Former Valve VR Lead Atman Binstock Joins Oculus as Chief Architect

Binstock will lead the newly-formed Oculus R&D team in Seattle, WA.

Oculus VR has announced the newest member of it’s growing team: Former Valve engineer Atman Binstock.

According to the introductory post on Oculus’ blog, Binstock will lead a new VR research and development team up in Seattle. The move comes after an impressive VR showing at Valve Dev Days, where the publisher stated that it would be supporting Oculus and the Rift, not competing with it.

Binstock’s engineering career is impressive, even without Valve. He’s previously held positions at Intel, RAD, and DICE, and he joined Valve in April 2013 after Michael Abrash convinced him to sign on.

With talent like John Carmack, Palmer Luckey, and Binstock on the payroll, Oculus has definitely amassed a talented programming and engineering corps.

In other Oculus news, the Rift dev kit discontinuation reported on earlier seems to be running its course, as the dev kit is very close to being sold out. After 60,000-plus kits being sold, hardware supply is running low, and Oculus is looking to the future (the sub-HD dev kit isn’t cutting the mustard anymore). There’s no word on if a new dev kit will take the first model’s place.