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

wsj.com

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

#121

Post by prawn »

empath75 wrote: post #54
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.

I totally think VR is The Future, but I don't disagree with anything he said. It's an expensive toy for early adopters and developers, still. They're not going to sell millions of these in the first generation. The Vive won't either. I got to try it last week, and it's mind-blowing , but a) it takes up a lot of room and b) there are going to be casualties from room scale VR. Injuries and loss of furniture at least. I…

I think we may well see VR-specific rooms in upper-middle class homes in the future. Or maybe home theatre rooms that can double as VR rooms.

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

#122

Post by iainmerrick »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #105
iainmerrick wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give useful feedback, it's less important for a critic to "know" those things in advance than to actually try out the device (and its competitors) and tell us how it works out in practice.

I disagree. If that's what I'm after, I could just ask two or three people who own one to render an opinion. It would take me less then a minute to have that thread up on reddit. The whole argument behind why websites like wsj are allegedly valuable and thus worth un-adblocking or paying 10c an article for or whatever is the trendy solution now is that they're supposed to be offering a higher standard of information…

Yeah, okay, you're right, domain knowledge is important. I still think a clear and insightful description of practical experience is more important, though.

I don't see what's factually incorrect in this article. The author says that the tether is kind of a pain, and the fact that the Gear is tether-free makes it more compelling (even though it's weaker in other aspects). That's opinion -- useful opinion! The basic facts (tethered versus untethered) seem correct.

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

#123

Post by mrfusion »

prawn wrote: post #121
empath75 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally think VR is The Future, but I don't disagree with anything he said. It's an expensive toy for early adopters and developers, still. They're not going to sell millions of these in the first generation. The Vive won't either. I got to try it last week, and it's mind-blowing , but a) it takes up a lot of room and b) there are going to be casualties from room scale VR. Injuries and loss of furniture at least. I…

I think we may well see VR-specific rooms in upper-middle class homes in the future. Or maybe home theatre rooms that can double as VR rooms.

Can we call them holodecks?

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

#124

Post by zamalek »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #18
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…

Can't you attach your phone to a computer and grid power with a USB cable?

I hacked up a quick head-tracking solution one weekend using my phone and WiFi. The problem was passive calibration. Accelerometers and gyroscopes are noisy and imperfect. Drift occurs and without the Occulus tracker or Vive lighthouses you are in for a frustrating experience.

I own a DK2 and for many concrete reasons disagree with the author, it is not a novelty. Phone-based stuff is most certainly a novelty.

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

#125

Post by todd8 »

There are quite a few comments on price here. I will wait for more games or at least a compelling game or app before buying one. I'm sure I will though.

Consider the price of the HP LaserJet III. It came out around 1990, and I remember a conversation with a salesperson that said that the price had already come down so much since the HP LaserJet I that it probably wouldn't ever get much cheaper. It was a complex machine, motors, belts, gears, laser, etc., and in today's dollars it cost about $4400. High quality printers today are everywhere and can cost under $100. It's interesting to consider where VR will be in a decade or two.

It seems like an important development; one I've been waiting for since 1977. I was in a graduate-school computer graphics course and I described an idea that I had for a helmet that would capture motion and position of one's head and through two small CRTs present a rendered 3D virtual view. The rest of the class (and the professor) seemed skeptical, but I've always remembered that feeling about VR like there was an idea that was eventually coming.

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

#126

Post by nawitus »

smacktoward wrote: post #118
nawitus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What game causes heat problems on the S6?

Just about any of them, or playing video, or really using the device in Gear VR mode at all. I generally started getting the cool-down-please warnings after about a half hour of use, regardless of what apps I was running. Source: I have an S6 and Gear VR.

I haven't had these problems.
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