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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Oculus has apparently backtracked on a promise [theregister.co.uk] to allow Oculus-specific titles to run using any VR headset:

VR headset company Oculus has backtracked on a promise not to lock down its software to its hardware. In an update put out this week, the company's digital rights management (DRM) system now checks whether the Oculus Rift headset is attached to the computer when playing a game. If it isn't, the game won't play, effectively ensuring that Oculus games will only work with Oculus headsets.

Although it is fairly common practice in the gaming industry to lock games down to specific hardware, the change goes directly against a promise made by Oculus' CEO Palmer Luckey. Responding to a comment on Reddit five months ago, Luckey wrote: "If customers buy a game from us, I don't care if they mod it to run on whatever they want. As I have said a million times (and counter to the current circlejerk), our goal is not to profit by locking people to only our hardware – if it was, why in the world would we be supporting GearVR and talking with other headset makers?"

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