Oculus Rift Can Do Room Scale VR, But Won't

When you ask people what the difference is between the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, there are really two main answers that you'll get. One, the Vive ships with motion controllers, while the Rift will make them available at a later time. The other main difference is that the Vive lets you walk around your room while using it. Well as it turns out, you could do that with the Rift, but you just don't want it enough.

Recently, Oculus head of worldwide studios Jason Rubin talked about room scale VR. He said "some people will really want room scale. It's definitely cool. We have the tech ability to provide room scale. Our tech doesn't preclude that. At some point we'll demo that."

Until now, the Oculus team hasn't really talked much about room scale VR experiences. They've focused more on a stationary experience, which they're doing quite well. What's interesting is that the main reason that they haven't talked about it is due to the space requirements. Here's what Rubin had to say:

"We don't believe that the consumer has the space in general has the commercial viable space of the 15-by-15 foot square."

I can definitely agree with him that finding space for a VR setup can be difficult. However, you don't necessarily need that entire 15'x15' to use the Vive. Personally, I'd prefer to have the option, and simply not be able to use it most of the time, rather than not having access to it at all. I'll be curious to see what they do with room scale tracking in the future, however.

VIA: Polygon