Going for full-on VR might be the wrong approach for early Occulus Rift projects. Using the head tracking with a bit more restraint, and focusing on some really solid 3D visuals might be a better idea.
Another thing worth considering is the potential for asynchronous play. Is it possible to run the Occulus Rift in conjunction with another display?
Sure, it's just another monitor. You can run it and another monitor at once, with all the caveats that entails.
So I got my Rift in the mail a few days ago. My roommate and I have been messing around with it a bunch lately, and here's my take on it.
Device Comfort: Pretty darn comfortable. I wish there was some padding on the nose piece, it can dig into my nose at times, but most of the time it's fine. The OR itself is surprisingly light, so it doesn't hurt my neck, and it has a bevy of straps to keep it in place. Friends of mine who wear glasses have been able to fit it over their glasses without trouble (it's designed to be wearable with glasses).
Screen Quality: Resolution is low, you can see individual pixels very clearly. It looks kind of cool, actually, like some 90's cyberpunk vision of the cyber Internet, but of course it needs to be much higher resolution. This makes detail pretty hard to see, and it's difficult to distinguish stuff at long distances. Contrast could be higher, and the screen has a lot of ghosting. Still, the commercial release is a ways away, and the screen is probably the easiest thing for them to improve upon, so I'm not worried about this. If resolution were, say, doubled, it would be pretty nice.
Sensors: They seem to be really high quality; the device tracks incredibly well and is very stable. You know how the Wiimote does that jitter when it's just sitting there? This thing doesn't, movement is butter smooth and completely accurate. Personally, I think the sensors are fast (it keeps up with head movement incredibly well), but I think the OR developers said they want to make them faster.
Optics: Look good to me, not that I know much about optics. The FOV is extremely high. This thing fills up your vision very well. I haven't noticed any eye strain, soreness, or anything bad happening to my eyes while using the Rift.
Motion Sickness: This is an interesting thing. I'll start off by saying I have a fairly iron stomach, I don't get motion sickness that easily. There are definitely some actions that make you sick easier than other. For me, it's getting super close to things, changing elevation (stairs, falling, etc), and moving quickly while I'm close to something. You do seem to build up a tolerance, however, pretty quickly. Beyond one of the demos, the first thing I played was Dear Esther. I played about 15 minutes and had to stop. Throughout the day I played a bunch of other titles, and by the end of the day I was able to play through and beat Dear Esther without any trouble. Now I can play pretty much indefinitely.
Some of this is my body adapting, some of it is also me adapting as a user and avoiding doing stuff that makes me sick. If I were making a game for the rift, I might pad out the collision volume for the player quite a bit to keep people from getting too close to walls and such on accident.
Verdict: This thing is incredible. The resolution is something that needs to be fixed, but ultimately, I feel like it doesn't matter for capturing that elusive VR feeling. My roommate and I have been talking about this a lot, and the conclusion that we've come to is that large FOV and accurate, responsive head tracking is the secret sauce that you need to make VR work. The Rift already has this, and I see a pretty clear path for the rest of the device falling into place. Playing games with this on was, to me, very different from just using a screen, and in a good way.
Design Considerations: It feels like you're moving way, way faster with the Rift on. Getting too close to things is jarring, and moving really fast next to something that's close is the worst. No one sprints with a wall 2 inches from their face in real life. I don't have that much of a problem with using thumbsticks to aim left and right, personally, but there's definitely room to improve upon conventional control strategies. One thing that would be nice to toy around with is a button that locks your head in place as you turn the direction your body is facing, or a quick-turn button to snap your body inline with your head. Most games right now are using the rift to change the direction you're walking in, rather than simply looking around. Also, some visual tricks that look fine on a screen look odd with a headset on. Billboards that are close look really obvious, as well as rain/weather effects that aren't volumetric.
Games that I've played with it thus far (using various mods and such):
Dear Esther: This game should be the posterboy for VR, it's like it was designed for it. You're just walking around looking at cool stuff, and none of the movement is so jarring as to cause serious motion sickness problems.
AAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAA!!! For The Awesome: Not nearly as vomit inducing as I'd hoped, but still fun.
Minecraft: Holy balls, unbelievable. This was the best for me, partly because the mod has such nice integration with the rift.
Skyrim: Pretty decent, but I felt that here the resolution was actually a hindrance. Not quite sure why. Sadly, fire and weather effects looked incredibly flat while playing it.
I've got a game cooking in Unity that I might throw some Rift support onto. The Hydra is pretty intriguing to me, does anyone know if it's supported by Unity as well?