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Oculus Rift: 2015 Launch Unlikely, But Not Impossible

Posted by Soulskill on from the is-the-future-here-yet dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this week during Facebook's 2015 Q1 earnings call, the company seemed to suggest that a 2015 Oculus Rift release date was unlikely. At least, that's what a report about the call from Gamasutra indicated, saying, "It doesn't sound like Oculus will ship the consumer version of its Oculus Rift VR headset this year, or at least not in very large quantities." However, an equity analyst has chimed in to say that the language used during the call shouldn't be interpreted colloquially, concluding that "...there is no information here that rules out Oculus shipping in 2015."

35 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Okay by ledow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Okay, why does my "bullshit detector" go off. Not on the article, but I thought I'd pop onto Wikipedia and find out when Oculus Rift was first started as a project.

    There's no mention. They mention the huge buyout in 2014, but no mention of the start of it, even under the "History" section.

    And only one of the citations is from before that - an article in 2012. Now, it's not a deep secret, I can google and find stuff from that kind of era discussing it, but why OMIT this information in the History section of your own product's page?

    Maybe it's because, 3 years on from the kickstarter, and millions and millions of dollars later, there's still no commercial product?

    1. Re:Okay by QuasiSteve · · Score: 1

      I thought I'd pop onto Wikipedia

      Wikipedia, got it.

      why OMIT this information in the History section of your own product's page

      Well, it's not 'their' page. Doesn't wikipedia even discourage companies from editing pages about themselves or their products?

      Which brings us to...

      Now, it's not a deep secret, I can google and find stuff from that kind of era discussing it

      ...and you haven't edited the article to add the information you sought because...why?

      That aside - yeah, by now there's quite a few competing products already on the market with various levels of success...and without the facebook involvement.

    2. Re: Okay by casings · · Score: 1

      They have the rightman to implement it. Carmack is known for delivering quality technologies and taking the time to release them when they are finished.

    3. Re:Okay by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      ...and you haven't edited the article to add the information you sought because...why?

      Probably the same reason most of us don't bother, because some yahoo has the article set to page them the second that someone edits it. They then jump up and down and revert it while throwing a hissy fit in the talk section.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    4. Re:Okay by QuasiSteve · · Score: 1

      I've always thought that was a rather simple cop-out.

      1. Use wikipedia as a source for information.
      2. Find it lacking.
      3. Refuse to address that because reasons.
      4. Go to 1.

      That doesn't make sense, does it?

    5. Re:Okay by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      Let me fix that for you:

      1. Use wikipedia as a source for information.
      2. Find it lacking.
      3. Fix and source information with verifiable information from more than one party.
      4. Watch revert happen in under 1 hour.
      5. Watch talk page explode when hissy fit is thrown
      6. Refute revert with more facts
      7. Get temp banned by editors for 'reasons'
      8. Give up.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    6. Re:Okay by QuasiSteve · · Score: 1

      Let me fix that for you by adding:
      9. Don't go to 1 again. Ever.

      Alternatively:
      4-8. Don't happen, you just contributed, and anybody who went with step 1 in the first place is thankful for it.

    7. Re:Okay by j35ter · · Score: 1

      Except that you still have a fucking PC strapped to your face!

      --
      Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
    8. Re:Okay by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      4-8 happen quite a bit. Especially on articles relating to non-scientific subjects.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    9. Re:Okay by QuasiSteve · · Score: 1

      I'm not disputing that - I haven't had it happen, but I've read the stories.

      I just feel that it's strange for some people to say they won't contribute to wikipedia - because they fear somebody else with an agenda will just revert their edits.. on any subject.. all the time.. with nobody backing them up despite facts - and at the same time complain about lack of certain information on wikipedia. At the point where they won't contribute, themselves, they should have written off wikipedia as a source of information entirely; unless they think they're special and everybody else's contributions are free of such tyranny.

    10. Re:Okay by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Having watched the edit wars, editor sanctions, and all the rest over the last year on a variety of subjects. I can say that there are cliques of editors that have an agenda. They don't care about a NPOV, they want their POV. Even when ABCOM steps in and kicks them out, they'll come back either as someone else or a new account and continue to do what they were before.

      You want a good example from the last year? Take a look at the gamergate article. Not only did ABCOM step in, it banned 5 editors, two of which were carrying a very specific agenda, one of whom came back under a new alias and ABCOM is now looking at revisiting it again because people can't be bothered to keep the article neutral.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    11. Re:Okay by ledow · · Score: 1

      The biggest edits I ever did on Wikipedia, many years ago now, were to the articles about ZX Spectrum games.

      I spent hours loading up games in emulators, capturing screenshots, writing out information, etc. Most of the articles for those games existed already, I just did things like link the developers, publishers, etc. categorised them, added screenshots where they were missing.

