Oculus Rift creator hints at moving beyond keyboards and controllers

Oculus Rift creator hints at new input methods
If you think this looks silly, just imagine what Luckey is planning

The Oculus Rift can transport us into brave new worlds but the illusion is still broken by the keyboard or gamepad you need to actually play games.

Oculus Rift founder Palmer Luckey is more than aware of this, and although he may have been clear that consoles aren't the place for Oculus Rift, even current PC inputs aren't going to cut it for the ambitious 21-year-old.

"Keyboards and mice and even gamepads – they're all kind of broken abstractions of how we actually interact with the world," Luckey told TechRadar.

"Keyboards and mice are superhuman interfaces that are very unintuitive. One of the things that the Rift does that's so powerful is that it lets people, anybody, even without hardcore FPS training, look around a world in a way that's natural."

¡VR Revolución!

Luckey added that virtual reality isn't just about the headset - we need to rethink how we interact with these environments.

"It's not a natural interface. It's not something people can use, and it is not the best way to convince yourself you're in a virtual space," he said on traditional inputs.

"I think we're going to need to see the same kind of revolution in input. The perfect interface is not a keyboard and mouse."

So does Luckey hold the solution to the problem? "I do, but nothing to announce," he told us.

Hmm, guess we'll just have to wait and see what 2014 brings.

But it sounds as though Luckey has ambitions that go well beyond the goggles - there could even be some sort of partnership with Valve, which just revealed it will be showing off its own VR headset in January.

Hugh Langley

Hugh Langley is the ex-News Editor of TechRadar. He had written for many magazines and websites including Business Insider, The Telegraph, IGN, Gizmodo, Entrepreneur Magazine, WIRED (UK), TrustedReviews, Business Insider Australia, Business Insider India, Business Insider Singapore, Wareable, The Ambient and more.

Hugh is now a correspondent at Business Insider covering Google and Alphabet, and has the unfortunate distinction of accidentally linking the TechRadar homepage to a rival publication.

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