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The Oculus Rift Still Isn't Selling, In a Worrying Sign For VR (technologyreview.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Despite Mark Zuckerberg's early enthusiasm for virtual reality, the technology has stubbornly remained a hard sell for Facebook. Now, in yet another sign that VR is failing to capture the imagination of the public, the company has just cut the price of its Oculus Rift hardware for the second time this year. For the next six weeks, the Oculus Rift headset and its matching controllers will cost just $399. That's $400 less than when it first hit the market, and $200 less than when its price was first slashed in March. It means that the Rift now costs less than the package offered by its cheapest rival, Sony, whose PlayStation VR currently totals $460 including headset and controllers. Even so, it's not clear that it will be enough to lure people into buying a Rift. Jason Rubin, vice president for content at Oculus, tells Reuters that the reduction isn't a sign of weak product sales, but rather a decision to give the headset more mass market appeal now that more games are available.
It's like 3D TV... an expensive and largely useless toy that really only irrationally exuberant developers and people with more money than common sense will buy.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The only new bit with this gen of br is resolution. I've used them a bit and it's basically the same deal as 15 years ago with more pixels. No one wants to wear headgear that blocks out their real environment while moving around
If the VR gear is expensive and a high-end computer system is needed to run the VR gear, it's a niche market. Mass market VR gear is where everyone can afford it to run with their existing computer system. Not quite there yet.
and I don't want it now.
VR goggles are stupid. They're disorienting, neck straining, slow updating, headache inducing, pieces of crap. Doesn't matter how "good" they get, they're just a bad idea in general. It's a terrible human/digital interface.
Better would be brain implants, holograms/projections, and similar. As long as those don't exist then we will not have useful immersion.
I'm waiting for the second generation of VR gear, and the one I want is Vive 2.0. There's another article with some estimated sales figures for various VR things. Hard to say where they got their data, but at least you can get an idea about the relative popularity of the things.
The VR looks super awkward. My laptop is more confining than my desktop half the time with it on my lap, a mouse and power supply. Cord management isn't my idea of fun.
On the other end the Switch appears to have hit the sweet spot for mobility
No unique problem domain. No killer app. Limited title selection. People will get sick. $400.
They could offer it to me for free and I still wouldn't take it because of the FB affiliation.
I'm waiting out for my hardware to catch up and the Vive II.
..then I'll buy into virtual reality.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
And to top it off none of the offerings can beat the screen door effect.
I love my Rift but I'll be the first to admit it's still a compromised experience. It's too blurry and causes eye strain. And it needs a stupidly powerful PC to have a great experience. Everyone I know with a high-end gaming PC capable of running VR either already has a headset or has decided to wait for next-gen headsets -- exciting things like eye tracking, improved depth of field, and simply higher res are all on the horizon *if* VR can survive long enough to give us the 2nd gen it needs.
If you broadcast games in 3D and have some player helmet cams in 3D they'll sell like hotcakes.
It has to provide some useful or interesting benefit before people will buy it.
If they don't, why pay for toy with no benefits?
We got both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive kits at the office.
Everyone agrees that the Vive is superior.
It's expensive, Underwhelming, and requires a $2500 PC to run it.
On top of that almost no games support it, and even less software.
Duh, no wonder it is not selling.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The Rift has had substantially lower sales than the competing Vive, which is a major reason they've been having more sales and price cuts. It was expected that over time the manufacturing costs would go down, so they're just passing the savings along to the consumer, as opposed to Vive which is keeping their headset's cost constant for now with plans to add new tech as it arrives (although they haven't really done this yet, aside from weight reductions).
The Samsung Galaxy Gear VR and Playstation VR have each sold over a million units, their lower price suggesting that a high price is the main barrier to adoption at this point. Personally I'm probably going to wait for the 2nd-gen headsets, since they will be substantially better in every way; my game backlog is long enough I will hardly be bored before that point; I've waited 5 years since the Rift was first announced, I think I can wait a bit longer (not that this helps VR sales at all...)
Windows Holographic VR headsets are coming in a few months, that will be $300-$400 and have better resolution and (arguably) tracking than existing headsets; they only work on Windows 10 and it's unknown if they'll ever work with existing (SteamVR) games, but if so, they could be a hit this holiday. Wireless headsets are coming in the near future, and that could be the difference that makes VR take off.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The search for the best analog interface is the wild goose chase of the digital age. It's like those guys that still want to play with them old arcade pads for cool points and dress it up as "oh, it's more responsive". True responsiveness will come when I think about the milk I forgot and my Prime subscription, and 1min later that drone is flying. Sans Alexa involved in the matter.
No time for cords, goggles or super high end GPUs when all the signals I need can be Tx/Rx'd from a 5G tower directly to my neocortex.
What are the odds that Facebook will do a lot of free/discounted promotion for Ready Player One in 2018 in the hope of making the movie a hit and in the process giving the popularity of VR a shot in the arm? (Assuming they haven't already dropped the Oculus by that point of course.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I have an Oculus, but I don't even use it - a friend has it because I didn't have enough of a PC to use it (I got it free because I was a Kickstarter supporter, which kudos for that to Oculus!)
