The weeks leading up to Oculus’ first developer summit were full of rumors. Would the virtual-reality company finally unveil the consumer version of its Oculus Rift VR headset? If the design wasn’t finalized, would we at least learn the unit’s specs? Its resolution? Would there be a controller?

The answer to all of these was “no.” But Oculus still managed to blow everyone’s mind.

When Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe took the stage Saturday morning at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, his keynote was equal parts VR pep rally and love letter to the developer community, but it wasn’t detail-rich—until he revealed a brand new feature prototype called Crescent Bay. “This prototype shows off the features, the quality, the presence that we need to deliver for consumer VR,” he said, referring to the feeling that one is truly existing in a virtual space.

Crescent Bay is as big of a leap forward from the current developer kit DK2, Iribe continued, as DK2 was from the original devkit that Oculus funded via Kickstarter in August 2012. It features 360-degree tracking, improved ergonomics and weight, and integrated audio. And it was available to try that day: an in-house team in Oculus’ Seattle office had created a suite of experiences for it, and Epic Games&mdash:which had designed demos for each Rift prototype thus far—had contributed the piece de resistance, a new demo called “Showdown.”

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