More R, Less V: Oculus Upgraded, Carmack Making Games

Oculus Rift is more or less synonymous with virtual reality at this point, but that doesn't mean Palmer Luckey and co are resting on their laurels. Heck, based on the latest Oculus upgrade, I'm pretty sure they're melting down their laurels and fashioning them into the borderline-magical doodads that make these goggles tick. In short, Oculus can now track forward and backward movements - once something that required a pairing with the Razer Hydra - all by its lonesome. Also, while former id Software tech legend John Carmack is still plugging away on hardware, he's also helping out with Oculus' own internal game development initiative.

Engadget blew CES wide open and assembled new Rift impressions and an interview from the pieces. In said interview, CEO Brendan Iribe announced that Oculus has its own internal game development branch, and John Carmack's playing a big role.

"He's working on a lot of exciting tech. But his heart and soul and history certainly lies in the game-development side."

"It's certainly been id's philosophy [with new tech] in the past. It's been John Carmack's philosophy - you gotta eat your own dog food here, and develop internal content also. We'll see where it goes, but I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't do more and more internal development."

That said, Oculus still plans to work very closely with third-party developers as well, so probably don't fear an iron-fisted VR dominion just yet. And obviously, Carmack's good, but he's no one-man show. Not in this day and age, anyway. Oculus is still very much in the process of assembling a team.

Regardless, the future is getting closer every day, and now if you lean forward, you can see it a little better. How's it looking from where you're sitting?