Imagine if you will, the ultimate video game.

I’m talking about what you wish someone in the industry would make.

You are probably envisioning this game being played on a screen, large in high definition. You would be wrong.

Where the future is headed is total immersion. That’s right, Virtual Reality, VR, as in ‘Put this visor on and be transported to whatever environment you see fit to create for yourself.’ And Oculus Rift, will supply it for you. 

Awarded Best in Show at the Consumer Electronics Show 2014 for the second year in a row, the ‘Crystal Cove’ prototype is getting geeks gawking.

It promises to be the first functional virtual reality system to take immersion to a whole new level.  The two majors breakthroughs include positional tracking and an increased refresh rate. This enables your to comfortably live in a VR environment for extended periods of time and not get sick.

So how long before this wonderful world changing technology is brought to the masses? Nobody is sure since Oculus developers keep what they are doing under very tight wraps, but if this German Facebook ad is any indicator, it could very well be this summer.

That’s right, a major “game-changing”  tech breakthrough coming within the year, and still nobody seems to know about it? 

Maybe that will all change now that games developers are getting involved.

A few weeks ago, EVE Online, makers of the hugely popular space based MMO announced that their dog fighter game, Valkyrie, will have Oculus Support.

And so will The Elder Scrolls Online, the fantasy MMO based off of the Elder Scrolls series by Bethesda.

Considering how people react to a really basic roller coaster simulation, it’s going to be interesting to see reactions to Oculus’s awesome immersive graphics, whether it be a high definition spaceship fighting game or a battle through a dungeon with your friends. 

To help navigate these games experiences, there has also been new exciting developments in the technology of game controllers.. Thalmic’s Myo Armband, a phenomenal piece of technology with an enormous number of potential uses is something that the Oculus team is already looking to harness. The Virtuix Omni is another great example of what the future of controlling games might look like.

But the true potential of the Oculus does not lie entirely, or even mostly in video games.

The advent of VR creates enormous new opportunities for Hollywood.  Nobody really knows what filmmakers are going to do with this type of technology, but the potential is mind blowing.

But the prospects for VR don’t stop there.

VR has the potential to change the way that we train military personnel, doctors, the way we teach in the classroom and almost everything else in our society. 

When this technology is available, you can create a virtual avatar based on your own image, and travel about on the internet in chat rooms that actually appear as rooms.

You could speed date without ever having to leave the comfort of your living room.

Take actual tours of homes or cars before buying them, take your child on field trips anywhere in the Universe, or take a walk with your friend in the Alps. 

These and who knows what other technologies are bearing down us quickly, are you ready? 

If you want to keep up with the latest oculus based news (you do), check out their subreddit.