Facebook-owned Oculus announces hardware partnership with Xiaomi and Qualcomm at CES 2018

It’s day one at CES 2018 and there’s already a some big announcements happening. Facebook-owned Oculus has announced a hardware partnership with Chinese technology brand, Xiaomi and chip maker Qualcomm. [caption id=“attachment_4293957” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Facebook VP of VR Hugo Barra, Qualcomm Incorporated President Cristiano Amon, and Xiaomi VP Thomas Tang at CES 2018. Image: Oculus[/caption] It was none other than Facebook VR vice president, Hugo Barra who showed up on stage at Qualcomm’s press conference to make a few announcements. Barra, who comes from Xiaomi, revealed that the Oculus Go will be manufactured by Xiaomi. The Oculus Go will also use chipsets from Qualcomm . This would be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821, which is also found in smartphone flagships that are now a year old. It does however, serve the purpose of delivering mobile VR experience. Another reveal was that Xiaomi was also working on a China-specific variant of the Oculus Go. The new variant will be called the Mi VR Standalone. [caption id=“attachment_4293961” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] The Oculus Go VR headset alongside the new Mi VR Standalone by Xiaomi.[/caption] The Oculus Go is a standalone virtual reality headset that was announced back in October, 2017. Facebook-back then revealed a self-contained VR headset that did not need a separate computer to operate, offering a proper untethered VR experience at a low price of $199. On day one at CES 2018 there was no launch date announced for this VR headset for the masses but expect these to go on sale early this year.