And there's the real problem. You need to have a PC powerful enough to performantly make use of the headset. They also did not deliver decent (any) controllers until recently.
Most people are not willing to fuss with a PC to that great an extent anymore. It's simply too hard to have all the things you need and set it up to get going...
The Vive has a similar problem but to a lesser extent, simply because it is more novel.
But I don't think VR itself has a problem. I think people are very interested in, and enjoy VR a lot - at conventions I've gone to VR demos are super popular. I think Sony VR is doing OK, despite having some setup issues as well (a large number of cables) but it's about as good as it's going to get for a while I think and lots of people are developing for it.
Chasing just at the heels of these lumbering platforms is AR - Hololens is an amazing platform, just too expensive right now. But you can see the ease of actually using it delivers the promise of the bulkier sets today. And an introductory form of AR in the way of ARKit is shortly going to bring a new wave of true augmented reality apps to the iPhone, in a wave that will rival PokemonGo (which was not AR but was advertised as such).
So don't cry for VR/AR. Unlike the other times the platform was hyped (I have a Gameboy VR fro decades ago) I think this time the things that are needed for the platform to truly grow are there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's interesting, I gave one a go a few months ago and was certainly impressed - it was unlike any experience I'd ever had playing a game. But I'm still just not convinced I want to buy one... and price isn't really a constraint for me, it's just missing something enough to get me to buy one. Perhaps it's the real lack of games.
I think partially this is more of a sign that the Oculus isn't ready for market, rather than VR as a whole. I know that Sony's PS4 game system has over-sold expectations.
Personally I think even phone-based VR is amazing and I would LOVE to have a Rift, I also am a bit of a gamer (XBox). But between $400 for the rift and then another $800+ for a PC-for-gaming, $1200 sees like a bit much. Especially when the games for the Rift all seem a bit shit.
If Samsung or Apple release a decent phone-based VR, which seems within the realm of possibility, I would snap that up.
"Expensive" gear?
Back when I bought my Apple IIe in 1983, it cost $2400 with a floppy drive and a color monitor.
That's about $5900 in today's dollars. You can buy a Vive with a reasonably overbuilt desktop to run it for about half that (I did).
A "cheap" Commodore 64 with a floppy drive in 1984 was about $1000.
That's $2300 today - about the cost of a decent Vive headset and a basic VR computer.
How niche was my Apple IIe? Or the Commodore 64?
I guess the whole "computer revolution" never happened then, right?
I know a lot of people who spent a couple of thousand dollars, just a few years ago, for a big-screen TV. Niche? Yet they still make large, expensive sets - and that ubiquitous iPhone is basically a thousand bucks, replaced every couple of years...
I can't watch it laying down so what's the fkn point
As a linux user with a steam account i appear to notice that the vr games (i looked at the recent steam sale) appeared to be for windows users only or collaborative with two plus players.
Maybe this vr stuff is more os tolerant than they indicate but i am not buying a vr headset just to see if may or may not work.
Modern app appers use Appulus Rift, NOT LUDDITE Oculus Rift!
Apps!
If they're going to cater to the crowd that expects things to "just work", then they need to make sure that it "just works". If they want to build a userbase while they're still in development, they should be focusing on the users that are used to doing things for themselves and working around shit like that.
I would gladly pay the money to buy one if it was supported. Requiring me to use a bloated piece of ad-crap-ware for the 'privilege' of running my games slower (but in 3D!) is not a good trade-off. The novelty is not worth it to me to sacrifice THAT much.
Most peole cannot stand looking at computer screens and have no interest in computers. This childish idea we can bypass reality is obviously not what our brains want.
In the 1860's we had 3D photography (no, really) but it was a gimmick. Then we got parallax 3D and it got re-hyped but still didn't really catch on.
Fast forward to the 1950's and 1960's and you get to the era of blue-red glasses and campy 3D movies. It was always a gimmick, because just like today's 3D, the novelty wears off in about 5 minutes leaving you with nothing but a headache.
Now jump ahead to the last 30 years and you've got the Virtual Gameboy and other 1990's VR experiments (oh, yeah, and slightly unrelated remember Max Headroom? That was supposed to be the beginning of the last VR revolution). So, here's the bottom line, until it's autostereographic (meaning no silly glasses) and it's perfect and it's effortless (like you are standing in front of a window), it's not going to catch on, IMHO. Unless of course you want to give away LSD with the 3D gizmo. That makes it look a LOT more 3D, I must say.
Rift? Who cares about the Rift? You'd be a fool to claim the mobile phone market is looking bad because Blackberry is nosediving.
Right now, the Vive and maybe PSVR would be better indications of the market's health.
when your product only appeals to less than 1 percent of your userbase, what did you expect. its not like facebook is a hotbed of high intellect/individuality. Joe Q. Public y facebook Sheep don't care bout them thar newfangled gadgets.
As someone who owns some ridiculously expensive gaming-only hardware.... isn't the Vive the one to have, not the Rift?
