Although it has already been commented on more than once, rumors about a possible motion controller by Oculus return to the load. The recent acquisition of Carbon Design Group, a company with projects behind it such as the Xbox 360 or Kinect controller, must be for more than just designing a nice case for the commercial version of the Rift.
The CNET article states that Oculus is quietly working on preparing motion controllers that should offer a result similar to Control VR, STEM or PrioVR, and this could be a serious setback for these manufacturers, who are already fighting arm in arm to encourage developers to include support for their SDKs. At the moment they have achieved the support of small indie developers, but if Oculus offers a similar device and integrates the support in its SDK it will have a great advantage although others have arrived before, especially if the commercial version of the Rift already includes such a device, which remains to be seen.
Virtuix has already had to move tab and start looking at the Android world by adding Bluetooth support in its Omni after Oculus made it very clear that its goal was the experience based on the first versions of the Rift, and things could get equally complicated for manufacturers who have achieved great success on Kickstarter. Sixense seems to also be looking askance at mobile technology, which will play a decisive role in the medium-term future of virtual reality, but those of us who have supported various crowdfunding campaigns for these devices could find ourselves with some great and expensive paperweights in a while.
Another option is for the Rift’s motion controller to be sold as an option, and for Oculus to support third-party devices in its SDK, something that Valve could also enable in Steamworks, just like ITA itself. Unfortunately, virtual reality is still in its infancy, but it would be a pity if many of these efforts ended up coming to naught.
