All about Oculus

<Credit: Oculus Rift>

Oculus received about $2.8 billion from 9,522 people by uploading their project in the Kickstarter in 2012. Then two years after in 2014, they were acquired by Facebook in $2 billion.

The history of Oculus is not that long. Oculus has begun from a boy who loved game and had passion for it. Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus, begun to collect VR devices from the age of 15. At that time he was a representative of ModRetro which was a community assembling vintage game console and a student attending local junior college. He might be the one who has collected the most various VR HMDs.

<Palmer Luckey/ Credit: Techcrunch>

However, he was not able to find a perfect HMD that he was looking for, so he began to make his own VR HMD. If he was alone, however, Oculus might not have been born.
One of the most important person for Palmer Luckey was John Carmack, the genius programmer, who played an important role for Oculus.  John Carmack is the co-founder of id Software and made Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and Quake.

John Carmack became interested in VR when he begin to make FPS game named Rage. He tried all kinds of HMD but none of them satisfied him because of its slow reaction speed or high price. This brought John Carmack to Palmer Luckey.

< Credit : Oculus VR Korea>

John Carmack applied his Doom3 into Palmer’s VR HMD and revealed it in E3 id Software Booth for the first time in 2012. After that, Palmer Luckey established Oculus VR.

This Oculus VR was acquired by Facebook and it gained more recognition. The effort of wo people who loved game and tried to make a better VR HMD made us possible to enjoy VR in better quality and price.
Oculus DK 1

<Oculus DK1/ Credit: Oculus>

The first software development came out after they were funded by Kickstarter named Oculus DK1. This device was not perfect. It was better than the first product which they opened in E3 but tracking service was not available and there were still a screen door effect. However, this first kit was enough to show off the possibility of Oculus and it was much better than any existed HMD at that time.

Oculus DK 2

<Oculus DK2 / Credit: Oculus>

The second SDK was released one week before Oculus was acquired by Facebook. They supplemented many defects from DK1 and it included an external camera for tracking system. DK2 is the newest SDK. Oculus VR didn’t released DK3 but it opened Oculus Rift Crescent Bay. Oculus Rift Crescent Bay is known as the prototype that is most similar to that for consumer.

<Oculus Rift Crescent bay / Credit: Oculus >

Then on January 2016, Oculus VR begin a presale of Oculus Rift. Oculus Rift is the first consumer version HMD. It took almost 4 years after Oculus was founded. However, South Korea was not included in the list of markets where the Oculus Rift will initially ship. When somebody asked Palmer Luckey about this his simple answer was an issue “ government regulation”.

Many people were surprised because South Korea was the first branch in foreign country except America. That Oculus Korea released Gear VR with Samsung on November 2015 and as their third model was released in half price than the previous devices it is considered as a product that popularized VR HMD. Also it was sold out in presale period so it proved that consumers were thirsty for VR devices.

<Credit: Oculus>

There was a rumor that Oculus Korea is going to withdraw from Korea. However, it was not true. According to Newspim the person from Facebook Korea said about reducing the personnel that “It is not true that we Oculus is withdraing from Korea market because of the contract end and we will focus more in market extension.” So anybody who was concerned about withdrawal of Oculus doesn’t need to.  

Nevertheless, one thing still remains. Which government regulation made Oculus to except Korea from the list? Specialist in this field assumed that the reason can be “radio wave certification problem.” 

However, you don’t need to worry because according to the National Radio Research Agency, Oculus have already received three type of wave certification of specific low power radio wireless machine. This included not only headset but also location movement tracking sensor and remote control. Therefore we can expect to see Oculus Rift in Korea soon.

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