And until they standardise such that I don't need to worry what I buy, I would only be able to go with the market-leader in terms of features and what *other people* would buy. Which is the Vive.
It's not that nobody is buying either. It's that the market hasn't decided because of the expense, and until it does, I'm not falling for a Betamax/HD-DVD farce (I didn't fall for either of those, either, to be honest).
Is there an "open" VR standard, that works no matter the headset / controller? It doesn't look like it. Is there a clear leader? Not quite yet, but it's certainly not the Rift. Is it an impulse buy when it need so much investment and supporting hardware? Not really. It's a Christmas treat, at best. And given that NO CONSOLE has been pushed as a VR console yet, it looks like games-programmers aren't really targetting such things.
I was actually hoping the Switch would be a basic "cut-down" VR, they would have had a gimmick to push like the Wiimote of the original Wii, even if it wasn't "professional gamer" status.
But all I see on the market are literal toys (bits of cardboard and plastic lenses), or stupendously expensive and powerful kit.
Like OpenGL cards back in the days of the first 3D games, we all just stare in envy, and they do exist, but we can't justify it for a handful of games on the top-end of hardware. We need a 3DFX. A middle ground. Good but affordable. Something just on the edge of the "wife-budget", enough to piss her off, not enough to make her leave.
And it's not there yet.
But certainly it's not the Oculus that I see myself buying when they come down in price. And I have two Logitech G27's. Technically, at one point, my real car cost less than the two gaming car setups I had (I've bought a new car since them, because - to be honest - gaming kit bores me nowadays and I'm quite happy with just a gaming laptop and Steam).
If I can't justify it, I'm sure as hell most other people can't either. Those people buy PC's that can't even run Age of Empires 2 HD at a decent speed.
There are changes that, if they made them, would probably get me to buy the Rift, today.
First, let me get it for the $399 stated here. As a UK citizen, they want to charge £399 which, despite the threat of Brexit tanking Sterling, is still a huge markup (winding up at over $500, in fact). I get postage and tax are things, but not that much of a thing.
Except I don't actually even want to pay that, because I actually want them to just let me buy just the Rift. As it is, it's packing in the Touch Controllers (which I understand, but don't personally want), an XBox One controller (which I 100% don't want or need: if I want to use a pad, I have pads), and adaptors for Rock Band controllers (whaaaat?). Given the Touch controllers costs £100 from them, and an XBox One controller's about £40 in the shops, and offer a Rift-only pack for ~$130 less, with a reasonable converted price, and we'll talk.
I only want the bloody thing for Elite Dangerous anyway.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is it possible it's just being out competed by the Vive? I hardly hear anyone mentioning Oculus anymore ever since Facebook bought Oculus and the Vive hit the market.
I've heard a number of people say that augmented reality, when it matures, will be of much broader interest to the general population than VR... and they're probably right.
#DeleteChrome
Is there anything Millennials will not destroy? How dare they not buy into VR hype!
I've said it all along - it's an expensive gimmick. No one want's to strap an expensive box to their face.
It's fine on YouTube and Twitch to watch big name personalities jump about like idiots, but with no killer apps or games, VR is a bust.
Why would I want to play a VR game sitting at my desk with an xbox controller or keyboard and mouse.
I want to use my hands, and I want to be able to walk around
Despite Mark Zuckerberg's early enthusiasm for virtual reality, the technology has stubbornly remained a hard sell for Facebook. Now, in yet another sign that VR is failing to capture the imagination of the public,
I've been saying this for well over a decade and I speak from first hand professional experience in the industry. There is no killer use case for VR among the general public. I spent the better part of 5 years of my career immersed (no pun intended) in VR technology as my day job and it was as obvious then as it is now that there is no big market for it no matter how cheap they make the headsets. Yes it's fun and cool as a demo but it's impractical, expensive, and has no obvious utility in every day life that cannot be served by alternative (albeit not identical) means. A TV with good sound is a good enough substitute for actually being at a sports game or concert for most people most of the time. Few people actually gain much from the added immersion of VR over playing a game through a monitor. Aside from a few tiny niches like flight simulators and some other training and demo applications there simply isn't much utility in VR to most people in every day life. Certainly not enough to invest even a modest sum of money in a VR headset that they will seldom if ever use.
Some of what they are doing with VR will be applicable to AR and AR has HUGE and obvious applications among the general public. So if you think of VR as a research project with AR as the ultimate goal then it's a worthwhile endeavor. If you think of VR as an end unto itself then you have drunk the kool-aid too deeply and need to go to rehab. Never say never but VR is very unlikely to ever gain widespread popularity among the general public.
There's one claim that comes up every time VR is mentioned on Slashdot - that VR is overrated, people don't actually like it, everyone gets eyestrain and nausea, etc.
I run a museum that has Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear headsets. I'm writing this at work and right now I'm looking at a queue of people waiting to use VR. It's the most popular attraction at our museum. Many of my customers come only for the VR because their friends raved about how awesome it is. Our feedback form and letters from school students consistently rate VR as the best thing here. I'm actually worried that the VR is so successful that it's threatening our physical displays - our "real" hands-on activities have become less popular since I introduced VR. Instead of investing in tactile displays I'm being forced to buy more VR headsets because my customers are demanding it.
