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Meta Quest 3

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Re: Meta Quest 3

#261

Post by MBCook »

Auracle wrote: post #250
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people like you constantly say "what's the killer app" ever time something new VR comes out? It’s asking for the use case. If there isn’t a use case outside gaming, there is no value on the table for non-gamers.

Gaming is a huge market, and if you go in to any free to play game it's absolutely inundated with kids/preteens. You can also roam using apps that let you do Google street view stuff in VR, create art, watch movies in a theater like experience alone or by yourself, and of course a lot of people use it for porn. Even usual non-gamers love stuff like Walkabout Mini Golf or Star Wars Pinball.

Gaming is a huge market.

What portion of that market is VR?

That’s the issue I see. Gaming may be the best thing in VR, but VR hasn’t felt necessary to the average gamer at all. It’s still a small niche.

Re: Meta Quest 3

#262

Post by ActorNightly »

cheriot wrote: post #207
MBCook wrote: post #86

So what’s the killer app? Beatsaber and some other games can be a lot of fun, but they’re not new. What new experience are ready for this? I get the quality is better, and that’s not nothing. But other than that this largely seems like more of the same. VR still doesn’t seem to have advanced much in software to me. And Meta keeps pushing virtual meetings and such but that’s not my cup of tea. I owned a Quest 2 and ha…

Quest 2 grew the VR market by ~10x. What was the killer app? Beat Saber is the first install, but not what kept it going for 3 years. It's the ecosystem. VR Chat for some, social game for others, immersive experiments like Bonelab, and a few studio titles. I'm glad Meta didn't hype the Quest 3 too much. It's easy for VR expectations to outrun current tech. VR seems to be in the trough of disillusionment where it's mo…

>Quest 2 grew the VR market by ~10x

Did it really? So far I don't see any uptick in anything VR related in terms of average daily use.

I read somewhere that most people get VR, try it for a week, then get bored of it.

Re: Meta Quest 3

#263

Post by dns_snek »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #253
nolroz wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to walk into my back yard and visualize a new garden, then check on it through the year and get info on what the plants need. Same thing with my house and layout/furniture. Let me stand in a hotel room in a city I'm not familiar with and look around at the town around me, x-ray style.

> I want to walk into my back yard Aren't the VR headsets wired?

Some can be used standalone, like the Quest.

Re: Meta Quest 3

#264

Post by glonq »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #191

Do they have a trade-in program like Apple does for the iPhone/MacBook? New $1k phone, but trade your old one in for $500... not as bad. I doubt there's a market for a bunch of used/refurbished Meta Quest 2s though...

So I might get $20 for my dusty, abandoned Rift S then?

Re: Meta Quest 3

#265

Post by smoldesu »

bitwize wrote: post #66

A.k.a. the budget version of Apple Vision Pro. Just $649.99 plus all your personal data! Strap it on your eyeballs and feed the machine, the algorithm hungers!

The Vision Pro wishes it could sell as many units as the Quest did. If the lifetime units sold exceeds the Quest 2's first quarter of shipments, it will be a small miracle.

> Just $649.99 plus all your personal data! Strap it on your eyeballs and feed the machine, the algorithm hungers!

My favorite part of Hacker News is how people rattle their adtech surveillance pans, but always hide away whenever someone mentions the NSA or PRISM. You guys remember last week when Canada used FIVE-EYES to grab telecom data off an unsuspecting, international citizen using commodity hardware?

Coming soon: the same duopoly of shit, but now on VR. As they say, don't throw stones from glass headsets.

Re: Meta Quest 3

#266

Post by MBCook »

smoldesu wrote: post #178
MBCook wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they can’t? What if whatever it is that makes the app so compelling automatically rules it out on the Quest 3 for some reason? What if it demands a better input method or higher resolution?

Then I'd be impressed, frankly. I've got the original Quest, and features you'd expect to be broken or missing (eg. hand tracking, multitasking, game streaming, web browsing, sideloading, et. al) all work fine. It's honestly quite sad that the core line of rhetoric here is a laconic "what if" statement around theoretical apps. The Quest exists and has sold tens of millions of units; the Vision Pro has yet to prove it…

The quest sold millions at the beginning of a pandemic when people were trapped at home and needed an escape.

How many people still use it? How many regret the purchase, how many would have bought it without the pandemic?

