Oculus Rift appears to be well-poised to bring VR into the mainstream. After a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign based on an early prototype, Oculus has secured venture funding, hired some of the biggest names in gaming tech, and been acquired by Facebook for billions. The company has gone from strength to strength in its short life, but the tech media has picked up on an equally impressive gaming company that appears to be working on VR tech of its own, and some have called it an Oculus killer: Valve.

Valve and Oculus: A Collaboration

The small, sporadic pieces of information that become available about Valve’s VR system often lead people to believe that they are releasing a competing product. Many believe that Valve’s head mounted display offers a better VR experience than that of Oculus. But an announcement in early 2014 made it clear that Valve is collaborating with Oculus Rift on its prototypes and sharing much of its research and development work in VR. In March 2014, Oculus hired Michael Abrash away from Valve; Abrash was one of the driving forces behind Valve’s VR research. While no-one has ruled out the possibility of Valve one day releasing a VR system, it appears that both the Crystal Cove and more recent Crescent Bay prototypes from Oculus Rift have used features gleaned from Valve’s research.

QR Codes

One much discussed feature from Valve’s VR system that isn’t in Oculus Rift is Valve’s “holodeck room.” Many reports from people who have tested Valve’s VR mention that the room the system is housed in have what appear to be QR codes printed on paper, and pasted all over the walls at various intervals. These visuals were used to provide inside-out head movement tracking using a camera on the head mounted display (HMD). Oculus appears to have solved this problem using an external mounted camera and an array of LEDs on the HMD. This appears to be an indication that Valve is focusing more on speculative research on improving the VR experience, where Oculus appears to be honing in on a readily sellable product with each subsequent release. A dedicated room with QR codes would be a tough sell to a consumer.