Every day I hear people talking about how they have to get one of these things at home. What stops them is the price - *not* any disappointment with the technology itself. If I was looking for something to blame for slow sales it would be the cost of the computer, not anything at all to do with the technology or the experience it offers.
When I see discounts like this it makes me suspect that a new version will be announced in a few months. So no thanks, I'll wait and see.
At least Vive is backed by Steam, an actual gaming company. Moreover, I have Daydream headset for my Pixel, never even used it. VR is cool, but there's still no killer app.
Any product that makes at least 30% of it's owners physically sick is probably not a great investment.
Anyone who didn't read the MANY studies from NASA and the Flight Simulation world pointing out this fact - along with the fact that it can't be fixed - probably deserves to have lost their investment.
And if these contraptions every HAD become popular - we'd be worrying about the US Navy study that shows that driving your car within 24 hours of a long VR session is more dangerous than drunk driving. The US military won't allow pilots for fly within 24 hours of being in any immersive simulation.
We KNEW these things were going to be useless right back when Oculus did their original Kickstarter. Those in the know commented, posted, blogged - but did anyone listen? Nooooo! They said: "We can reduce lag, increase frame rate, improve FOV and resolution, we can add the missing 3 degrees of freedom"....yeah - but NONE of those are the problem. It's all about depth of focus - and that can't be fixed...period.
www.sjbaker.org
Just spend the money on a 34 inch widescreen with G-Sync or Free Sync and at least 100 Hz overclocking. A PC with high end CPU, memory, and GPU will give you plenty of gaming experience - and without the need to wear goggles and suffer motion sickness.
There aren't a lot of apps yet, but Oculus Rift really is fantastic. It runs OK on relatively old gaming hardware... I have both the DK2 and the consumer release version with touch controllers. It certainly runs better on a NVidia 1070 (or better), but it ran just fine on my previous card, a GTX480, which is below minimum requirements technically. It also runs pretty well on a gx980(which is a mobile gpu for laptops). Everyone whom I have demonstrated my rigs to wants one (and my gaming rig is a 4 year old i7 box, outside of having a 1070 recently upgraded). Given that the Rift is mostly cell phone screen, plus a few electronics, and some cameras, $400 is what the price point should have been at launch. You need a beefy system, but it definitely doesn't have to be a crazy rig.
Having tried the HTC Vive, and owning some older VR equipment (Vuzix stuff), it's pretty clear to me that the Rift is the best VR equipment I've used. It's more responsive, and looks better (higher res screens). Other stuff I've tried tends to be kind of laggy with respect to head tracking and motion controllers, but not the Rift.
Elite Dangerous in VR is a fantastic experience, as is In Medium (3d sculpting). I've also run a fair number of older titles through VireioX with good success; Skyrim is pretty cool in VR. Even my 80 year old parents like many of the experiences. Viewing 360 degree photos of sites in Egypt in VR is amazing.
VR games are _different_ from existing games though.. the VR experience is more intense, and more immersive, and some things that worked on 2D screens don't work well in VR... for example, the speed you run at in most FPS games can be 50-70 MPH, which in VR makes you want to hurl, because running that fast through corridors is kind of disorienting. I also tend to be sated with VR after a much shorter gaming period...the experience is just more intense. I believe VR is here to stay, but it will take a while for developers to discover what works well in game experiences.
My brother owns the HTC Vive. He didn't buy it for the games, though they can be kind of fun. Rather he bought it to visualize in full immersion home renovations and let him play with house plans. Even using a simple tool like Sketchup, the results in VR are very good. I'm in the process of remodeling my living room and kitchen, and so far it's turning out exactly as it did in the VR model. No surprises and everything is proportioned as I want. To me this is the killer app for VR. To design in 3D (just using Sketchup at the moment) and visualize it in 3D VR and walk through it, look around. Not sure if the bathroom is going to be big enough? Just walk into it and take a look. Not sure if it's going to be easy to reach a wrench around a corner to access a part on a machine? Go into VR and check it. Being able to move around, change perspective, look over, under and around things is very powerful.
Another very interesting application of VR is simulations such as flight simulators. Except for the low resolution of modern VR systems making it hard to read digital instrument panels in aircraft, VR does make flight simulation incredibly realistic, as far as an experience goes.
These are the killer apps for VR to me, but that's not a mass market appeal thing. If you're into architecture and design, take a look at VR.
As for the games, honestly the funnest game in the Vive comes with the Vive in the "The Lab" and it's just a simple game where you shoot arrows at little black stick figures attacking your gate. Great fun! The other more complicated games are, well, meh, once you see all the fancy graphics.
Even the current moviehouse 3D technology isn't all that great if you ask me.
Also like cinema 3D the Occulus Rift does not work well with glasses (it's possible but a major pain to put it on and take it off). That's about 42% of men and over half of women so you have almost halved your potential market before you even start.
