Dangerous is still coming to the Oculus Rift

Those following virtual reality developments woke up to some surprising news this morning, with headlines blaring that Frontier's high-profile space sim Elite: Dangerous was dropping Oculus Rift support in favor of the SteamVR-powered HTC Vive. Those headlines were especially surprising considering that Elite: Dangerous had been one of the best showcases for the Oculus Rift development kits so far (just ask our own Lee Hutchinson).
It turns out that those initial headlines were wrong—or at the very least misleading. Elite: Dangerous is still planned for the Oculus Rift, as it has been all along. "This is not true. I wish people would check their facts," Elite CEO David Braben tweeted in response to one of those early headlines.

The source of the confusion seems to be a statement Frontier gave to Eurogamer, saying that "right now, we've chosen to focus on SteamVR. We haven't cut an exclusivity deal with any VR manufacturer, and we're still working with Oculus on Rift support."

Even though Frontier mentions the lack of exclusivity and continued work on Oculus support right there in the statement, Eurogamer's headline somehow became "Elite: Dangerous doesn’t officially support Oculus Rift..." That take was quickly parroted by numerous other outlets.

Frontier did stop supporting new versions of Oculus' dev kit SDK in October. At the time, though, the company said it was waiting for a final, stable development environment from Oculus rather than continually reworking the game for frequent pre-release revisions to the SDK. That final environment was released by Oculus in late December. Frontier reiterated this position today in posts on the Elite forums. "In case people are alarmed by the headline or confused on the details, we thought it best to reiterate what we've been saying since the release of the Oculus 0.6 SDK," Frontier Head of Community Management Zac Antonaci writes. "As quoted in the story, we are actively working with Oculus and will keep the community updated as soon as we are able to do so."

Further Reading

"I can confirm that there is no deal to release Elite on HTC first," Antonacci continues. "Valve released a stable driver before Oculus but we remain in close contact with Oculus."
Translation: Frontier is working on versions of Elite: Dangerous for both the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift. Valve's headset is getting Frontier's immediate focus because it was the first to give the developer a finalized development platform to work on.

That's news in and of itself; it's surprising that the Rift version isn't a central concern for Frontier just over two months before the Rift will begin shipping to early-bird buyers. But it's not the potentially market-fragmenting news that was originally reported.

Asked for further comment on the story, a Frontier spokesperson told Ars "we’re not offering direct comment because the story isn’t true."