Oculus VR has acquired Carbon Design Group, a design firm that helped Microsoft create the Xbox 360 gamepad and its first Kinect camera. "The team will officially become a key component of the product engineering group at Oculus," the company announced today. Not much is changing for Carbon's employees; they'll continue to work from their current office near Seattle. Oculus is sharing news of the acquisition today for the first time, but the two teams have already been collaborating for nearly a year. They're working together on "multiple unannounced projects," but Oculus isn't getting any more specific than that at this stage.

"Carbon approaches products with a design-driven methodology rooted in quality engineering, ergonomics, deep user insights, and rapid iteration," Oculus said in a statement. "All of this adds up to an incredible skill set to deliver ground-breaking new virtual reality products." Carbon's team seems equally excited about the opportunity to shape how virtual reality will look and feel in Oculus' consumer hardware. "This is an entirely open product category," Carbon Design Group said in a statement. "We're incredibly excited to be part of the team and we're looking forward to helping design the future." We've been blown away by Oculus' technology once strapped in, but the company may need a bit of help making the Rift's exterior resemble the sleek renders and mockups it showed off long ago.