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Oculus Touch Bracket > XBox Controller

scottycam
Honored Guest
I understand the need to have a controller on launch that is very familiar to developers and users to ensure quick and easy adoption and game creation. However best experiences on the rift will definitely be with the Touch controllers but they are not being shipped to everyone so developers will put off developing for them.

Looking at the Oculus Touch controllers they seem to have (in total) roughly the same amount of buttons as the xbox controller.

I think it would have made much more sense to ship the Touch controllers to everyone that supports the xbox controller setup in games. Simply have a small plastic joining bracket to fix the two touch controllers together in the shape of an xbox controller. This would also add the benefit of the "Joint/Fixed Touch game pad" working just like an xbox controller but also be tracked in the VR world allowing for easy tracking of the controller so you can put it down and locate it without having to take the headset off.

Then with developers knowing that every single rift headset also has a Touch controller they would invest much more time/money into games that support it much sooner.
5 REPLIES 5

HiThere_
Superstar
The reason Oculus VR couldn't reasonably bundle the Touch controllers also has to do with keeping the Rift cost down : I'm guessing Touch won't come cheap (over 200$ ?).

But the reviews aren't going to be pretty : I doubt the competition is planning to bundle a 2D gamepad with their VR headsets, and Oculus VR is even tying the wireless feature of that 2D controller to a major OS upgrade, despite targeting millions of casual users (meaning the kind of user who is unlikely to have ever performed an OS upgrade, and will need someone to blame if they fail it...).

scottycam
Honored Guest
The Xbox one controller isn't exactly cheap either, depends if Microsoft allow it to be bundled at a much cheaper price.

I don't think the Touch controllers should be that expansive, the IR emitters and all the buttons are common and cheap components. I am not sure what they use for the gesture tracking but that is the only thing I can see that would increase price by any significant amount.

I do like the Xbox controller just would have liked larger dev companies to create for the Touch as that will be awesome for VR but with not many having Touch controllers it will get ignored for awhile.

gabrielinc
Honored Guest
"Cyril" wrote:
The reason Oculus VR couldn't reasonably bundle the Touch controllers also has to do with keeping the Rift cost down : I'm guessing Touch won't come cheap (over 200$ ?).

I think 99$ (50 bucks for each controller) is more realistic. Why should it be so much more expensive than a PS4 or XBox controller?

g4c
Explorer
Yes the touch controllers are very flexible things, a simple joining bracket would turn them into a gamepad.

And there are many more physical hacks that can be done, for example a simple hinged wooden flight yolk with two for the yolk grips.

A HOTAS.

A steering wheel.

It would be cool if each touch controller had an easy mechanical interface, like a small flattened area with a strong captive nut, this way it would be easy to home hack different controller configs using nuts and wood and also there would be a slew of cheesy and cool aftermarket adapters available.
Android VR Developer. https://twitter.com/SiliconDroid

g4c
Explorer
"gabrielinc" wrote:
"Cyril" wrote:
The reason Oculus VR couldn't reasonably bundle the Touch controllers also has to do with keeping the Rift cost down : I'm guessing Touch won't come cheap (over 200$ ?).

I think 99$ (50 bucks for each controller) is more realistic. Why should it be so much more expensive than a PS4 or XBox controller?


$50 a controller sounds good.

They contain stuff similar to xboxone controller: Battery, IR LEDs, buttons, wireless, and also an IMU chip, but that's like less than $1 for mass production.
Android VR Developer. https://twitter.com/SiliconDroid