Slashdot Mirror
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.
Even the current moviehouse 3D technology isn't all that great if you ask me. The last 3D movie I saw was Avatar, and my reaction to it was "..gee, that's kinda interesting" but nothing more enthusiastic than that; I'm not willing to pay the extra couple bucks to see a movie in 3D. I work somewhere where 3D TV was part of our graphics card driver validation process, and that was even worse: It was like cardboard cutouts being moved on top of or behind each other.
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.
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.
Any product that makes at least 30% of it's owners physically sick is probably not a great investment.
This is wrong and I'm getting really tired of people trotting out this un-fact. If you don't set up the comfort settings correctly it will make you sick but it's trivially easy to to get it right so that 99% of people will feel fine. I run public VR installations and it does *not* make people sick. Right now I'm looking at the 50th person today to try VR. Not a single complaint.
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
The venue is space-themed so the content is about astronomy and spaceflight. At first I made my own VR videos from public-domain and stock images. This is actually easier than you might think - editing VR isn't much different to editing normal video and even shooting your own photos/video is getting easier.
Fortunately there's a lot more content available now and I don't have to make my own any more, I just buy stuff from the Oculus store. At the moment I'm using two apps:
(1) "Titans of Space" on the Samsung Gear. This is a looping tour of the Solar System. I covered the touchpad so users don't change anything. They just take it on and off as they like. Most people will go at least a few minutes and maybe 40% watch the whole 10 minutes. This is a safe, easy way for people to try VR. If they like it, they can step up to the Rift...
(2) "Mission ISS" on the Oculus Rift. This is an exploration experience set on board the International Space Station. The user has hand controls so they can point, grab and manipulate objects, and move themselves around in microgravity. It's incredible.
If you think VR is an overrated gimmick, you've never climbed into the Cupola on the ISS. Try getting that experience with a screen.
A word of warning... although it's getting better fast, finding good content for a museum is still a bit of a pain. As your friend will know, there are many considerations when you're offering turns to the public. I'd recommend starting with some simple non-interactive VR videos or even still images. You also need to understand comfort and intensity settings. It's not hard but if you get it wrong you'll have people falling over and/or throwing up.