We will probably see demos hit the larger game stores toward Christmas. Shame they couldn't push the Oculus on the shelves before Christmas but i would rather they release a more polished version than a flop product that buries any chances of VR blooming in the near future.
Oculus have a few reasons for not releasing early.
1) Stock. They want to ensure a decent stock level, no soft launch shenanigans.
2) Mature SDK. They expect to be at 1.0 by Nov/Dec, but not only are delays in these things extremely common(especially now since many of the features require external cooperation with the likes of Microsoft, Nvidia and AMD), you also want to give developers time to not just convert to it, but also take maximum advantage of what is offered. Several developers are not even bothering with adding or updating VR support for their existing games til 1.0 comes around. In the end, the hope is that we have basically have a plug+play VR experience with good performance. That really is going to be super important. Being able to start up a game, have it recognize the Rift is plugged in and immediately switching to VR mode, and have it run well is going be really important for growing VR's popularity moving forward.
3) Oculus Store. This is their business plan, so it'll be a high priority. They'll have some experience with this from their GearVR time, but it's still important they provide a great UI, good discovery ability, and also ensure the payment backend system is solid so devs will feel confident in putting their content on it. Speaking of which:
4) Content. One of the most important aspects of any gaming platform launch, and the Rift will roughly be in a similar situation. They've got a lot lined up and nothing will better for VR than debuting with a wealth of content. People can buy into a console launch on Day 1 and be reasonably assured that even if there isn't a ton of content now, it will come later, but people probably wont have quite that same confidence in a VR headset, so starting off strong and convincing people it's safe to throw down the money for one is really important.
I'm a little concerned that the resolution of the first gen consumer product is going to be noticably too low which will limit its potential applications, it should be ok for the average game but with things like virtual tourism ...
I would prefer something like a resolution of 1944 by 2160 for each half of the screen
I'm sure Oculus would too, but the sad truth is that nobody makes 1940x2160 OLED, 90hz, global update displays. What they've got in the CV1 Rift(and in the Vive) are seriously the best VR displays that are available for mass production and don't cost a fortune.
And while I do worry about resolution a bit, I've found DK2 to be roughly adequate for most applications. And Crescent Bay and CV1 are reportedly a nice step up, plus *much* better optics with a bigger sweet spot, so while I haven't tried them, it definitely sounds like it should be ok. Still wont be high resolution like we're used to, but it shouldn't be so bad that we consider it dreadful or anything.
Personally, the field of view bothers me more than anything. You get over it, but it's definitely something I hope they can improve on fairly quickly, cuz I feel that the current field of view of these headsets is pretty much bare minimum of what I'm comfortable calling 'virtual reality'. It's not awful, but it's definitely limited and noticeable.