The gear is still too expensive and the content is still too few and far between to make VR an attractive option for most gamers. Thatâ(TM)ll change in time. I expect AR to be the next big thing with VR following suite after AR leads the way.
If Apple delivers with ARKit in iOS 11 suddenly millions of users will find that they already own devices with the hardware and software necessary to support AR enabled apps and games. Thatâ(TM)s when youâ(TM)ll see AR start to take off which will open the door to VR.
It's like 3D TV or movies. It's was a fad from the get go. The pet rock has more lasting power.
VR can be stuck in the same pile with all the 3D TVs people are throwing away or the stupid fidget spinners and any number of fads.
Its a product that no one actually needs, its not going to make any real material improvement into people lives.
Sure some gamers will love it, but they are not the other 99% of the population.
Its right up there with 3D TV, Curved Screens, and other hyped up technology that failed because no one actually wanted it.
When you have to slap an expensive box weighing several pounds onto your face to experience Virtual Reality, not only do you look silly, but you feel silly when you have to slam down some Ibuprofen to deal with the compression headache it induced later on. There's a reason your highly flexible head only weighs 3.5 pounds and the rest of you weighs 20 to 30 times that.
The holodeck is the only way VR will ever work. Until then, everyone needs to stop attempting to get people to slap expensive boxes onto other people's faces.
This just means the Occulus sucks and/or people don't trust Facebook. It seems even Facebook users don't trust Facebook. This says nothing about the Vive which is the superior VR experience & equipment.
The fact that the Oculus Rift isn't selling is because the Oculus Rift delivers a poor experience for money better spent elsewhere. Oculus did early branding very, very well, but they've been behind on the VR curve for a while. There's more coming in the future that's going to knock the pants off what's there now, both at the consumer level, and for professional/industry applications. VR/AR isn't going away. The current generation of VR/AR is.
This tech won't stick until it's true VR, with omnidirectional treadmills, some sort of force feedback for your entire body, and harnesses to prevent injury.
VR headsets, today, don't add enough to gaming to be worth the ridiculous price tag. It's basically turning your head into the camera. Whoop tee do. Wake me up when it allows for new, compelling game experiences.
But it is not. Not yet. And, it has something in common with another failed technology: the need to wear some glasses that are uncomfortable and make you look like a complete dork. I expect that 3D will take off the day that those ridiculous glasses are not necessary any more. As for VR - well, we'll have to wait for a version of the Holodeck, however crude it may be initially.
VR is a joke. Just like everything that this generation flaunts as the next great invention. Right up there with 3D TVs, 4G cell phone, and the pet rock.
Oh wait. The Pet Rock was a success and it wasn't this loser generation.
For gaming, it might be useful. Not into gaming. Other than gaming, is there a good reason to care about VR?
linquendum tondere
Umm.. that's not free you gave them money.....
Which was for Dev Kit 1, which I received. That was not free, no.
Nor was Dev Kit 2, which I was able to buy at a reduced price...
But the final Oculus, that was free because I was never told I would get one as part of the Kickstarter, nor did I have any expectation I would receive the final unit without paying anything. I assumed I would have to buy one at a discount. That was an extra step obviously made possible by Facebook money, which they did not have to do and was very kind to their supporters.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For the price to drop under $500 with three sensors. I placed my order earlier today.
This is the greatest thing since Nintendo virtual boy and Google glass, oh wait...
oculus sold out then jacked up the price, that killed 100% of the enthusiasm for it
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
A Nvidia Geforce 1070 is going for over $450 on Newegg right now and prices are still getting driven up due to bitcoin miners buying up all the available gaming card stock.
Next gen won't come out before the next displayport version. When that happens, then you'll get a true 4k or 8k screen.
The #1 selling VR system is PSVR. #2 is Vive. Rift simply isn't doing a good job of competing with them. That doesn't mean VR has a problem. It just means Oculus has a problem.
When the #3 player in a market isn't doing well, you can't conclude much about the market. How is the #1 player doing?
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
VR on PC suffers from the same issue that most things on PC suffer from, too much complexity, which is why the PSVR has been outselling all the PC VR platforms. They have sold over 1 Million units so far with no signs of slowing down. The PSVR offers the best of both worlds: online VR content as well as a huge library of 100% compatible games that you can play, without all the headaches of PC. The other barrier to entry on PC is the rig that you have to have. If you already have a PS4, you are good to go, if you are hardcore, you can drop $400 for the PS4 pro. On PC you are looking at at least a $1200 PC. If Zuck were smart, he would partner with Microsoft and tailor Occulus for the Xbox Scorpion (or whatever they are calling it these days). Most people who would buy and use VR aren't willing to put up with the hassle or price of PC (as evidenced by their falling numbers).
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
If it was say $100-$200 then you could probably justify it as that's just over the cost of a good controller but $400 is the cost of a whole console. It is just a peripheral.
I would pay $180 for a good quality working vr headset - tops.
