Oculus VR unveils its latest prototype, Crescent Bay

By David Nield Published December 11, 2015

Oculus VR has been showing off a brand new prototype of its virtual reality headset as a full commercial release draws ever closer. Called Crescent Bay, the latest edition of the hardware brings with it a faster frame rate, 360-degree head tracking and an integrated audio system. It’s also lighter than its predecessor.

The news comes from the Oculus Connect conference, the first developer event that the Facebook-owned company has held. According to the official blog post, nearly 1,000 developers are in attendance, and the unveiling of the Crescent Bay prototype is one of the biggest announcements to come out of the event. Connect attendees can get hold of a prototype straight away but general pricing and availability haven’t been confirmed as of yet.

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“Crescent Bay is the latest prototype headset on the path to the consumer version of the Rift,” says the company. “Along with the new hardware, we’ve created original demo content, developed in-house by our content team… This is still incredibly early hardware. There are plenty of technical challenges left to solve for the consumer Rift, but Crescent Bay is truly the best virtual reality headset we’ve ever built.”

In other news, Oculus VR announced an Oculus Platform for the Samsung Gear VR, demonstrating a willingness to work with other manufacturers to develop next-generation virtual reality software. In a speech, Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe said that the new headset represented a huge leap forward from the version before. He also confirmed that more than 100,000 developer kits have been sold by Oculus VR so far.

Facebook bought Oculus VR for $2 billion back in March with the intention to “change the way we work, play and communicate.” Two prototype versions of the Oculus Rift headset have appeared before Crescent Bay, but a target date has not yet been set for a full commercial release.

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Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…

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