I am curious how much of the change to allowing "standing experiences" was technical, and how much was legal. In previous Oculus demos, they would give standing demos yet all official interviews said that the Rift is a "seated experience." My guess was that they were always constrained by not only a limited tracking volume but also the potential for litigation if someone sues them for tripping and falling.
The fact that the Vive very openly was advertising a stand-and-walk-around experience may have helped convince Oculus that the risk of litigation was outweighed by the need to not be giving a sense of inferior hardware.
From their talks and interviews, I've gathered that both John Carmack and Palmer Luckey have always been in favor of standing experiences.
But...the early investor of Oculus is also the CEO, and he apparently has the weakest stomach for VR of anyone at the company. The hard line seems to have been set entirely by him.
Doom and Quake both made many people nauseous. So do rollercoasters, 3D movies, and Telsa Roadsters. There's no reason to eliminate experiences that most people can thoroughly enjoy. Fortunately, the fun camp seems to have won finally.
That was exactly my takeaway from it. Even just the fact that it caters for standing experiences is a fairly big announcement on its own. Especially considering how exhaustively they stressed the fact that the Oculus Rift was a seated experience previously.
One other takeway from this release, is that we will _probably_ be expecting technical specifications and details come E3. At least, it's alluded to.
* They have an input solution and will reveal it in the next couple of weeks
* The have improved the tracking and will now officially recommend standing experiences.
All in all, a Q1 release date is somewhat sad but in the big picture it won't matter.