Facebook has reportedly cancelled its in-development "next generation" Oculus Rift 2 virtual reality headset for PC, despite the company's assurances that it's "planning for a future version of Rift". The news coincides with the departure of Oculus co-founder and former CEO Brendan Iribe, who, according to TechCrunch, was leading development of the company's next generation "Rift 2". However, TechCrunch's sources claim the project was cancelled last week following shake-ups within Facebook's VR division, resulting in Iribe's decision to leave the company. Facebook, of course, acquired Oculus for $2bn in 2014. Oculus Rift's Consumer Version 1 released in 2016. Iribe announced his departure in a Facebook post, saying that "after six incredible years, I am moving on". He continued, "I'm deeply proud and grateful for all that we've done together. We assembled one of the greatest research and engineering teams in history, delivered the first step of true virtual presence with Oculus Rift and Touch, and inspired an entirely new industry. We started a revolution that will change the world in ways we can't even envision." This content is hosted on an external platform, which will only display it if you accept targeting cookies. Please enable cookies to view. Manage cookie settings According to TechCrunch's sources, however, Iribe and Facebook's executive team had "fundamentally different views on the future of Oculus that grew deeper over time", with Iribe reportedly having no interest in a "race to the bottom" in terms of VR performance. Notably, Facebook has been pursuing a broader market in recent times, with its two newest headsets - Oculus Go and next year's Oculus Quest - forgoing PC-based virtual reality in favour of all-in-one solutions. While the latter headsets don't require expensive, separate PC hardware to function, visual performance is inevitably reduced. In response to TechCrunch's report, a Facebook spokesperson told the website, "While we can't comment on our product roadmap specifics, we do have future plans, and can confirm that we are planning for a future version of Rift". Facebook also assured that it's continuing to invest in PC as a platform. As TechCrunch notes, however, Facebook did not specifically deny claims that a Rift 2, overseen by Iribe's PC VR team, had been cancelled.<doc-sep>Oculus has reaffirmed it's working on a new version of its PC-based Rift hardware. That affirmation follows a report from TechCrunch suggesting the cancellation of the "Rift 2" was behind the sudden departure of Oculus co-founder and former CEO Brendan Iribe, announced just yesterday. Iribe, who stepped down as CEO to help lead Oculus' PC/Rift division in late 2016, announced his departure from the company on Facebook Monday. Iribe said he was "deeply proud and grateful for" the work he'd done with Oculus and that "although we're still far from delivering the magical smart glasses we all dream about, now they are nearly within our reach." That said, leaving the company "will be the first real break I've taken in over 20 years," he wrote. "It's time to recharge, reflect, and be creative." The official line The TechCrunch report, though, cites an unnamed source "close to the matter" in saying Iribe had actually grown frustrated with "fundamentally different views on the future of Oculus that grew deeper over time" and was concerned about a "race to the bottom" in terms of performance. That suggests Iribe may not have been happy with the increased focus on the recently announced Oculus Quest , a $400 standalone headset powered by a mobile system-on-a-chip. Oculus Communications Manager Andrea Schubert told Ars directly that "we are planning a future version of Rift," when asked to comment on the TechCrunch report. She also pointed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's keynote speech at last month's Oculus Connect, where he said, "when we release the next version of Rift—which isn't today, by the way—all of the content that works for Rift is going to work on the next version, too. This means that every generation we build is going to build to this threshold [emphasis added]." Advertisement Schubert said that, while Oculus isn't "quite ready to talk about the next version of Rift" right now, the company is still investing in PC VR. More details of that investment "across product and content" will "manifest next year," she added. Oculus co-founder and Head of Rift Nate Mitchell, who worked alongside Iribe leading the PC/Rift team, will continue in that role, Schubert said. Mitchell tweeted yesterday that "we're still driving forward on the Rift/PC platform with new hardware, software, and content [emphasis added]." That lines up with what Mitchell told Ars in an interview at the Connect conference. That's when he said Oculus plans to "invest in these three product platforms [Go, Quest, and Rift] for the forseeable future, multiple generational timelines." "Don't worry; we're super-committed to Rift," Mitchell continued in our interview. "I'm personally super-committed to Rift. [Iribe] is, too... I know people want to see future hardware iterations. They're going to have to wait a little longer. Today is all about Quest, [but] we have future plans for PC. They're super exciting. It's where I'm spending the majority of my time [emphasis added]." It's possible that TechCrunch's insider source is correct and that Oculus' official messaging is hiding the truth about the future of the Rift hardware line. Still, that official word, coming from multiple senior sources across the company, amounts to a rather forceful denial when more guarded and limited statements (à la "we have nothing to announce regarding Rift at this time") could have sufficed. If a new version of the Rift isn't currently in the works, Oculus is putting up quite the brave (and counterproductive) front for the sake of PC VR fans.