Oculus’ long-teased standalone Santa Cruz VR headset has been revealed as the Oculus Quest at the company’s Oculus Connect 2018 keynote today.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg officially debuted the wireless headset he calls the conclusion of the first generation of Oculus VR, a generation that includes the company’s standalone Oculus Go and PC-powered Oculus Rift headsets.
While the Oculus Go offered standalone VR on a similar level to mobile phone-powered VR headsets, the Quest will offer Oculus Rift-quality VR experiences when it launches this Spring for $399.
The headset offers entirely self-contained virtual reality with no PC connection or external tracking devices needed whatsoever. To accomplish that, the Quest makes use of technology Oculus has christened Oculus Insight that uses four sensors mounted on the headset itself to offer 6 degrees of freedom positional tracking.
Though Zuckerberg notes that they were considering creating new controllers for the Quest, feedback from VR users led the company to instead bundle the new headset with the Oculus Touch controllers. Quest features built-in 3D audio, technology Zuckerberg says the team has improved on since its appearance in the Oculus Go, and will launch with 50 VR games, apps, and experiences.