People who try Oculus Rift "walk out a believer", says John Carmack

Oculus Rift CTO John Carmack has described the experience of first trying out his company's take on virtual reality in, uh, pretty glowing terms.

Carmack is a genius and an actual rocket scientist, and could take any job he damn well liked. That he chose to leave id Software, a company he helped found, shows how committed he is to VR - remember how he was experimenting with his own headset before Oculus came on the scene?

In a newly-published interview with Fortune, Carmack explained what it is about Oculus in particular that attracted him, and what makes it different from the ill-fated virtual reality projects of the past.

"Oculus really started popularizing a new approach using cellphone screen technology, a wide field of view, and super-low-latency sensor tracking," Carmack said.

"It’s not crappy stuff that doesn’t work and makes everybody sick. When you experience Oculus technology, it’s like getting religion on contact. People that try it walk out a believer."

(Honestly y'all, I thought VR was all p**s in the wind until I actually tried it.)

Carmack said that the "core" of virtual reality is "being freed from the limitations of actual reality".

"Experiencing mobile VR is like when you first tried a decent desktop VR experience. There is a sense that you are glimpsing something from the future. This is science fiction made real, and it’s only just the beginning," he said.

As well as some interesting comments on the competition, challenges facing VR and the opportunities afforded by mobile VR, Carmack has a couple of interesting comments on what kinds of games (space sims, racers) and those that don't (shooters, notably). Hit the link above for the full thing.

Thanks, Gamespot.