IllumiRoom For Next Xbox Unveiled, But Can It Beat Oculus Rift?

FleshEatingZipper writes: Originally unveiled at CES behind closed doors, IllumiRoom is Microsoft’s big new living room accessory for their next generation Xbox. The footage that leaked out, featuring splash damage and other, minor details breaching the boundaries of the TV, seemed unimpressive, but in full motion, the coffee table projector seems pretty neat… if you have the stadium-sized living room that Microsoft assumes you have.

[DA_SHREDDER]

thats a tight thing to have but I doubt it will be worth the price

[Neixus]

oculus rift and Illumiroom is two diffrent things..
But I vote Oculus, has incredible immersion.

[Urusernamesucks]

But at the cost of having your hole room wiped out.

[Dms2012]

Not my hole room! Thats where I keep my stuff!

[_-EDMIX-_]

One is trying to give you the illusion of the other is actually giving you the VR. there really isn't much to discuss oculus rift easy.

Lol a protractor vs a full on head mounted display headset? I'm not sure what clown is choosing a projector. sure it's pretty interesting but you have to use a bit too much of your imagination to get an immersion. oculus rift is exactly what it sounds like. mind you this is just the first gen of oculus rift it only does 180 degrees what happens when the 2d version does 360?

it looks interesting but oculus rift is the real deal I just can't see how one could even compare the two

[SnakeCQC]

occulus rift seems vastly superior

[Boody-Bandit]

Agreed.
The Oculus Rift is VASTLY superior.
I cant wait for them to be made available for purchase. I love new tech. Gotta collect them all. OR looks like the true future of 3D gaming. A OR with a decent gaming headset? Forget about it!

[Loki86]

Occulus + Hydra = far more next gen than any next gen console could hope to be. Truly a life changing experience.

[_-EDMIX-_]

agreed but who's to say that Sony or Microsoft won't adopt the same technology this generation? Sony already has a head mounted display in Japan.

but this seems right up your alley of both companies. PCs next gen looks pretty damn bad ass.

oculus rift is a day one buy for me with star citizen!

[porkChop]

Maybe it's just me, but so far I think the IllumiRoom looks just plain weird and "off". I wouldn't want that tbh. I'm not too sure about the Oculus Rift either as I wear glasses.

[Loki86]

Has a separate set of lens for people with glasses w/ the development kits.

[porkChop]

Really? That's not too bad then. I do like the concept of the Rift so I'll keep my eye on it then.

[Jek_Porkins]

They are completely different things, one is a projector, and the other is like virtual reality glasses, now apparently Microsoft has some sort of augmented reality glasses that it'll unveil sometime in the future for gaming, those and Oculus Rift would be a better comparison when we know more about them.

[Fergusonxplainsall]

There's no comparing, the rift is full surround vr headset(3D) and the illumiroom is a static light show that looks blurry or strecthed to me.(imo)

The fps in the illumiroom looks funny with the floating hand on screen.The TV is still the main focus and the rest looks distracting. Could be fun on dance games and Star Wars when going lightspeed. Time will tell..

[FlyingFoxy]

Exactly, Rift is fully immersive.. besides you need mid/high end hardware for the Rift to run good framerates, even Oculus said that themselves.

A lot of newer games need high end cards to keep 60fps at 1080p, so the Rift will need good hardware since it's rendering the same thing twice. Newer games will barely be playable if they are not well optimised or run poorly in the first place, this would be useless for games like Crysis because it already runs poorly on release as it is without the 3D.

[sjaakiejj]

The problem with this tech is logistics. They state in the video you need to put a projector on your coffee table. What does that mean?

1. You're going to have to buy a projector for this to work
2. You're going to have a projector on your table
3. You'll have cables running over your table and floor

Whilst I'm aware you could hang it on your sealing, or place it somewhere behind you, it would still imply a significant pain with cables, as the device has to be placed on the opposite end of the room from your Xbox, yet still stay connected to it through some sort of VGA interface.

[sway_z]

Do I really have to do the research for these ill-informed article writers?

The Illumiroom tech will NOT be for Next Xbox or Xbox Fusion or W/E they call the thing.

The tech is not ready for Xbox, MS themselves made a statement which is on the net if you're looking for it.

Occulus Rift tech is more interesting anyways...

[Father Murder X]

I bet it would be alot different if it was Sony that did the illumiroom instead of Microsoft. It seems like a cool idea but no matter what microsoft does it is always a bad thing on N4g.