Investment Analyst Suggests ‘Microsoft Rift’ is Coming to Xbox One

Following the reveal of the consumer version of the Oculus Rift head-mounted display at Oculus VR’s ‘Step into the Rift’ press conference, San Francisco, earlier this month, parent company Facebook’s stock rose Monday as the world’s largest social network received a substantial price target boost from investment bank Piper Jaffray. An analyst from the firm has hinted that this was in part due to the announcement of a partnership with Microsoft, which may in time see the launch of a ‘Microsoft Rift’ device for Xbox One.

[tinynuggins]

I thought they partnered with Valve for that. Or am I thinking about something else?

[christocolus]

you are right. They announced a partnership with Valve too but they've been talking to the press a lot more about their partnership with Oculus.

http://www.theverge.com/201...

http://www.theverge.com/201...

http://www.ign.com/articles...

[subtenko]

3 headsets associated with XBox......um.....keep it simple M$ cuz Idk what you are doing..

[fr0sty]

These partnerships are for PC gaming, MS wants a piece of the entire PC VR market.

Xbox One struggles to hit 1080p on one screen... as well as hitting high resolutions at high frame rates which is required by VR (32mb of ESRAM isn't a big enough frame buffer when you have to render everything in HD twice at 60-90fps). So, that is why that pathetic demo of being able to play Forza projected onto the wall of a virtual living room is the only VR on Xbox One example we've ever seen.

[christocolus]

@Frosty

Ok. -_-

[Pandamobile]

If Microsoft was smart they'd probably adopt something like this strategy:

Bring VR to Xbox One (albeit in a limited sense).
Push VR and AR on the Windows side with native support and features for VR and AR displays. Even if the Xbox hardware can only support simpler games, it's still a totally cool experience for consumers. Then for the VR/AR enthusiast platform (i.e, people with VR/AR-capable PCs, and the HMDs themselves), Microsoft would already have a stake in that. If MS fully embraced VR and AR as a revolution in home-computing, it's gonna situate them in a very good position going forward.

But who knows how that'll actually go with Microsoft.

[UltraNova]

As long as MS reacts to competitors as opposed to innovate and push their own vision, MS and VR will always be an afterthought.

IMH, should MS see console VR seriously, they should get Occulus to release a fully compatible xb1 Rift and focus on delivering great games/experiences for it. Simply projecting Windows games through xb1 wont cut it.

And lets face it if you have a beast PC that can actually run rift why on earth would you stream your games on the xb1 at lesser performance when you can simply run them directly on your PC?

[wakeNbake]

Is the valve partnership streaming as well or hardware compatibilty?

[Brotard]

I believe it's to prevent vive from reaching other platforms. As they want windows to be the best place for valve vr. Optimizing, Api, sdk and The likes.

[mhunterjr]

The partnership with valve was more about support for valve vr at the OS level in Win10

[rainslacker]

Think people don't realize that Valve has historically never been too fond on one party having a huge control over an entire market, and Gabe often will be very vocal about not letting MS corner a market.

The Valve deal is indeed making sure they have the support of their own API's on windows, because they do know that Windows is too important to ignore, even though I'm sure they would love to push their own gaming OS to be better and more supported than Windows.

[medman]

I don't understand the point if you're not getting a VR experience, and you're not getting a VR experience. I feel sorry for the people who might buy this (and we all know there will be some)and don't really understand that point.

[bOObies]

OMG this would be so amazing:) Never been happier to own an Xbox One

[christocolus]

It actually makes sense. Wouldn't be surprised to hear some sort of announcement before the end of the year.

[jrshankill]

Best system out there.

[battlegrog]

And this is all coming to windows 10 too. So happy to be a pc gamer to finally get the gaming goods from MS on windows.

[Death]

It's nice to see this long overdue evolution of Microsoft gaming.

[info]

Seems a little douful. Difficult as it is for ps4 toreach 1080@ 60 with decent graphics and AA, can t imagine on xb1

[Haru]

Just like the controller mic jack, I was expecting this Microsoft will try and copy everything Sony does because they are the underdog now, I wonder how longer will it take untill they copy shareplay?

[Yetter]

I don't think a partnership like this develops over night. We all expected that MS and Sony would have VR plans on the horizon since before these consoles were ever announced.

[whitesoxfalife1976]

Copy shareplay? You do know that Ms had the original idea of gameshare during the unveiled.

[DLConspiracy]

If you do your research both sony and MS have copied a lot off each other. As well as many other gaming companies.

