Alongside its consumer Rift, Oculus has announced a user interface for virtual reality. Oculus Home is quite a lot like the Gear VR interface of the same name that launched last year, but while you have to put on the Gear VR to do anything, this does double duty as a VR and a 2D interface. Without the Rift, it’s a place where you can see what friends are doing and look at a catalog. If you do put it on, Oculus is offering game demos in VR. You’ll be able to preview a game without downloading or buying it. The whole thing seems a little like a VR version of Steam.
Oculus Rift portal will let you demo games in VR
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
This is all part of Oculus’ attempt to create a user-friendly version of its sometimes forbidding development kit. It’s also going to be the company’s first attempt at an independent store — the Gear VR is built in conjunction with Samsung, and it had a rough start, as developers had to wait several months to offer more than free demos. We don’t know much about the Rift version of Home yet, but we’ll apparently be finding out more soon.
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