Oculus has updated their Oculus App to version 1.14. This release has two noteworthy features: full support for 360-degree tracking with three sensors, and the Touch controller can now be used with some, but not all, games that were previously gamepad-exclusive. For the latter, you will need to check with each specific game in the Oculus store, where it will be listed with a “Touch (as gamepad)” tag.
As for the former, Oculus has been allowing 2- (like the Vive) and 3-sensor setups for 360-degree tracking for a while, but experimentally. They have apparently settled on the three-sensor setup for final support, though. According to their documentation, they recommend that two of the sensors are plugged into USB 3.0 or higher, while leaving the third on USB 2. Specifically, the USB 2-connected sensor will be the one behind the user, with the two USB 3.0 sensors sitting out in front; to visualize this, imagine stereo speakers sitting on either side of your TV, with only one surround sound speaker behind the user. It will be interesting to see how Oculus two-sensor, Oculus three-sensor, and Vive two-sensor compares, especially since the last two are (in the case of Oculus, now) officially supported, but the first one isn’t.
While I don’t currently have a Rift, Oculus apparently delivers updates on a staggered schedule. Don’t be surprised if your system isn’t pushed to the new version immediately.
3- and 4- sensor setups have
3- and 4- sensor setups have been supported for several months now. The change for 1.14 is the setup wizard will explicitly assist with the placement of the third sensor, in addition to assisting with the first two as it did before.
I’m kind of mixed on the gamepad emulation for touch: split controllers need to be treated differently for control design than unitary controllers (both due to the movement of two of the buttons to the controller making some stick+button combinations mutually exclusive, and more complex ergonomic reasons due to the lack of being able to support the entire controller with a single hand). There are simpler control schemes that can work well with even just a single handheld controller, but those should probably be relegated to the much lighter Oculus Remote unless they really NEED motion-tracking support. Touch-as-gamepad should probably remain an opt-in rather than an implicit option, or there is going to be a lot of control scheme frustration.