Going to Go For the Go?

So the Oculus Go is a thing now.  This is Facebook’s first foray into standalone HMDs.  Sold for $199 USD (or $249 for 64GB model), it features 2560 X 1440 resolution (1280 X 1440 per eye), about 2 hours of battery life in gaming on a single charge, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor.  The GO also includes a 3DOF (rotation-only) hand controller.

Big advantages with the GO is it doesn’t require an expensive smartphone add-in – unlike its Samsung Gear VR predecessors – and Facebook has a growing library of content to go with it.  HOWEVER, it doesn’t feature positional tracking which the more premium PC and console solutions have enjoyed since birth, and it is based on mobile processing technology which is a fraction of the power that drives PC and console.

As the medium is the message, we’ll be interested to see which types of content ultimately succeed on this platform.  For example, there are things that will probably work very well in a mobile VR setup versus a PC or console solution simply because the nature of being mobile helps define what will ultimately be used.  Let’s see what happens!