Devs are already porting exclusive Oculus Rift games to the HTCVive

Well that didn’t take long. Developers are already porting Oculus Rift exclusive games to the rival platform HTC Vive virtual reality headset. As you probably know, the launch titles for both VR units contain a few overlaps, but, like Xbox and Playstation, each platform also has its own exclusives not available on the other platform. Well, until now, that is.

A proof-of-concept program called Revive has been posted on Github that provides a compatibility layer between the Oculus SDK and OpenVR SDK, which the HTCVive uses. Initial reports claim the software works a treat, but the developer notes he has only tested it on two titles so far (Lucky’s Tale and Oculus Dreamdeck) but that it should work on many others.

In case you’re not a fan of piracy (and you shouldn’t be), the developer notes that you actually need to own the Oculus game in order to play it on the HTCVive, so there’s that. If you’re at all concerned about the quality of the gameplay experience, it sounds like ther’s nothing to worry about there either.

Polygon tested the software out and claims some Rift titles actually play better on the HTCVive due to its enhanced headset tracking which allows you to actually walk around otherwise static-position Rift games like Dreamdeck. The HTCVive’s wireframe containment grid (to stop you walking into walls) also works fine on the Rift titles.

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The software only seems to work in one direction for now: from Rift to Vive, but if the idea picks up steam (pun fully intended) we might see more and more cross-pollination going on between VR platforms. A possibility that will only get even more exciting when Playstation VR arrives later this year.

What do you think of this hack? Good for VR or just devs being cheeky?