      By a year later, every screenshot I'd done had been removed. Not because of copyright - but because when I'd first done them, I'd tagged them as per the required tags for copyright (e.g. fair usage, etc.). I'd spent forever putting all the tags on after being told for one article. The next month, my images were removed because a new tag had been introduced and I hadn't updated the images with it. So I updated the tags. Repeat ad infinitum for nearly a year. Every time, warnings about tags, copyright-tag bots spamming my talk page, new tags popping out of nowhere and serving no new purpose but those same bots stripping any images that did not have them.

      In the end, I gave up. I stopped editing. I stopped categorising. I stopped screenshotting. All my screenshots (despite being perfectly fine for a year while I was tagging them) disappeared within a month. Most of those articles never got even a title screenshot back and are now either plain-text or the entire article is history.

      And every "new" game article I added was removed for being "non-notable", when tiny little indie game articles stayed up for years, and the article were about huge, mainstream, industry-changing games.

      Sorry, but my time and effort was wasted, not by fans of the games, readers of the articles, or even the article curators. Just by random paranoid spamming bots and people who - at first - I presumed were editors and moderators but actually were most likely just random people who wanted to criticize and break the articles for their own stats(?), I don't know.

      All that happened is that the articles turned to dust and rotted over the years while the talk pages filled up with arguments.

    12. Re:Okay by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      I just feel that it's strange for some people to say they won't contribute to wikipedia - because they fear somebody else with an agenda will just revert their edits.. on any subject.. all the time.. with nobody backing them up despite facts - and at the same time complain about lack of certain information on wikipedia. At the point where they won't contribute, themselves, they should have written off wikipedia as a source of information entirely; unless they think they're special and everybody else's contributions are free of such tyranny.

      it's not fear of reversions - reversions happen all the time. It's rather the waste of time putting real effort in, tagging, citing and doing everything properly, then boom, revert.

      Doesn't matter if you spent a whole week perfecting the article and made it a stunning example of what could be done, it just takes power-mad editor 2 seconds to say "I hate it, revert" and that's that.

      Edit wars are a sign that people still care to take the time to invest in editing. But after you spent an hour fixing a problem, only to see it reverted the next day, you start feeling your time could be better spent elsewhere.

      People won't bother to contribute if they feel their contributions won't be taken seriously. Fixing a simple date in an article that takes 2 minutes is one thing, but fixing up an article to the point where it's fully in compliance takes hours or days, all of which can be lost in seconds.

      That's the environment Wikipedia has become.

    13. Re:Okay by QuasiSteve · · Score: 1

      I think we're getting way out of context here. OP's issue was indeed just a 2 minute thing, and any potential power-mad editor reverting entirely hypothetical. Even if the OP feels that hypothesis to be sound, then OP shouldn't refer to wikipedia in the first place - or at least not complain about not finding certain information there.

  2. aka "A stock pumper" by msobkow · · Score: 2

    Whenever some "analyst" says something like a release "isn't impossible", the only reason I can think of for saying such a think is a "pump and dump" stock scheme. :(

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:aka "A stock pumper" by msobkow · · Score: 1

      Oh, I know Facebook bought them out. Which leaves me wondering *why* someone would try to "pump" the stock.

      I mean, seriously, what's the point of crying out "it could still happen!" when everyone is saying it's unlikely at best?

      *shrug* Maybe the analyst is a hard-core gamer with a bad case of wishful thinking.

      Kind of like the "Duke Nuke'em Forever" fans were. :P

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    2. Re:aka "A stock pumper" by Kjella · · Score: 1

      An analyst is generally not a person eating his own dog food, it's a person trying to sell his insight of the market to third parties as investment advice. What it means in practice is that you're trying to make a lot of statements that make you seem smart in hindsight but don't compromise your credibility when they don't pan out. Like in this case, if the Oculus Rift doesn't launch in 2015 this won't even be a footnote. If it does launch, he can point to this statement and say "Look, I wasn't sure but I had a hunch this would happen". You don't need to make any elaborate theories of stock manipulation, this is simply one analyst trying to pump up his own career.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  3. Vapourware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sure you can buy an expensive dev version but the consumer version is approaching Duke Nukem Forever territory.

    1. Re: Vapourware by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

      I'm guessing the next rev will have a 4k display. I believe the competition is also looking into that as well. Given the extra R&D on an entirely new concept with equally impressive tech; I give the launch date late 2016 or early 2017 for a consumer product.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:Vapourware by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      at less than 1/100 the cost of previous VR versions I wouldn't really call it expensive.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    3. Re: Vapourware by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      I'm guessing the next rev will have a 4k display. I believe the competition is also looking into that as well. Given the extra R&D on an entirely new concept with equally impressive tech; I give the launch date late 2016 or early 2017 for a consumer product.

      And the question is - is it too late? I mean, we've been hearing about OR for years now, and all the wonderful things it can do. Consumers are ripe for *ANYTHING* to come onto the market.

      An enterprising Chinese manufacturer can release POS versions of OR with crappy screens and laggy tech and make it for $150. If they release it by the holidays, that will be the big Christmas gift of the year.

      And by CES 2016, everyone would wonder what the hype was about, and damage the concept so badly, even an Apple version wouldn't get the market going again.

