John Carmack Joins Oculus as CTO

Yes, I understand that they have gotten sleeker, but still too bulky, imho. To each their own, I guess.

He should've said "I can't wait to run into those problems and punch them in the face."

@zedman: Agreed. Im already sold.

I remember the old days when we used to sit right in front of the 27" TV to get our VR kicks!

erm wow..... take my money already

don't know if trolling or just narrow-minded..

Carmack is God.

Great news!

At a glance I keep thinking that header image is Walter White with a gas mask sitting on his head.

Jesus! This is amazing. John you are my hero! :D

Hmm. That's something I didn't expect. Huge respect for Carmack - was actually thinking about all the stuff id did back in the day, how important they were for gaming.
As the article says, fps and internet play is basically id's doing. Others would have done it, sure, but that doesn't really matter. Still remember those pioneering days of wolfenstein, doom and quake. My first flag capture in Q2 CTF is still one of my most vivid and cherished gaming moments.

Can't wait for a new shift in how games are played. Been waiting for the "next 3d revolution" for ages, so very much hope VR will bring that same excitement. Being a flight and racing sim fan.. Pretty sure I'm all set to have my mind blown outta my ass.

Carmack will be opening an Oculus office in Dallas, Texas, and is currently recruiting employees.

Romero and Mcgee

Do it sick, John.

It's probably not a coincidence that Armadillo Aerospace is going into hibernation. Carmack might have found a lot more free time now that he doesn't do as much actual rocket science.

No one questions John Carmack. If he says he wants to go work on Oculus, no one is going to say "but, you work for Id, you.. you work for us". John Carmack does what John Carmack wants. And the world is a better place for it.

I really want Oculus to succeed as a company and the Rift as technology, so this is great news to me. It's been clear that this is what Carmack's been most passionate about for awhile.

He looks very happy.

Oh Carmack, you rascal.

Considering that I am kind of excited about the Oculus, and could not care less about the games Id have been putting out, this is great news.

I think I'm officially interested in Oculus Rift. There must be something to this tech or Jeff wouldn't be so excited about it. If I understand correctly this device hits your entire peripheral vision so there isn't this weird boundary you can see between the 3D image and your surroundings. If this is true and it does provide full peripheral vision then I could imagine how cool this must be. But I'll have to experience it for myself. When they get an official release available to consumers out there I'll probably pick one up.

The question I have at this point is: will future consoles potentially support this? (Xbox One, PS4) or will this strictly be PC? I could see myself using this for slower moving games like Elder Scrolls where they intend you to immerse yourself in the world. . Maybe not so much for fast paced action games, side-scrollers, etc. where it would be best just to play on a TV.

As far as Carmack goes, I'm sure his perspective will improve the device from a gaming standpoint. He's been pretty vocal about latency. We all know how latency can kill an input device for games so if they can get it right- fantastic.

.....aaaaand now I don't want an Oculus Rift. Good luck to them but anything with Carmack involved nowadays I don't want to waste money on.

Carmack's an insanely smart guy. I'm sure he'll do good things.

...or he'll finally have the tools to become a mad scientist. Either way, it'll be fun to watch.

I thought he was already on the Rift crew....but still, freaking awesome news! Pretty much solidified my purchase the day it releases.

Awesome news. As though i needed any more reasons to be excited to see the rift launch.

Cool. I think at this point in games, his efforts and brilliance would best be focused on things other than graphics engine development. I'm glad he's back on board with Oculus, and now I have confidence the product will live up to his high standards. There was a window where I was worried it needed direct competition to live up to its hype.

@waronhugs: Rage doesn't run on my rig and its way above the specs. I get 2 FPS, ID knows about it and isn't fixing it. He made the decision to not fix users problems. He can code but I'm not sure about his priorities for the end user.

It makes sense that Patrick wrote this up because he's the news guy but, I'm a little more than surprised that Brad didn't do it because of his man-crush with Carmack.

