All Hands Active offers rare opportunity to test out the latest in gaming technology
Join All Hands Active on Saturday to test out the Oculus Rift.
Courtesy of All Hands Active.
Immerse yourself in virtual reality on Saturday at the Oculus Rift Demo Night hosted by All Hands Active and The Game Makers.
Visit All Hands Active, 523 E. Liberty St., between 4 and 9 p.m. to try out the Rift, a virtual reality headset that provides users with a life-like gaming experience.
“You now have a piece of equipment that you can strap on and will literally take you to a whole new world,” Education Coordinator at All Hands Active Josh Williams said. “It supports proper depth perception and tracking and unlike 3D it really looks real and feels real. It’s very visceral and this is the only place you’ll be able to try it.”
The Rift is still in the development stage and is not available for general public use. Game developers are among the few that have access to this long-awaited technology.
“This is a pretty rare occasion,” Williams said. “The only other event I’ve heard of allowing the general public to try the Rift was in San Francisco. It’s pretty hard to find them unless you know someone who got in on the original order.”
About a year ago a demo version of the Rift could be ordered so developers would be able to begin creating games compatible with the software. Now they are filling back orders from the original delivery and the Rift cannot be obtained by consumers, Williams said.
The Game Makers, a group that works to connect and keep video game developers in the Michigan area, placed an order for 10 Rifts and will be lending one to All Hands Active for the event Saturday.
“The main goal of All Hands Active is to give people access to tools and resources,” Williams said. “The Oculus Rift is seen as another tool we can give people access to so they can try and develop for the Rift or just learn about the technology.”
Ten-minute sessions will allow visitors to try out Half-Life 2, The Tuscany Demo, Rift Coaster and TF2 for $5. Money from the event will go toward supporting All Hands Active's ability to provide free resources to the community and The Game Makers' continued efforts to connect gamers in Michigan.
Chelsea Hoedl is an intern reporter for AnnArbor.com. She can be reached at choedl@mlive.com.
Comments
Jaime Magiera
Sun, Jun 23, 2013 : 4:41 a.m.
Aside: Oculus lost one of their lead developers in a freak tragedy a few weeks ago. He was crossing the street and got hit by a car involved in a police Chase. The situation has seemed to embolden the company to push this product to market.
Jaime Magiera
Sun, Jun 23, 2013 : 4:38 a.m.
I ordered a Rift SDK a few weeks ago and I'm waiting for it in the mail (you can still order the SDK outside the kickstarter). People should note that Oculus demoed a 1080p version of the headset last week at a conference. Oculus also secured 90 million in funding last week. The consumer version is not far away.
kraiford12
Sat, Jun 22, 2013 : 12:55 p.m.
Will probably stop by and check it out. Never heard of this place and it seems they have a web vulnerabilities/penetration testing type seminar tomorrow that I may check out as well. More than willing to pay 5$ to sample something rather than (minimum) 300$ to get a developer (beta/alpha) kit. Additionally, it seems like a reason to get out and meet some new people.
Billy
Fri, Jun 21, 2013 : 12:13 p.m.
"Ten-minute sessions will allow visitors to try out Half-Life 2, The Tuscany Demo, Rift Coaster and TF2 for $5." Sell 60 sessions and you've paid for it....they were only $300 for the cheap dev kit. Also...the rift is NOT available to consumers yet....nor has it been. They just finished the kickstarter last June... You could get a low-res version of it for development purposes for $300 or more if you donated through the kickstarter fund....you couldn't get a rift any other way at that point. There's over a dozen oculus rift dev kits on ebay right now between $275 and $1500....so they're more than availible if you really want one.