Oculus reportedly plans Rift S, a small PC VR upgrade that’s not Rift 2

When news broke last week that Oculus cofounder Brendan Iribe was departing the company, the Facebook-owned VR headset maker was quick to claim that his departure hadn’t affected plans for a “future version of Rift,” its PC VR platform. Now that the dust has settled, the situation appears to be clear: The company is reportedly planning to release a modest followup to Rift known as “Rift S,” focused on simplifying rather than multiplying the prior Rift experience.

According to a TechCrunch report, Facebook chose to pass on Iribe’s completely redesigned Rift 2 concept “Caspar” in favor of a design that could have the Rift S name, mimicking Apple’s use of the “S” designation for an iterative rather than wholesale iPhone update. In addition to making Rift “more accessible” for PC users and not demanding the very latest PC hardware, the Rift S is expected to include “minor upgrades” to Rift’s display resolution and eliminate its external tracking in favor of the integrated camera-based “inside-out” tracking system developed for Oculus Quest.