift in China, while Xiaomi, the world’s fifth-largest smartphone manufacturer, has relatively low market penetration in the West.

Since they’re ostensibly the same hardware platforms (besides Mi VR’s white housing), both headsets include 2K resolution fast-switch LCD screen, Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 mobile processors, Oculus-developed integrated spatial audio, and what Oculus calls “next-generation” lenses.

image courtesy Xiaomi

Tang Mu, VP of Mi Ecosystem and head of Mi Lab, said: “We are excited to work with Oculus on these standalone devices that exceed expectations in terms of performance at a very attractive price. Xiaomi has always relentlessly pursued the best user experience and price-to-performance ratio. For the best experience, we consider every minute detail. Through our collaboration with Oculus, we have integrated world-class technologies and craftsmanship to produce a VR standalone that lets people immerse themselves in another world without being connected to smartphones or computers.”

“The standalone VR form factor represents the next significant phase of VR hardware development at Oculus,” said Hugo Barra, VP of VR at Facebook. “Through our partnership with Xiaomi, both Oculus Go and Mi VR Standalone represent our first step in delivering that sweet spot between mobile and PC VR. These devices will be, hands down, the easiest way to get into VR.”

Barra, a previous Google VP of Android, came to Facebook from his last position as Xiaomi’s Global VP—sort of making it a Game of Thrones-style marriage of brands that seems to have bore a viable offspring of its own.

Oculus Go still doesn’t have a street date, although what appears to be the headset’s controller has already passed FCC testing, possibly pointing to a release just around the corner.

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Oculus Connect 4 Day 1 Roundup: Oculus Go, Rift Price Drop, New ‘Santa Cruz’ Prototype, and More

The opening keynote at the fourth annual Oculus Connect developer conference delivered several new product announcements from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, VP of Virtual Reality Hugo Barra, and others. This included new standalone VR hardware, a new price for the Rift, and many software and game reveals.

Affordable standalone headset ‘Oculus Go’ revealed:

Image courtesy Oculus

At $199, Oculus Go is a low-cost, all-in-one standalone headset launching in early 2018. On stage, Hugo Barra claimed that the headset was designed to deliver the “best visual clarity of any product we’ve ever built”, using a “fast-switch LCD” at 2560×1440 and an “all-new, custom optical design”. The lenses are an evolution of the ‘hybrid’ optics found in the current Rift. Sharing the same controller input set as Gear VR – a single controller and rotational-only tracking – apps will be “binary compatible”, working on both systems. Essentially, Oculus Go is an enhanced, standalone version of Gear VR.

Project Santa Cruz developer kits coming in 2018, we go hands-on:

Image courtesy Oculus

Described as the “first, complete, standalone VR system with full inside-out tracking and hand presence”, Santa Cruz developer kits will be available next year. The company revealed various improvements to the latest prototype, including brand new 6-degrees-of-freedom controllers, similar to Touch. Unlike Oculus Go, Santa Cruz is designed as a high-end, standalone system, with full positional tracking on both headset and controllers, but will be limited by the performance of its on-board mobile PC. Check out our hands-on impressions here.

‘Oculus Dash’ is a total interface overhaul, supports desktop apps:

Nate Mitchell, Head of Rift, described how Oculus has been rebuilding the core software from the ground up over the past year, introducing various improvements to ‘Rift Core 2.0’. Most significantly, Oculus Dash is a total overhaul of the Rift user interface, designed specifically for motion input. It combines the existing functionality of Home and the Universal Menu, while allowing access to traditional desktop apps. Mitchell claims Dash will offer “best in class performance and visual quality,” for PC apps in VR, setting the platform “on a path to replacing real monitors entirely.”

Oculus Home also completely rebuilt:

The Rift Core 2.0 update also brings a brand new Oculus Home space, with a more realistic visual design, with “state of the art lighting” and “dynamic soft shadows”, powered by Unreal Engine 4. This is customisable with toys, furniture, artwork and achievements, and is designed to be a persistent, social space, with the potential to create shared spaces in the future.

Rift receives permanent price cut:

Photo by Road to VR

Hugo Barra, Vice President of Virtual Reality at Oculus announced a permanent price cut of the Rift and Touch bundle to $399. The package still includes the same hardware bundle of headset, two sensors, two Touch controllers, and “six free apps” – although there are actually several more free apps available on the Store.

Echo Arena FPS Expansion, more Lone Echo coming:

image courtesy Ready at Dawn

Following the success of Ready at Dawn’s sci-fi adventure Lone Echo (2017) and standalone multiplayer mode Echo Arena, the studio has confirmed a new multiplayer, first-person shooter experience coming in 2018 called Echo Combat. In addition, more single player content for Lone Echo is on the way, continuing the adventure of Captain Olivia and Jack.

Respawn Entertainment developing Rift-exclusive VR title:

Oculus’ Head of Content Jason Rubin’s closing announcement was that Respawn Entertainment, ex-Call of Duty developers and creators of Titanfall, are building a major new VR title for Oculus Rift. The game is due to launch in 2019, and Respawn director Peter Hirschmann offered a few details on their blog.

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