Valve is developing its own virtual reality headset that has been named better than the latest Oculus Rift by early testers.
Recently there has been much speculation over whether Valve will launch its own VR headset, and it seems the developer has been beavering away on an Oculus Rift rival after all.
The prototype Valve VR hardware was unveiled at the Steam Dev Days, where a few lucky devs managed to get some time with it.
According to the developers, Valve’s VR kit is “mindblowing” and far better than the new Oculus Rift “Crystal Cove” prototype shown at CES 2014.
One developer called David Hensley said the Valve VR headset is “a generational leap forward” from the original Oculus Rift dev kit.
“I’m a big fan of Oculus, and will buy one but the valve demo really blew me away. VR is going to be amazing,” read his tweet.
Hensley did admit he hasn’t tried the Crystal Cove Oculus yet though, but did say Valve achieved positional tracking via markers placed around the room. This allowed the VR headset to track him even when he crouched.
This is different to the Crystal Cove, which has tracking dots placed on the headset itself.
Another user named Harabeck on Reddit, admitted he had no feelings of motion sickness even after half an hour of use. He also claimed a Valve rep confirmed the VR headset’s tracking was “a bit better” than the Crystal Cove:
“The motion tracking seemed damn near perfect, but I haven’t tried crystal cove so I can’t compare there. The Valve rep claimed the motion tracking was a bit better than [Crystal Cove] though. This prototype was purely for their research purposes. They made it pretty clear that it wasn’t meant as a consumer product.”
A post on TheSonicReblog said: “Everyone who has tried it says it is mindblowing and blows Crystal Cove away.”
However, Oculus shouldn’t be worried about the Valve VR headset as the developer reportedly has no plans to bring it to market right now.
“[Valve has] no current plans to ship VR tech, but says that could change. You never know. Right now they’re having fun with it,” tweeted Hot Blooded Games CFO Dave Oshrey after a pair of VR Talks at the Steam Dev Days.
Valve and Oculus will continue to work on the Rift headset, with the Crystal Cove prototype “driven by Valve prototyping”.
Read more: Best new games of 2014
Via: TechRadar, ArsTechnica
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
