Oculus Rift VR Headset To Support Linux

I've been hunting for an affordable head mounted display (HMD) for years, and I've always been stunned at how high the price point for VR gear in general has managed to stay so high over the past decade and a half.

There's currently a project on Kickstarter called the Oculus Rift, which aims to break the multi thousand price barrier for (comparatively) high resolution, consumer ready HMDs and bring in higher response time head tracking functionality.

At around $300 for the dev kit (which includes a 1280x800 device with "ultrafast" 6 DOF head tracking, a copy of Doom 3: BFG Edition specifically optimised for the Oculus Rift, and SDK access), they seem well on track (note that the final consumer version will likely have higher specifications), and well surpassed their $250,000 target on their first day.

I shot a couple of questions off so that I could hopefully give GOL readers some extra detail on relevant stuff, and here's what I got back!

Regarding whether or not Doom 3 was likely to come with GPL source and/or be Linux friendly:

QuoteThis was actually discussed at QuakeCon today on the Virtual Insanity panel with Carmack, Abrash, and our own Luckey. Carmack noted that they intend to release some portion of the Oculus-related code to the public, but it may not be everything as pieces of their new engine were brought into Doom 3 BFG to support Oculus.

QuoteWe can't speak to whether Doom 3 BFG will support Linux or not. That's a question for id Software. If we hear one way or another, we'll be sure to let you know.

Regarding Linux support for their SDK, etc.:

QuoteWe plan on supporting Linux but our immediate focus will be Windows, since the Linux platform does not support nearly as many games. We'll do everything we can to make our SDK Linux-friendly as soon as possible.

In response to me saying that lots of stuff on the horizon suggests potential for lots of exciting stuff to happen in the Linux space:

QuoteWe completely agree. We'll do everything we can accelerate Oculus Linux support.

I've put my name down to receive a dev kit, so hopefully I'll be able to give some impressions of how the device functions under Linux when it arrives at the end of the year.

Exciting stuff!