181–190 of 395 posts
I regretted cancelling my devkit in righteous rage after the facebook sellout, but the somewhat tepid uptake of VR2.0 the last 18 months or so sadly makes it seem like the right decision, if maybe for the wrong reasons. I kinda hoped that the other vendors would have had something remarkable by now.
$599 may seem like a perilously steep price to debut at, but right now, Oculus faces a much bigger risk than low sales volume: Poor reception. If this was the MSRP required to ensure a comfortable, nausea-free experience, it's far better to have a killer product at a high price point than a "don't buy the first generation" product at the price point people were expecting. The former can lead to a cheaper gen 2, but t…
The quality of a user's experience with the Oculus is going to be directly correlated to the quantity and quality of games/experiences available for the device. Even if it's silky smooth and you can use it for hours on end without issue if you run out of quality content in two hours there's a problem. Quantity/quality are even more important to the user after making such a significant investment.
The problem here is if developers will be able to make money creating quality experiences for Oculus if the userbase is tiny because no one can afford one. The user market is already being fractured by the different units available - if I develop a game for the HTC Vive (which supports room tracking) is it easy or even possible to port the experience to the Oculus?
Developing a high quality gaming experience is EXPENSIVE, and AAA regularly do not recoup their costs even when they're being offered to a huge user base (XBOX/PS4/PC/etc). Due to the nature of VR a quality experience is going to require a significant investment to build. If companies can't recoup that cost they'll stop developing and if there aren't any killer experiences people will stop buying the Rift.
For Oculus (or any of the upcoming units) to be successful they need to walk the line between quality and price, and I'm not sure they've done it.
I'm starting to think Sony is in a better position even though it's looking like they have inferior hardware.
I think the biggest risk to adoption is real-world interest. I get that VR is a fun tech, and has some potentially cool possibilities. But to me and seemingly many other people, it's just not that interesting. I don't know why, maybe I'm not geek enough, but I just have zero interest. And frankly it feels kind of like a gimmick. I'm especially averse to the idea of strapping on a clumsy headset every time I want to u…
One of the reasons why it may lack real-world interest is lack of content. People need to believe in the medium and pioneer content in spite of lack of interest, in hope to generate that interest, or it will remain an unsolved chicken-and-egg problem. I believe Newell and Carmack do want to make high quality "games" in the sense of interactive experiences, and they see VR as an opportunity for that. What's required i…
Maybe it's one of those technologies that needs a breakthrough moment, or to reach critical mass to where mainstream adoption starts occurring. Because right now it feels very "really? We're trying to make this happen again?" to me.
Why is Xbox One Controller included? Not PS4 compatible? But hey you'd now think "why didn't I back Oculus on Kickstarter?"
I think the biggest risk to adoption is real-world interest. I get that VR is a fun tech, and has some potentially cool possibilities. But to me and seemingly many other people, it's just not that interesting. I don't know why, maybe I'm not geek enough, but I just have zero interest. And frankly it feels kind of like a gimmick. I'm especially averse to the idea of strapping on a clumsy headset every time I want to u…
Case in point - Google Glass. I think Glass could have found viability in specific uses, but they marketed as "people are going to wear this everywhere!" and the resulting backlash completely destroyed the concept in the mind of the consumer.
Not everything has to be an overnight success, or requires every person on the planet using it to be successful. HDTV took years and years to gain traction, during which time the technology improved and became cheaper by leaps and bounds.
I think the current Oculus marketing message - "we know it's expensive; the technology is still improving; we don't really know exactly what the killer apps and best uses cases are for VR yet; this is targeted at hobbyists and people who want to push the envelope and set the stage for the next phase of VR" - is right on. They should stick with that and make sure they don't drift into "VR will revolutionize your life and your social network" territory. Let the early adopters figure out what to do with it.
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This costs as much as a full blown PC. Except you'll also need a killer desktop PC that can run it [1]: - NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater - Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater - 8GB+ RAM - Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output - 2x USB 3.0 ports - Windows 7 SP1 or newer The Oculus Touch is stated to need 4 USB ports [2], not just two, so better plan for that as well So in total you are probably looking at c…
Kind of like saying to buy a car you need a $300k house with a garage, when in fact many of the people buying a car already have a house with a garage. That's also not a "killer" desktop. The 290 is a a 2.5 year old card. The GTX 970 is equivalent to a 680 or 780. The 680 came out almost four years ago. If you had no computer at all, you could build that system for ~$700 - $750 ($200 CPU, $100 Mobo, $200 Used GPU, $5…
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Google Glass never shipped to consumers, only to developers... They did charge a relative high amount for the dev' kits and made wishy washy claims that they could produce the consumer version for less.
I wouldn't say it never shipped to consumers. It was available for purchase on the Play Store alongside their other consumer products, and billed as an 'explorer edition'. If it was only intended for devs it should have been available for purchase on the dev site and billed as a developer edition.
$599 may seem like a perilously steep price to debut at, but right now, Oculus faces a much bigger risk than low sales volume: Poor reception. If this was the MSRP required to ensure a comfortable, nausea-free experience, it's far better to have a killer product at a high price point than a "don't buy the first generation" product at the price point people were expecting. The former can lead to a cheaper gen 2, but t…
Well, that price does include HiFi headphones with a built-in DAC, an Xbox One controller, a small hand-held controller, and two games. Retail prices on those bought separately? Easily 1/3rd the price.
I don't need a wireless xbox controller, I have 2 sitting right next to me.
I have no interest in those two games, they'll be thrown on the stack of AOL floppies, Colin McRae: Dirt download codes, and McAfee CDs I have gathering dust in the corner.
The headphones are nice I guess if you don't have wireless ones but I do so they'll be relegated to the bin.
The Oculus Remote doesn't appear to be integral, it just looks like an optional accessory you could use instead of another input means.
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I can't access the page, is this the official price? Was expecting something around the 400$-450$ range. This costs as much as a full blown PC.
a 599 PC is not going to have a GPU strong enough to give you any decent VR, 599 is about the starting point for the GPU only, I would honestly not go with anything less than a 980ti for a minimum of future-proofing, and unless you already have one I would wait for a Pascal card, which in any case will cost at least that much. in VR dropping frames / latency directly maps to motion sickness, so it's not a case of "eh…
Do you have any articles/papers about this? I'm not doubting you, just curious!