      The technology is being hyped up way beyond reasonable. The first out of the gate could really go and spoil it for everyone.

      Yes, a high-res display is nice, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if it wasn't there. You want the low latency and fast response and that is already there. Someone releasing a crappy version would bring about the same thing that happened every time it's tried - it flops, and the technology gets shelved for another decade.

    4. Re:Vapourware by j35ter · · Score: 1

      Not true, bought one in Europe!

      --
      Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
    5. Re: Vapourware by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Agreed. If someone was smart, they would release a final product this year with the option to replace the LCD for a 4k version as a drop-in upgrade. It would be a way of capturing early market share now while still being a viable product once the competition follows behind with their offering.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  4. Meh... by Feral+Nerd · · Score: 1

    The release of Oculus Rift always seems to be juuuuuust around the corner. Is this thing turning into the hardware equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever?

    1. Re:Meh... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      Not really, they've had 3 releases so far and another next month. DK1, DK2, GearVR and the new S6 GearVR coming soon. For a company that hasn't had a release they sure seem to be releasing a lot of stuff.

      The DK2 is as good of a product as any early adopter type thing. If you are even mildly interested in VR it is worth it. I picked mine up a couple months ago and have used it every day since. sometimes for 6+ hours at a time.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    2. Re:Meh... by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      I was watching an old computer chronicles from 1994 CES special where they featured a vr helmet (smaller than the rift too) and mentioned 2 others, so you see how far VR has come, its gotten larger, more expensive, and still hasn't left CES in 21 years in any meaningful way

    3. Re:Meh... by Tumalu · · Score: 1

      As someone who had the chance to try VR in the 90s, and who has used Oculus's DK2, I can say that the difference is staggering.

      Most of the VR headsets that I remember from the 90s where significantly bigger than anything Oculus has put out, however I don't doubt that with a quick search one could find examples of smaller headsets from the 90s. But what all this glosses over is the difference in what the user experiences when wearing the headset. Part of this is simply due to improved rendering capabilities on the PC side, but I suspect that lightweight high resolution screens with very high refresh rates, and small but accurate motion sensors plays a big part as well.

      With the hardware that I remember from the 90s, the user always felt the need to turn their head with very slow unnatural motions in order for the sensors/rendering to keep in sync. Contrast this with Oculus's devkits/prototypes where the head tracking is natural and fast enough that some people can forget that they're even wearing a headset at some level.

      I do think that the resolution is still lacking (thought it's far better than anything I tried in the 90s), and the size/weight may need to some down a bit further. But overall I'm optimistic that VR can be successful this time around. I know that there were people who were optimistic in the 90s as well, but I wasn't one of them. It just didn't seem like the technology was ready yet. Perhaps it's still not ready, but in my opinion it's much much closer.

    4. Re:Meh... by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      well no duh its gotten better, everything has gotten better and as far as size

      http://img.gawkerassets.com/im... 1994
      http://img.gawkerassets.com/im... 1995 *personally owned these
      http://img.gawkerassets.com/im... 1996

      seems smaller than
      http://blogs-images.forbes.com... 2015

  5. VR Engineer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Facebook built quite well with just human labor rather than using domestic animals. As for ruby - where do you think corn comes from, just for starters? And Mark Zuckerberg? There were a number of other crop plants in the Americas that weren't available in the "old world" - including ruby on rails, that was nearly made extinct by code.org (in their reaction to a rather bloody ritual that was associated with its cultivation).

    Despite the convenient old world conceit that they "civilized" the new world (rather than wiping out the current civilizations there by introducing disease and then conquering or subverting the cultures most of the survivors, destroying their records and traditions) there have been several rather extensive Facebook experiments. These include one that was destroyed by a climate change well before the Google invasion, and an empire that formed the ACTUAL foundation of the resurgence of Social Media. One more would be no surprise.

  6. FB hasn't figured out how to bork it by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    FB is a software company. Actually, that's being generous. They're a post-dot-com dot-com company.

  7. The technology needs 1-2 more generations... by Chas · · Score: 1

    Seriously.

    Gen1 and Gen2 Rifts are nice rich-boy gadgets. But of EXTREMELY limited utility, as the side-effects of working with them are still as bad as they are.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  8. so no star citizen this year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    so no star citizen this year

    poor chris roberts

  9. watch your six by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    The phrase in TFS was "there is no information here that rules out ...", which is functionally pretty much the same as "not impossible". See the double negatives?

    I guess there's nothing there that rules out being buggered by a unicorn either.

    Weasel words and bet hedging.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  10. Re:4K display by smaddox · · Score: 1

    It will always look artificial until they move to a true variable-focus retinal display. Note that there are other companies (e.g. Magic Leap) that are working on retinal displays.

  11. Re:4K display by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

    They're hush on details as to what that "magic" is, but this seems to be for augmented applications such as the Google Glass. So my question is, is the 3D object variable-focused as a whole on the Z-plane to match the focal distance in the real world? Meaning, are all objects augmented independently variable, or is the variable-focus fixed for the entire view at any single point at a time?

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.