Also, I really want an Occulus Rift.

Very true.

@purplespandex: John Carmack is not their creative director. He's their lead programmer, his engines generally have some of the most responsive control of any FPS game engines (I can't vouch for Rage). I want VR tracking to feel like my mouse in Quake 3 Arena, rock solid.

I'm ready to get rifted John, take me with you.

Not surprised. Carmack was the reason the rift happened and became prevalent. He's been the hype train behind it for the past year so him taking this step is more natural than most would think. These things just need to hit the market already so I can get one.

Oh shit, this is great news!

@kosayn: It'll go mainstream once people start making things people want to play/experience on it. Maybe at first it's a niche peripheral like a flight stick or even a racing wheel, but it's only a matter of time before it gets integrated into mainstream gaming. I honestly keep revising my expectations upward every time something new comes out about Oculus, and I started off with near-zero interest because I assumed it was another dead-end project with zero chance of doing what it said it would.

The biggest complaints about the Rift are things that seem like they should be remedied with a few years of technology advancement. Everything else is moving in a promising direction. The things people are messing with now isn't even intended for consumers and people walk away with positive feelings.

We're in spitting distance of one of the most tantalizing nerd dreams becoming a reality. They shouldn't need a marketing genius (sorry for the oxymoron) to do well.

@wardcleaver: come on, compared to past attempts at VR headsets, the OR is Apple level sleek in its aesthetics. and i'm pretty sure it will only improve.

i'm almost tempted to get one (once the retail build is out)

I suspect a guy like John Carmack can more or less do what he wants at this stage. He's always seemed like a very professional individual so I'm sure he is doing the "right thing" by id software and Zenimax, while still following his dreams and passions with Oculus VR.

In recent years he seems like he's mostly been involved in R&D anyways, and the nitty gritty programming on game titles has been done by others.

John Carmack looks like the lovechild of Brad and Alton Brown.

Good for him he always seemed especially interested in the Oculus Rift in it's early development and I hope the VR headset becomes successful and is supported by many games.

This is fucking awesome. I can't think of a better place for the man's ridiculous talents to be put to good use.

Now get Cliff Bleszinski over to id to save Doom 4.

What an amazing picture.

So how does the Oculus Rift ultimately go mainstream? Nintendo remains the only company to make 3D gaming popular, and that's after badly messing it up once. They would have no interest in supporting a 3DS alternative at the moment.

Microsoft remains strongly committed to Kinect. So really, the only possibility to buy this thing and really encourage a broad range of developers to make games for it is Sony or Valve...

It seems more likely to me that it will limp along for a couple more years as a neat thing for tech demos and indie stuff, and eventually find its Minecraft equivalent; a popular, deep game that just gets sold on a website. Those don't just come along every day, though... I still think it'd be better for an existing major platform to buy Oculus and give the Rift a push.

Cool that Carmack's on the job, that should ensure that the eventual commercial version is technically sound... but he probably can't do much to attract better game development for the device, outside of id itself.

Now see, I thought he was involved since the very beginning. This was really hard to keep up with, but very cool nonetheless.

That reminds me, I still have to watch his keynote from this year's Quakecon. I can (and will) listen to this man for hours.

I thought that he was once involved with the Oculus Rift, but stepped away because he thought that it wasn't working to his standards? Or did I mis-remember something...?

I watched that ENTIRE 3 and a half hour video and didn't even notice it was that long. So good. That guy likes to talk and it's ok with me.

This is all kinds of awesome. It means, to me at least, the Oculus tech will continue to be refined and well supported in future. I really want this thing to be a success and I think with Carmack involved it has a much better chance of that than it would without him. Both because the man is a tech genius, and also because he has far reaching connections in the games industry to make sure the thing will get native support in more games.

Virtual reality on there! :D

Happiest thing I've heard all week, so excited to see what the future holds for the Oculus!