I see that as Meta’s big opportunity to grab success in VR. And it didn’t happen.

They’re trying to market this like the next thing everyone needs and after multiple tries I just don’t see it. I don’t even see how they get there, this is the same strategy as the Quest, Quest 2, PSVR, PSVR2, etc. Games are great but that pitch just isn’t working at really moving the needle. But that’s all they have.

Re: Meta Quest 3

#267

Post by jauntywundrkind »

MBCook wrote: post #86

So what’s the killer app? Beatsaber and some other games can be a lot of fun, but they’re not new. What new experience are ready for this? I get the quality is better, and that’s not nothing. But other than that this largely seems like more of the same. VR still doesn’t seem to have advanced much in software to me. And Meta keeps pushing virtual meetings and such but that’s not my cup of tea. I owned a Quest 2 and ha…

> So what’s the killer app?

What's the desktops killer app? What's mobile's killer app?

Computing to me is a general purpose system, which grows holistically. This kind of search for certainty, trying to annoint some specific app as the thing that a form factor is all for, is actively harmful to understanding the role of compute & how it fits into augments & enriches so many diverse different things we do.

Creating comfortable computing spaces is never going to be a fast burn. It's taken decades for the desktop to mature. This is a harder challenge, enmeshing with reality rather than being so tightly a self contained system.

I have a lot of questions & uncertainty about how computing rolls out a presence beyond the screen & into the world. It's unknown to me and maybe it flat up fails & never works. But I'd like some respect & acceptance that this is an open ended thing, not going to be so conveniently compact & singular as this ask tries to reduce it to. Searching so hard for certainty is dangerous, rejects the pioneering & open endedness & intergativeness that most rich complex & capable long lasting systems endure through. Let's not be so rash in demanding all our answers ahead of time.

Re: Meta Quest 3

#268

Post by MBCook »

bionhoward wrote: post #205
audunw wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s pretty obvious that virtual TV/Computer screens at arbitrary sizes/distances in arbitrary environments will simply be a better UX than physical monitors. Is it? I don’t feel like it’s better right now (I know some people do, but I’m not convinced they’re the majority). Fixing the issues with VR is not trivial. There’s some deep flaws in the optics that we simply don’t know how to solve yet, and the weight need…

Couldn’t virtualized monitors be customizable in a declarative way which would enable you to do stuff which would be completely impossible on hardware, though? Imagine i3wm with dynamic virtual hardware, that’s insane, not to mention what kinds of automated monitor setup configuration transitions you could make. AR guy many years from now can instantly try a new 12-monitor setup while our dumb butts wait for 12 expen…

> Couldn’t virtualized monitors be customizable in a declarative way which would enable you to do stuff which would be completely impossible on hardware, though? Imagine i3wm with dynamic virtual hardware, that’s insane, not to mention what kinds of automated monitor setup configuration transitions you could make.

Ok. Let’s say that’s done. Is it really that much more useful? It has to be good enough to overcome the friction of having to wear a headset and any limitations that come with it like heat, battery life, weight, resolution, etc.

I’m not convinced such a setup would significantly enhance productivity/usability even with hypothetical glasses that do it all, let alone something like a Quest on your head.

Re: Meta Quest 3

#269

Post by MBCook »

umeshunni wrote: post #188
baby wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the killer app for a PC?

Originally, it was Excel/Lotus 123. Later, it was the web browser. Nowadays, it's mostly games.

Right. It was Wordstar instead of a typewriter. VisiCalc instead of ledgers book. Photoshop. PageMaker or Quark Xpress. AutoCAD.

Over and over as computers got more powerful new killer apps appeared that changed the way people worked and the world did its business.

VR doesn’t appear to have anything like that. Just a small niche of the gaming market.

Re: Meta Quest 3

#270

Post by mgiampapa »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #258

I haven’t kept up with VR/AR at all but is anyone offering the ability to attend concerts and shows via VR? I’m thinking like some kind of high quality 360 audio/video capture rig sat in a good seat at gigs across the country and I can buy a cheap ticket to attend via VR. It’s obviously never going to beat attending in real life but my use case is more about getting to attend gigs I can’t get to in real life.

They explicitly called out sporting events during the press release, so I would expect that concerts would be easy. They already have gear for court / ring side seats.
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