The 
competition is getting more intense for Facebook’s Oculus Rift.
Valve Software, the videogame developer and creator/operator of the industry’s largest PC game digital distribution platform, will unveil its own virtual reality hardware next week at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. The company has not yet announced whether the system will see a commercial release, but it is actively meeting with content partners at the show, generally an indicator that it does plan to do so.
While 
it’s still anyone’s guess as to when the Oculus Rift or Sony’s Project Morpheus will be commercially available, this year’s E3 made one thing clear: there’s nothing virtual about the fun these devices deliver.
VR may not have been front and center at this year’s show, but it certainly created a lot of buzz. Sony saw huge crowds queing up for Morpheus. The line stretching around the Oculus booth was several hours long.
I tried out a lot of VR games at the show. Here’s what stood out.
As 
cancer began taking its toll on Roberta Firstenberg, it started stealing things she had long loved and taken for granted. Chief among those was the ability to take a simple walk around her yard.
Granddaughter (and game artist) Priscilla Firstenberg, though, managed to outwit the disease and give Roberta a few final strolls using an Oculus Rift headset.
Rumors 
have been swirling since last September that Sony plans to introduce a virtual-reality headset for the PlayStation 4. Now it appears the company is preparing to open up about it.
TechRadar, citing unnamed sources, reports the company will unveil the headset at the 2014 Game Developer Conference, which starts in San Francisco on March 17. Other sources, speaking to Yahoo Games, say they also expect the company to make an announcement at the show, though they note it may change its mind at the last minute.
It 
might feel like Virtual Reality has been a part of our vocabulary forever, but the term didn’t really emerge until 1987. That’s when writer and computer scientist Jaron Lanier popularized the phrase, giving birth to an industry that wasn’t quite ready for prime time, but stirred imaginations everywhere.
Today, excitement over VR is booming, as some promising technologies get closer to retail release. It was a long road to get to this point, though, and success is still far from a guarantee. Here are a few of the significant milestones virtual reality has already faced in its relatively short life.
CEO 
Brendan Iribe would not be surprised to see Oculus games cost more than $60 – he also says “the age of 2D monitors has run its course”
The Oculus Rift could open up new realms of immersion for gamers – but those experiences may come with a price.
Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus, notes that – as a hardware manufacturer – his business has no say in what software companies will charge for Oculus-enhanced games, but admits he would not be surprised to see them come at a premium price.
Just 
two years ago, 3D was being touted as the Next Big Thing in gaming
Sony released an affordable 3D monitor for the PlayStation 3 to showcase the system’s potential. Nintendo proudly trotted out the 3DS. First-party developers added in the necessary coding to make their games shine on the then-hot technology.
John 
Carmack, widely credited as the creator of the first-person shooter genre, has taken a new job.
The co-founder of id Software — and one of the most highly-regarded developers in the industry — was today announced as the new chief technical officer at Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
John 
Carmack, whose “Doom” and “Quake” helped revolutionize the video game industry, is looking to lead a new upheaval with a technology once dismissed as a pipe dream.
Carmack, the co-founder of id software, has been named the new chief technical officer at Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
Roller 
coasters can be scary. The high climbs, the steep drops, and the feel of your body being rattled back and forth is too much for some people.
It turns out, though, that the terrifying part might well be just in your head.
Chris Morris: Journalist 