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Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

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Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#61

Post by 83457 »

lisper wrote: post #60

Let me see if I have this straight: the advantage of the Rift over the Gear VR is that the Rift lets you move around and the Gear doesn't. But the Rift has a (fairly short) cable, and the Gear doesn't. Is that right? Because the problem seems so obvious that I almost feel a little foolish pointing it out: cables and movement don't play well together, particularly when, by design, you can't see the cable.

The rift has cameras that track your movement. That is the main difference that you are looking for. I've used the rift dk1 with extension cables and can actually move around quite freely, though obviously not as much as a wireless setup. With gearvr you can move around but the headset/game doesn't actually know you are moving around as there is no external tracker or reference point like with the rift.

Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#62

Post by MBCook »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #47
MBCook wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been following VR for the last year or so. There is no question that the Rift has better specs and can do better graphics than the Gear. But I've read more than a few people in the VR space (game journalists, developers) say that there is something special about the Gear because there is no cable. There's nothing you have to keep conscious of so you don't trip over it or feel it on your back breaking immersion.…

>$2200 in a PC and a Rift, or $100 that clips on your phone (assuming you're on Samsung)? Your figures are a little off. A rift is (all following figures in USD) $599, and a computer that will support it is generally quoted at $950, making it's package price $1550. You can buy bundles that include a Rift and an Oculus ready PC for $1499[1]. The gear VR only works with very recent phones, and only works on all games w…

I was under the impression you needed a $1500 PC. So I'll give you that.

I'm assuming you're not buying the phone but that you already have one. People still get them with subsidies too.

The point is that for someone who wants to dip their toes and had a recent Samsung phone the Gear is DRASTICALLY cheaper. If you have a PS4 (or even if you don't) then the PS VR is cheaper too.

For people who aren't already committed to VR, I think Fowler is right that the Rift is way too much at this point.

Give it time.

Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#63

Post by treebeard901 »

MBCook wrote: post #43
Sir_Substance wrote: post #13

>There’s already another VR rig that doesn’t have a tether—and it costs a fraction of the Rift. Samsung’s $100 Gear VR, made in partnership with Oculus, is powered by a smartphone that you physically insert in front of two lenses. The extra costs of the Rift (monetary and otherwise) would be justified if its image quality were dramatically better than the Gear’s, but it isn’t. I already got the sense that the author…

I've been following VR for the last year or so. There is no question that the Rift has better specs and can do better graphics than the Gear. But I've read more than a few people in the VR space (game journalists, developers) say that there is something special about the Gear because there is no cable. There's nothing you have to keep conscious of so you don't trip over it or feel it on your back breaking immersion.…

It is worth mentioning that the PC requirements would be almost the same if all you wanted to do is play a modern game at steady frames per second (90) on a 2160x1200 monitor.

Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#64

Post by Retric »

MBCook wrote: post #46
Retric wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is ~50 million people "mainstream"? Considering he complained about downloading drivers this must be very easy to setup. Gaming PC's used to be ~2,000$, this is 600 + 950PC = 1550$. https://www.oculus.com/en-us/oculus-ready-pcs/ Which is not free but hardly going to break most people. Don't forget this is just a mid-range gaming PC which many people are going to get anyway which drops this down to the cost of a high…

If any go mainstream it will be the PS VR. Sony has 30m consoles out there, and it only costs $500 to get setup with PS VR. Total price is about $800-900. Plug and play, games work great because they're designed for the system. On the other hand with the Rift and the Vive you need a PC which has to be up to spec, the hardware is more expensive, etc.

I was looking though the Steam Survey and on the nVidia side ~7.5 million people have a nVidia GPU fast enough for the Rift. Add ATI and people upgrading this year and I think the market may be similar sized.

The real question IMO, is if you own both which do you add VR to?

Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#65

Post by 83457 »

bcook wrote: post #31
Xero wrote: post #14

"Another big-picture VR problem: It’s boring to be around people who are using it." This sentence is pretty emblematic of the product the author of this article was expecting vs the Rift that Oculus pitched in their kickstarter video.

His complaint seems just plain wrong... are these VR systems incapable of mirroring the image to a TV?

nope, mirroring was actually the default setup for the rift and still possible

Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#66

Post by SquareWheel »

VikingCoder wrote: post #36
therobot24 wrote: post #2

The review read like he was expecting it to be the iphone version of VR. Complaints about using an expensive computer, the cord, having to use muscle memory, etc. come off like the type of person who wouldn't be interested in the Oculus in the first place. While I agree that it looks clunky, really it's the performance that most would-be buyers are interested in.

It IS the iPhone of VR. The first iPhone didn't have over-the-air updates, over-the-air app installs, over-the-air music downloads. The screen was crap (compared to today).

More than that, the first iPhone had no third-party apps period and still ran on the EDGE network. Even with all those limitations, it was still groundbreaking. The iPhone made everyone wake up and rethink what we were doing.

The comparison to VR is apt. It really is a game-changing technology.

Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#67

Post by keypusher »

It's strange to have a non-gamer do the review for this, as he seems to know very little about the field, or computer gaming. I guess they are aiming for a mainstream opinion, but Occulus is not a mainstream device. It's a high-end gaming peripheral. For instance that the author mentions incredulously multiple times that his high-end PC requires two power cables, which I just don't understand. I found his colleague's review (which is referenced in the article, also wsj) much more informative. His take was that it's a pretty cool piece of technology, but needs more games.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/28/oculus-rift-is-built-...

Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#68

Post by Suttonian »

lisper wrote: post #60

Let me see if I have this straight: the advantage of the Rift over the Gear VR is that the Rift lets you move around and the Gear doesn't. But the Rift has a (fairly short) cable, and the Gear doesn't. Is that right? Because the problem seems so obvious that I almost feel a little foolish pointing it out: cables and movement don't play well together, particularly when, by design, you can't see the cable.

The positional tracking is useful even if you don't walk around though. Imagine you lean to the side in your chair but you view doesn't change at all - how weird would that be? Or you're stood on the edge of a building, and try to lean over to see below, but you can't because your viewpoint doesn't change. Positional tracking means that would work as expected - it's good even for seated experiences (where a cable isn't really a problem). Besides from what I hear, users get used to the cable after a while, even though all recognize that it's not ideal.

Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#69

Post by Retric »

Qworg wrote: post #48
Retric wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is ~50 million people "mainstream"? Considering he complained about downloading drivers this must be very easy to setup. Gaming PC's used to be ~2,000$, this is 600 + 950PC = 1550$. https://www.oculus.com/en-us/oculus-ready-pcs/ Which is not free but hardly going to break most people. Don't forget this is just a mid-range gaming PC which many people are going to get anyway which drops this down to the cost of a high…

"Which is not free but hardly going to break most people" - most people make ~$4500 a month or less (pre taxes). $1550 is a big chunk of cash for most people.

Depends on context.

You can get a reliable used car for ~12k. Look at how many people spend 2+K more than that.

Re: Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream

#70

Post by striking »

Retric wrote: post #35
minimaxir wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World of Warcraft went mainstream because it didn't require a gaming PC to play in 2004.

There are more than 10x as many active Steam accounts (125m) vs active WoW accounts at it's peak (12m) in 2010. Sure, a mid to low end PC could play WoW in 2004, but it only broke 2.5 million subscribers in late 2005. http://cdn2.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/wow-sub... And 10m in 2008. Give it 4 years and a GTX 970 will be a very low end graphics card.

My 4-year-old GTX660 is a mid-range card even today. Give it five or six years.
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