Standalone Oculus Go VR headset launches next year for $199

Oculus has announced a brand-new standalone VR headset for release in early 2018. Unveiled yesterday at its OC4 conference, the Oculus Go will cost $199 and doesn’t require any cables or a smartphone to provide the display. 

Made of fabric that’s both soft and breathable, Oculus says the headset will be "super lightweight" in order to make its VR experiences even more comfortable for users. 

The built-in LCD display will also "dramatically improve visual clarity and reduce screen door effect," according to Oculus, and its next-gen lenses will offer a wide field of view with "significantly reduced glare" compared to the regular RIft. 

It will also ship with integrated spatial audio, with speakers built right into the side of the headset. That said, there will also be a 3.5mm headphone jack for those occasions when you want to listen to VR on your own. 

What’s more, all Gear VR apps will be compatible with Oculus Go, giving it a huge library of apps right off the bat. They also share the same controller, so developers building games and apps for Gear VR won’t have to redouble their efforts to get it working on the Go. 

Over 2,000 VR apps are now available on the Oculus platform, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced last night, but it also announced that Respawn Entertainment will be bringing a brand-new Titanfall experience to the platform in 2019. Likewise, Ready At Dawn announced Echo Combat, another follow-up to the critically acclaimed Lone Echo and Echo Arena. Echo Combat will be a competitive zero-g multiplayer FPS set in the same world as the previous two titles, and will arrive sometime in 2018.