They are trying to sell a luxury product- not a mass market product.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This is News for Nerds, so I assume most've you've tried VR headsets by now.
It's fucking awesome.
Such whiny little do-nothings. I remember when geeks used to visit this website.
wont sell becausae it is owned by FB and so are all who buy it
Men and women's clothing
Children's stuff (not everyone has kids)
Any company targeting large corporations as customers (50% Americans are employed by small companies)
Come on, facebook should have licenced microsofts positioning chip tech, have eye facing cams for auto ipd, 60ghz wireless, they should be light as a ski goggles, 180fov, should be vr/ar capable.
No kidding its not selling, when a huge company is skimping on development everyone can tell. Where's the new technology? Liquid lenses, integrated eeg's, that's just hardware. Software, sheesh, ive had vr for a year and shown it to over a hundred people and there are too many ideas that fit a company that has resources.
I say start putting together the next gen as only a company like facebook can and sell what you have left for 99$ for a whole kit.
Maybe write some software too. It's not the 90's anymore, facebook has the resouces, not many others do.
Cars ... all went to multiple iterations to get here.
Planes
Refrigerators
Washing machines
Television
I'm almost in my 50s. I love technology, even old school tech, especially my trusty old but simple Commodore 64. Vr has been on/off during my life, I remember them back in the 90s as an arcade machine with an Amiga 3000 inside it, super choppy graphics, super laggy - but it gave us an idea of what we could expect.
The lack of realistic immersion is the reason it didn't take off back the.
Well, today - we're ALMOST there, in a sense we are actually already there - but the entry price is simply TOO expensive for the general public. I bought the HTC Vive over a year ago (I deselected the Rift because I simply don't like the monitoring/surveillance policy of the Facebook company. Otherwise I might very well have chosen the Rift.
But I'm very happy I didn't - because it turns out that the VIVE is actually something of a revolution that would come to change VR as we see it forever, it came with the Lighthouse system - which is completely superior to ALL of those other VR solutions that are mostly camera based positioning devices that simply cannot give you the same detail of immersion that the Lighthouse system provides you with. There was even a professor documenting just HOW precise the Vive Lighthouse system is, it's laser & infra red light based, you might say it "paints" a super-fine super-thin net of rays that 20-30 sensors in each device will pick up and "time" exactly the position of, and he found it to be as precise as 0.3 mm. yes, that's better than a 1/3 of a millimeter in MID AIR. No HD camera can give you that kind of precision - period.
Valve launched a bunch of free demo games called The Lab. Those are unfortunately STILL (over a year later) some of the absolutely best games available for the HTC Vive today, maybe it's because of their incredible programming team and their endless resources, whereas the Unity single-man-coders out there don't stand a chance of giving us an AAA title, so the games over the year has became a little more "indie" and carries that stigma with it when you're playing with the HTC, you're not truly experiencing it's true power (unless you're playing for example XorteX 26xx (which is a simple bullet hell game in immersing 3D) arcade style, but has a real time quality to it that is still unsurpassed by ANY other game like it, space pirate training comes somewhat close - but still...is Meh....in the long run as you're basically just waiting for a bunch of round robots to come up and aim at you over and over again. XorteX provides you with an immersion, puts you right smack in the middle of a good old 80s type arcade game - and make it so believable that your dreaming will never quite be the same again. I wish developers understood the appeal of this, it's hard I guess.
Another one, is the spectacular graphics quality of the game where you toss parts of GlaDOS (the talkative robotic heads/units), and aim them at the warehouse stock in order to make them come tumbling down with a bang, this game is hilarious - and the graphics is still unsurpassed, not even Raw-Data (albeit very GPU and CPU intensive) comes close to in quality. Valve should get on their horses and do more of this stuff, this is what we need.
But yeah, besides the 800$ (I paid 1300$ when I bought it) you need for the Vive - you also need an INSANE super-pc, Mine cost like 4000$, and it "just runs" Raw Data to a playable level (the new Crysis for VR).
I don't use it much, in the beginning it was like 2-4 hours each day (trust me, you'll sweat like a pig if you use it more), but here's my 2 cents why I haven't sold mine yet - Because it's very amusing entertainment that isn't meant to be used as a monitor.
Did you hear me VR naysayers? The technology is here - it's not just a thing you'd use 8 hours a day.
It's not meant to replace your monitor, at best - I'd say it'll give you 1 hour of entertainment every day, pretty much like a TV, just very much more involving. Games like Raw Data - will give you more workout than you ever will get sitting in front of a monitor.
Nope, ain't selling mine yet - but not all VR are created equally. It will come down in price eventually - and perhaps then, we'll see way more AAA titles.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I own an Oculus Rift with the Touch controllers and a HOTAS flight stick setup. The experience of using it is nothing short of magical. Properly designed software will make you really feel like you are actually in the game. However, the Rift is sorely lacking in the software department. Sure, there are some quality titles out there. The trouble is that most of them have $20+ price tags for what amounts to a couple of hours playing a mini-game.
It's a great tool for impressing your friends, but unless you enjoy doing the same thing over and over, you will quickly run out of fun things to do in VR.
