Oculus no longer blocking Vive headset from playing Rift-exclusive titles
A tech war I did not know was being waged has come to an end. Vive owners will now be able to play Rift-exclusive titles on their headset. Which, I sort of imagine, benefits both companies.*
We were able to play Oculus-exclusive games and demos using the HTC Vive back in April using a third-party program, although Oculus quickly added a software check that would ensure its games were running on the Rift. The creator of the program, called Revive, responded by cracking Oculus’ DRM completely.
It looks like the arms race is over, as Oculus has removed the hardware check from its software.
“I’ve only just tested this and I’m still in disbelief, but it looks like Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5,” Revive’s update stated. “As such I’ve reverted the DRM patch and removed all binaries from previous releases that contained the patch.”
While the Oculus patch notes don’t mention the change, the company confirmed the DRM removal to Polygon.
“We continually revise our entitlement and anti-piracy systems, and in the June update we’ve removed the check for Rift hardware from the entitlement check,” the company told Polygon in a statement. “We won’t use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future.”
Oculus will continue to try to keep the software secure, however. “We believe protecting developer content is critical to the long-term success of the VR industry, and we’ll continue taking steps in the future to ensure that VR developers can keep investing in ground-breaking new VR content,” the statement continued.
*I know nothing about business, and I am generally dumb.