True Player Gear‘s CEO Bertrand Nepveu was encouraged by the Oculus/Facebook acquisition and decided to fully reveal their contender for the VR hardware crown. Currently called the “Totem”, a name inspired by the film Inception, this headset could be the competition the VR race needs to help keep prices down and push VR technology development forward. IncGamers talks to Bertrand to find out more.
VRFocus - Today sees two surprise announcements coming from True Player Gear: a rebranding of their production team and the intention to upgrade the screen featured within their forthcoming head-mounted display (HMD), the Totem. At present, the Totem features a 1080p LCD screen and custom PCB, however the plan is to replace this with a low persistence OLED panel within a few months.
VRFocus - True Player Gear's Totem headset has been grabbing a fair amount of attention from the gaming community due to it's widespread compatibility. After a warmly received outing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) earlier this month, the team has revealed plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign for the head-mounted display (HMD) this summer.
True Player Gear‘s CEO Bertrand Nepveu hit the Internet this evening to answer more questions about their upcoming Totem VR headset. Bertrand elaborates a little more on TPG’s plans for positional tracking and he says that if Facebook had approached them for acquisition he would have turned it down.
I understand your point but believe it or not some people are just not for sale. Some people would actually prefer remain small and know that they are in full control than to sell out for a large cash payout and loose what they fought hard to create and make their own.
Not everyone is money hungry. Besides, most of that 2 billion was in Facebook stock that they can't even sell now.
Most of the article is not about facebook and the rift.
How can people jump this guy when we don't know much about him or the product he's hawking. Lets stop making the internet a terrible place to be.
Haven't shown a working demo *check*
Design looks like a reverse engineered Rift DevKit 1 *Check*
Tries to bash Oculus over being bought by Facebook *check*
Honestly believing this company and product is a joke *check*
Say what you will about not liking Facebook, but through all of the hands-on previews of the Oculus everyone knows it's a damn good device. Also, the fact that Palmer Lucky said Valve's VR prototype was better than his shows humility on his part and the drive to make the product as perfect as possible. That may also be why Oculus has been on a former Valve engineer hiring spree.
These guys have nothing to show other than a rendered concept. Looks cool, but a render.
They claim 9+ years in development and nothing to offer but what is now generic HMD teck talk. Anyone can BS about what they PLAN to offer.
Dont get me wrong, I'd love to see these guys produce a viable device as I like their ideas but less talk more show.
We don't even know if they have a prototype of foam and hockey tape yet. I suppose these ideas are just scribbled on napkins?
"Look here (investor) we have everything laid out on the backs of these coffee stained paper place-mats from our tech development meetings at Denny's." Oui? Oui?
(investor)...No.
Such a BS attempt to benefit off of this negative attention Rift is getting over the Facebook purchase.
One, you totally would have taken that amount of money. Two, you wouldn't have been offered that amount of money because you haven't garnered the brand strength, if you will, that Rift has.
Release your product, see what the consumers decide and let your work speak for itself. Business is business, but things like this always come off as so petty.
IMO these guys (posers) are simply hoping to profit off their napkin based "IDEA". It's rather limp how they shit talk the Oculus yet have nothing to show of their own. Well put on your part and I agree, it's "high-school caliber pettiness. They've simply taken the Rift and added to "their" concept, some audio no one will care about and front facing cameras (idea from napkin #2). I could start a web site with baseless claims like this too.
They are french Canadian after all.
In the interview the CEO doesn't sound very professional. For that reason alone, I'll assume that their product, even if it exists, will never hit the market.
Man, now I got a lotta interest in this. Pretty exciting, if you ask me. Rift is really making others to try to enter the VR business. VR bandwagon is going fast. 2014 is awesome. But 2015... Just WOW! I can't wait for the things to come.
i like how it looks like a smiley face