Earlier this year, Samsung announced a brand new virtual reality headset, by the Gear VR. Made in partnership with the team at Oculus VR, this clever headset uses a Galaxy Note 4 to power the virtual reality experience, and a bluetooth controller to navigate. The “Innovator Edition” is currently up for pre-registration, and you’ll be able to buy your very own in early
December.
First and foremost, you’re going to need a Galaxy Note 4 to use this device. That’s a $700 smartphone, and even with a 2-year contract, it still costs $300. It’s cheaper than buying a gaming PC, but not by much. Once you have the device, you’re still going to need to drop $200 on the Gear VR headset itself. Need a Bluetooth gamepad? That’ll be another $50. This isn’t a minor endeavor, but that’s the price of being an early adopter. There’s no promise that this platform will ever take off, so you need to know right now that buying this hardware is a risky gamble.
If you’re still interested in buying one of these headsets for yourself, you’ll need to head over to Samsung’s site, and pre-register. You won’t be able to buy right away, but you’ll be the first to know about any specific release and purchasing details.
If you’re interested in making your own VR games and apps for the Gear VR, Oculus has finally pushed out its mobile SDK on its developer site. This initial release comes with baked-in features like asynchronous time warping, direct front buffer rendering, and GPU context priorities. The Gear VR probably isn’t a wise investment for your typical consumer, but it’s a superb way for developers to get their hands on some reasonably priced portable VR hardware and a powerful toolset.
The future is looking bright for VR, and this headset is just one of many stepping stones to perfection. The Oculus Rift and Sony’s Project Morpheus are quickly propelling the medium forward, and smaller developers are constantly iterating on the concepts.
This generation of virtual reality is growing ever-closer, and it’s only a matter of time before it breaks into the mainstream in a major way. The tech sphere has been hearing about the Oculus Rift for years now, but now major companies like Facebook, Sony, and Samsung are betting heavily on this tech. Everything is coming to a head, and it’s looking like 2015 might be the year that these devices finally hit store shelves. Are you getting in on the ground floor, or are you waiting to see if the VR fad passes? Sound off in the comment section below this post.
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