....when they first started talking about it and how expensive it would be. So that's what everyone hears -- expensive.
This "toy" costs more then the machine it takes to run it -- PlayStation or XBox. And if you want multiple players to join in the "experience", look how much it costs now. No, this "VR thing" is handy for a few things, but as a mass market I think it's largely a lost cause -- at least until the devices get below $100 US. I won't even spend the $60 on a game because that's just crazy. I wait 6 months, then get it for $40 when the price drops.
To many "entrepreneurs" think everything nitchy and different is gold these days....
It might also be that they lost a lot of good will and reputation after they first promised support for Mac and Linux, and then changed their mind.
I'd buy one at the new price, if it supported macOS. But I won't buy one, even on new promises that it will, until it actually does.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Vive's recent sale threatened Oculus's long-term strategy of harvesting your data. Oculus wants everyone to have a Rift, and not because of the profit on the hardware. Here's the privacy policies compared: https://www.vrheads.com/vr-and...
Until VR no longer requires an Occulus (let alone the rig powering it and space to use it), it's a non-starter. Most people are not going to strap on the gear to accomplish tasks easier done without it. This has been one of the worst hype cycles I have ever seen, second only to 'AI'. It is definitely the new 3D tv (AR glasses are the next 3D tv in my opinion). If Silicon Valley were smart, they'd take the hint: not everyone is a geek, those that aren't never will be, and no one can live in a figment of the imagination trying to pass itself off as 'the future', at least not for long.
VR needs to be a portable and independent device to be practical.
Using my smartphone for VR? No thanks.
Using my PC for VR? No thanks.
Is it really hard to see why it is a bad idea making VR dependent on any other (frequently used) device?
leave to this little shitstain to take marketing decision, if facebook was a real company he would be kicked out by shareholders. VR is shit and will be shit for at least 10 years, there, you can stop looking.
It's only $399!*
* Does not include $1000+ gaming computer.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
So my brother bought an Oculus and invited me over to try it out. I have used it on two occasions ( with the hand sticks or whatever they're called ) and I'll give this short review:
Controllers: extremely well designed. Never once felt awkward... shockingly intuitive.
Headset: Much more immersive than I ever thought possible. Only issue I had is the the method of setting the focus feels a little cheap for such an expensive device. The concessions they make for people with glasses I suppose is a necessity. ( I wear contacts so I'm not without sympathy )
Games: The games that focus on world building ( I'm not going to remember any names here... many of these were just demos like the Iron Giant "homage" and the Dinosaur ) were flat out amazing. The killer game has yet to appear, but I think it should be an mystery adventure rather than an action game. Interacting with a truly 3D world is the most fun part of this.
The space simulator game I played was a great idea, especially since it's the closest analog to what you're actually doing... sitting down and clutching a flightstick. However the game itself was pretty annoying.. with limited playing modes and missing what you would really want in a game like this... a single player campaign mode. Give me a modern version of Privateer with this and I would be stuck playing for weeks. I played an enjoyable "super mario" type game that had som really funny and fun 3D playspace that I had never considered... it was pretty novel to be able to stand up and look "around" things that the character couldn't see. It was as if I was watching creatures in a terrarium.
The ugly: While I didn't get dizzy or sick while playing the games ( well, other than the expected amount when you are playing a game that has situations in real life that you would get dizzy in ), I had a surprising experience after taking the headset off. Odd sort of mild motion sickness as I got back to experiencing life through "normal" eyes again.
I think Oculus and Vive need to band together and create a programming bible ( if they haven't already ) for things you should do and not do in the VR gaming world. ( especially warnings and ratings for games that allow direct peril .... falling off a cliff may actually be something too much for some players. The threat of it in some games was frankly terrifying )
Some have called be useless or a luxury, but so is most of consumer sales. The difference is VR is not just expensive but rediculously expensive when you factor in you need great PC to go with it. What exactly would someone pay $900 for when the processing is all done on something you have to buy separately? I can get 65" 4K tv for $900, but basically a 5 inch screen for one person with 4K costs the same. I know it's different types of screens but the value proposition for VR is just not there. Many products have failed because they weren't at the right price point. VR is actually incredible, the problem is the incredibly high price, even at $400 it's a stretch.
Would definitely buy if they did though.
The fact that the Oculus drivers regularly call home and this cannot be switched off, makes the Rift a dead duck for me. No thank you, I do not use FB and I actively block FB at a hosts and cookies level. I would prefer to have a Vive and deal with Steam, than have anything FB-related on a hardware level.
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
Boy are people going to lack back and laugh at these kinds of Luddite posts in ten years.
Luddite? Dude, I was working with this stuff as far back as 20 years ago and think it's so awesome I worked on it full time for nearly 5 years. I just also have actual experience with it so my perspective is tempered by reality. I know what it can do and what it can't and where it is useful. It's not going away but the big money in VR is actually in its application to AR. The direct applications of VR are considerably more limited.
What we're seeing right now is 2D platform gamers telling everyone that 3D graphics is just a fad that will never take off.