[Julion0715]

What about Sony deal with COD now? Are they copying ms? I bet you don't think so go sit in a corner and stare at walls lame

[FlexLuger]

@Julion0715

And while we are at it lets throw in

charging for PSN..which MS did first.

Having an online console with a storefront....which MS did first.

Party chat? voice messaging? video chat? All done first on xbox, then copied by sony

The PS4 is just an x360 in new clothes....It has timed DLC up the ass for every popular shooter ( sound familiar xbox owners?)

It has the timed DLC deal with most 'dudebro' shooter of them all..that was elevated on x360 in the first place..COD ( MS been there done that, and wrote the book....look who is copying...). All the big games coming to PS are shooters...wonder where sony got that bright idea from?

Seems to me like 'info' needs to get his/her..'info' correct.

[ceed911]

Do the majority of PS4 owners use 'shareplay'? I don't really see the appeal of it personally.

I think Microsoft is more likely to bring back 'Family Sharing' then let you watch a friend play a game that you can tag in.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

So here is an honest question based off @info's comment... given the actual size of display in these devices how important is an actual 1080p experience? Just wondering if something like 720p 60fps would provide a similar enough experience?

[Scatpants]

With 720 you get screen door effect, where you can see the individual pixels. I think that is what the original Oculus dev kit came with and was changed in subsequent versions because of that.

[rainslacker]

Resolution and screen size are directly related to pixel density. I'm not sure how important 1080p is on a super small screen but it doesn't really matter the distance the user is from the screen to be able to see individual pixels.

I guess the best way to get an example is to use a newish cell phone and hold it close to your face, then use a iphone 3(or similar resolution screen) and put it close to your face. There is a noticeable difference in pixel density as individual pixels could be seen.

I don't think it'd be so drastic as to cause a screen door effect like scat says. That is typically caused by a low quality screen which can't smooth out the lower pixel density. I think the screens themselves have gotten to the point where they are better for this.

[info]

the difference here is that in VR these lenses are extremely close to your eyes so resolution is very important. Low framerate and unstable framerate / screen tearing can make you sick. low resolution breaks immersion as you have screen door effect and can see individual pixels.

[mhunterjr]

They would just have to dumb down the graphics to support the VR required framerate...

[leeeroythe3rd]

Copy vr headset from sony that copied oculus? Interesting logic Mr spock.

[Dizzydrifter1]

He just thinks in fanboy logic Morpheus will sell less units then nintendos power glove did lmao.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Morpheus has been in development since before Oculus Rift, as Sony has released HMD before either company and had plans to make its current HMD work with games in the future.

Oculus Rift was in prototype after Sony already released their HMD.

http://blip.tv/gotgame/sony...

That was all the way in 2011, Sony was already planning a VR headset for gaming. (released the same day as Skyrim)

Sony has other ones too besides the HMZ T1, like the T2 etc. Morpheus didn't just magically show up, they likely have been planning this for some time now along with PS4.

Oculus Rift isn't really copying anyone either as the concept of VR has existed long before many of these companies began doing this.

Neither invented the concept of VR, but clearly Sony already had the hardware and was releasing HMD before we even heard of what the Oculus Rift was.

http://www.gamingunion.net/...

https://www.kickstarter.com...

[JasonKCK]

Products sit in R&D for years waiting. Oculus made VR popular while Morpheus is trying to ride that wave. Some companies have VR projects dating back to the 70's. and 80's. Now maybe you can find something showing Sony was working on VR during the Ice Age.

[Razuel]

valve's tech makes more sense as it does not require such a great resolution, OR frame rate. Unless they are targeting only indies.

[Scatpants]

I thought Valve's headset actually uses 2 screens that are of a higher resolution than the 1 1080 screen the Oculus uses. My guess would be that the valve headset would actually require more resources to run smoothly.

http://www.theverge.com/201...

[LifeInNZ]

How many times did we see an Oculus rep at E3 state you need a pretty powerful PC for VR gaming using the Oculus. If this comes to the X1 then I will be just as concerned as I have been for VR on the PS4. That is, the quality of the games.

I want VR to succeed but as yet I've seen nothing to convince me it will as yet.

[beereal360]

Another win win for Xbox gamers. Xbox one is the only console to buy

[Angeljuice]

Lol, OK mate.

[rainslacker]

Yeah, if you're an Xbox gamer, the Xbox would be the most obvious console to buy. however, I'm sure there is more than only one console on the market.

[sashimi]

sounds like it'll be another HD DVD -_- another me too addon

[MultiConsoleGamer]

Yes. Definitely. I think it wasn't announced at E3 because they wanted to focus on Hololens and their partnership with Oculus on PC.