<doc-sep>It came as quite a shock this week when one of Oculus’ founders, Brendan Iribe, confirmed that he would be leaving his position within Facebook/Oculus after six years. With Palmer Lucky having departed around the same time last year the original group that started this immersive journey has begun to dwindle, but it wasn’t so much Iribe’s departure more so his possible reasoning that caught people’s attention, the cancellation of Oculus Rift 2. Will there be a Rift 2? As I’m sure you’re aware by now Iribe announced his leaving via a Facebook post which led to TechCrunch reporting this was partially to do with an internal shake up that’s seen the second generation of Oculus Rift being abandoned. Well what a furore that created, with Oculus responding with: “we are planning a future version of Rift,” going on to cite Mark Zuckerberg’s comments at Oculus Connect 5 (OC5) which were: “when we release the next version of Rift—which isn’t this year—all of the content that works for Rift will also work on the next version.” What’s been great to take away from all this is the fact that Oculus have concretely stated a second generation Oculus Rift is in development. This you may say is unsurprising as hardware can take years to develop so of course Oculus would be working on one. However, the leap from experimental to consumer version is massive so for a global company to say that is still very important. Plus there’s the little fact that two new headsets will be released within a year of each other. Present Hardware For ease of use let’s call it the Oculus Rift 2. Currently Oculus has the Gear VR, Oculus Go, Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest in its stable of hardware. Oculus Go certainly impressed when it launched during F8 2018, going on to see decent sales success as a media device rather than gaming unit. Oculus Quest looks set to be the big driving force for 2019 offering a ‘near Rift experience’ whilst being standalone with Oculus Touch controllers and inside-out tracking. Oculus Quest’s arrival in Spring next year is likely to kill many Oculus Rift sales as consumers want to go tangle free, no longer shackled to their PC’s – or needing a VR-ready one for that matter. This will obviously see a drop in graphics quality due to the Qualcomm processor inside. So if Oculus Quest can do almost everything its PC-based brother can do where would the sequel venture? What the second gen needs to succeed Firstly, Oculus Rift 2 would need to offer greatly improved graphics over the other models, this would require an even beefier PC using the latest graphics cards – possibly NVIDIA’s RTX 2070 as a bare minimum? And how would this get to the headset. The new VirtualLink standard could be one way, but that then leads down a tethered system route which consumers may not want to put up with by then. Wireless would be the way to go so long as were possible to transmit the increased amount of data whilst keeping factors like form and weight to a minimum. The new headset would likely feature the latest cutting-edge technologies which we’re already familiar with. Eye-tracking and foveated rendering to make graphical processing easier whilst improving social interaction, and hand tracking to make physical interaction with virtual environments even more lifelike. What about the experiments we’re only just learning about. Oculus Half Dome for example was a varifocal mechanism showcased during F8 2018 to make it easier for user’s eyes to focus. This also had the added benefit of improve the field of view (FoV) from 110 degrees to 140 degrees. FoV isn’t something Oculus discusses very often yet it’s an important vertical to consider when the likes of Pimax are aiming of 200-degrees. Oculus Rift 2 is on the cards with a release no earlier than 2020 by the sounds of it. Having that plus Oculus Quest in 2019 would be too much for one year, innovation is great just not too quickly. Oculus Rift found a pricing sweet spot when it finally hit $399. Hopefully its successor will be priced at a similar level, although with all the new tech it needs to include that might be tricky.<doc-sep>
Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021. As reported earlier today, Oculus cofounder Brendan Iribe announced that he’s leaving the company, the latest in a string of executive-level departures from Facebook. But despite a report claiming that Iribe quit over Facebook’s decision to cancel “Rift 2,” a company spokesperson confirmed to VentureBeat that a next-generation Oculus Rift headset is still in the works. The allegation of Rift 2’s cancellation first appeared in a report from TechCrunch, which claimed that Facebook’s executive team shut down the next-generation PC VR headset’s development last week to focus on standalone headsets that don’t require either a smartphone or PC to generate their graphics. According to the report, Facebook’s decision to kill Rift 2 was the latest element in a debate over the “future of Oculus that grew deeper over time.” However, Oculus disputed this account when contacted for comment, and said that the company is still “planning a future version of Rift.” At September’s Oculus Connect 5 developers conference, the company laid out plans to support the continued evolution of three separate VR platforms: the low-end standalone Go, the midrange standalone Quest, and the high-end tethered Rift. As Mark Zuckerberg noted, “when we release the next version of Rift — which isn’t this year — all of the content that works for Rift will also work on the next version.” Oculus expanded upon this in an emailed response. “[W]e aren’t quite ready to talk about the next version of Rift,” a spokesperson told us, “but PC VR is still a category we are investing in. It’s still a part of our strategy — we’re continuing work across product and content and you’ll see this manifest next year. Additionally, Nate continues to lead the Rift/PC team and there are no changes there.” Whether that’s a full-fledged denial or not depends on your perspective. It’s possible that Iribe was working on one vision for a next-generation Rift 2 that was nixed in favor of something simpler. The disputed report said that “Iribe wasn’t interested in a ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of performance,” suggesting that his vision for next-generation hardware was a major leap forward, like the original Rift. Faced with forecasts suggesting that VR’s next wave of growth will come from standalone and PC-tethered headsets, VR platform makers have struggled with whether to focus their attention on midrange or high-end devices. Oculus has publicly announced its development of varifocal display technologies, wider fields of view, and more sophisticated tracking hardware, all of which would likely add to the expense of producing a second-generation PC VR headset. If Rift 2 was cancelled, there would be major questions as to what type of products would be the beneficiaries of these higher-end technologies, as well as when they might appear, as Go was just released this year and Quest is due to launch in early 2019. But Oculus has confirmed that PC virtual reality remains part of its future product roadmap, and that the company intends to use “much of what Iribe’s team has been working on” in future products. We’ll have to see if one of them is an actual sequel to Rift 2, but as of now, we’ll take that “manifest next year” language seriously.