No what you are seeing is someone who actually worked with the technology telling you that the use cases and financial payoff for it aren't where you think they are.
The overall experience is not as impressive as Oculus Rift, but the simple fact is PS VR won out in my house because I didn't need to upgrade my PC (which I'd just upgraded a year ago and it's still below spec for VR), I already had a PS4, and when I did have some money to burn for myself and the kids PSVR was much, much easier to pick up and run with. It's a niche in gaming, but worth it for the interesting experience and tech. That last sentence is not going to sell it to Wanda and Cletus who are still debating whether or not to upgrade from their PS2, though, or don't know why they need a PC when they have their phones. Also, and I hate to say it, but the real problem with the PSVR and the Rift is best summed up as: too many dangling cords, and require too much space. Most apartment dwellers don't have the room for these things, and the cords are damned annoying. There's also that percentage of people who get physically ill with VR. My son and I don't....but my wife does. So 1/3rd of my household can't actually use the device. On the plus side, glasses and the PSVR seem to work rather well.
When I can finally play Pokemon GO on the Oculus Rift I'll buy one.
Cause it involves everything computers, it's natural CS folks to want vr to succeed at all costs... It's the holy grail.
Much like MEs is robotics
EE it's solar
They all have a niche, but mass market likely not.
Cost has been one of the issues for why I haven't purchased the Oculus or the Vibe.
Heck I just upgraded my PC to Ryzen to get it up to snuff for playing VR among other things. I invested in a new large monitor with FreeSync so I am committed for now to AMD. I currently have an rx480 just for a mid range card until Vega is available which I expect to be just under par with nVidias best offerings but at a far better price point. Only after that did I expect to go VR.
The market is still young so I am still waiting for the killer app/game. But I do want to eventually do some development of my own simple apps at some point. $400 makes it practically a done deal for that purpose even with a lesser video card.
I also loved the stand up appeal of the Vibe and it's tracking I feel is superior.
And for Oculus specifically it's purchase by Facebook left a sour taste in my mouth. If Facebook had no intention of doing bad things then it's CEO should have created a separate company completely separate from Facebook for investment sort of like Google did with Alphabet. I have long considered Oculus the Facebook Rift in my mind. I hate Facebook with a passion and it likely where all the AOL people migrated to before AOL fell.
But as I said $400 makes it compelling enough. I have a feeling this is actually market analysis to see if they should invest in mass production to bring the cost of the headset down. For which I would argue YES but that they should actually come out with a new model with slightly better specs and mass produce both. They need a low, middle, and high tier product with clear upgrade paths. $200, $400, and $600. And they need to subsidize $200 in game purchases in their store with new system purchases. Also the whole "beta" model of VR games in continual development needs to stop. It's either a complete game for it's price or it's not. That's why versions and sequels of games exist. And stop doing these exclusive deals and spend the money on development. They should be developing the wireless technology to enable people to set up a mobile small tent in their backyard/garage/patio for more interactive space while the computer stays in the house.
And counterproductive. Your perspective in the real world extends about 30 feet or so. Perception of angles beyond that cannot produce any difference to work in distance cues from, and useful cues for distance really only need to be 10 feet or so, since that is well beyond your reach or the ability to leap, the only cases where stereoscopic depth perception is necessary.
And in the real world you can focus on any part of the field, but depth of field in a fixed medium blurs things outside what you're supposed to be looking at, and so trying to look at some "background" object leads only to eyestrain as you try to get it back in focus. So it's counterproductive to try to fake real views in such a medium.
So most VR 3D experiences enhance to stupidity the depth of things so that you can actually see it even though it would never work like that in real life.
I think Occulus has a PR problem, as they went from a Kickstarter that people were excited about and then they pretty much instantly turned around and sold themselves to Facebook. That pissed off their customer base and drove them away in droves.
Funny how neither HTC nor Sony are complaining or slashing prices.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
i go like o but i said this years ago, same thing with 3dtv and all that shyte no one can actually afford and then everybody goes NARCIST so maybe i wont, right ... im not in the best of moods today (thats a change)
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
The original cost of an Oculus was more than LASIK eye surgery for most patients. Talk about fucked up priorities!
Well speaking as someone who wears glasses but could also easily afford LASIK eye surgery I tend to prioritize avoiding risks to my vision over the convenience of not wearing glasses. LASIK eye surgery carries a risk of serious complications which can severely impact your vision. Even in the best of cases, your night vision is impaired. The risk might be small but so is the benefit and the impact if you are unlucky is huge. The only time I would consider it is if my vision required such a severe correction that glasses can not easily provide it.
I feel like there's a huge market missed. I really want a computer screen on my face. I want all the real estate of a 60" screen, but with something more portable.
VR wastes a lot of time, money, effort, parts, power etc. on motion tracking, gyroscopes, external trackers and everything. Then there's the programming to make it immersive. What if I could just put one of those little screens on my face (minus some weight!) and then watch a movie on a bigger appearing screen than what my TV looks like? All that power and plastic wrapped up in big screens is wasted.