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Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

oculus.com

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Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#101

Post by dieselgate »

kranke155 wrote: post #87
andybak wrote: post #84

I would like to declare a new internet law: "VR will have become mainstream when someone posts a VR-related link to HN and the resultant discussion is about the article itself rather than VR in general"

VR will never become mainstream. I’ve been working in VR since 2015 and I don’t use it daily. I don’t know a single person who uses it daily. Maybe if you’re mildly autistic or remarkably introspective it works for you. For most people it’s a fundamentally alienating experience, like taking LSD but with none of the joy. VR is fundamentally an industrial technology, good for training and other purposes. For entertainm…

Thanks for the seemingly well informed opinion. I, too, would like to see VR labeled more as a “tool” rather than “the future(!) of {education|recreation|work|etc}”

Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#102

Post by YellowTech »

pathartl wrote: post #20
roody15 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol exactly. Really wanted to play Half Life / Alex but not about to give Meta any money … absolutely not going to use a facebook account to use a VR device.

Alyx is probably one of the greatest gaming experiences I've had... but I was also able to borrow a Vive from a friend to play it. I'm a Half-Life nut so I would have bought a headset anyway, but I'm glad I haven't bought a Quest.

You can use a Oculus Account (not connected to facebook) and then use Virtual Desktop to stream the game from SteamVR over Wifi. If you have a Wifi 6 router it's the best PC VR experience you can have (wireless, no base stations, really high resolution, very low latency) and besides the Quest 2 and Virtual Desktop you are not giving any money to Meta. If you are worried about battery life, I already player with a battery bank in small backpack without any problems! Absolutely awesome.

Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#103

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #10

I'm shocked that there aren't more multiplayer VR experiences. Yes, sure, there's Pavlov and VR Chat. But unless you have a friend who's into VR Chat, it's remarkably difficult to find a game that can immerse two different people at the same time. It felt a bit ironic that mini golf was one of the most fun multiplayer party games. My wife was like "You should bring over your quest 2!" to our new house -- she already…

> I'm shocked that there aren't more multiplayer VR experiences.

Interesting, I had the opposite experience. While browsing the Quest's store I kept feeling railroaded into multiplayer experiences. Huh.

One huge issue, however, is with local "multiplayer". If you've ever tried to observe someone playing Beat Saber on the Quest 2 you'll know what kind of letdown it is: the video stream is delayed, which completely destroys the ability to enjoy watching someone else play. It's impossible to get "pumped up" when someone is doing well. They reaaaally need to release some sort of dongle set to get low-latency observer streaming to the TV.

Additionally, watching someone else's VR POV on a standard flat TV can be pretty nauseating. It would be great if there was also a way to add motion stability to the TV feed.

Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#104

Post by rjh29 »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #51
sillysaurusx wrote: post #10

I'm shocked that there aren't more multiplayer VR experiences. Yes, sure, there's Pavlov and VR Chat. But unless you have a friend who's into VR Chat, it's remarkably difficult to find a game that can immerse two different people at the same time. It felt a bit ironic that mini golf was one of the most fun multiplayer party games. My wife was like "You should bring over your quest 2!" to our new house -- she already…

I have a Vive and have played a decent number of hours in VR, and overall like it quite a lot. It's really amazing how readily our brain will "adopt" two floating hands as your own body. I'm bullish on the future of VR gaming. But I do think there's a big hurdle, and that's our inner ear. Teleport-based controls are jank but it seems really difficult to prevent motion sickness when using any kind of movement that tra…

There are some techniques. Vignetting the borders of the screen when moving/turning seems to help for some people.

I've noticed newer games increasingly have free movement as an option, or no teleport at all, so I think for a lot of people it is possible to get used to it if you play enough. Some percentage will never get used to it though, which sucks.

Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#105

Post by bredren »

kypro wrote: post #64

Lots of commenters here saying they're surprised by this move, but isn't the Quest 2 a loss leader for Meta? If I had to guess this move is probably to reduce the loss they're taking on each unit sold. The reason they're doing it now is probably because of the digital ad slow down and investor fears around Meta's metaverse cashburn.

It has to be. When I ordered a few months ago the device arrived the next day. I couldn't believe it.

Even though the hardware is somewhat aged and the platform still has bugs the overall quality, delivery and onboarding experience was good. The accessories to flesh out the kit were also inexpensive. The whole thing feels underpriced, however average people are definitely not ready to put on a headset.

This is MUCH different from the flip-phone to smartphone transition. Pricing has to be low because there's major adoption friction to overcome.

I've said it before, but I loathe facebook and can not support Meta or its aims until it splits off a company that can not and will not use data built from Facebook / Instagram or any other entity connected to FB.

The only thing that gave me solace in adding data to my shadow profile was that I knew the purchase was costing them much more than was sustainable.

Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#106

Post by LordDragonfang »

nanna wrote: post #47

Am I the only one who struggles to take the name 'Meta' seriously, and still calls Zuckerberg's empire Facebook? Its a name that straddles pretentiousness and inanity ('That is sooo meta.') too acutely, and I resent them adopting a name of a broader movement of engineering for themselves. Or rather stealing it from https://meta.is/ .

That has pretty much been the consensus opinion since the name change, so no, you are not the only one.

The only people who I see consistently calling Zuckerberg's empire "Meta" are financial types that care about name of the company granting shares and on the stock ticker, and reporters who have to do copy editing.

Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#107

Post by echelon »

pathartl wrote: post #20
roody15 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol exactly. Really wanted to play Half Life / Alex but not about to give Meta any money … absolutely not going to use a facebook account to use a VR device.

Alyx is probably one of the greatest gaming experiences I've had... but I was also able to borrow a Vive from a friend to play it. I'm a Half-Life nut so I would have bought a headset anyway, but I'm glad I haven't bought a Quest.

The immersiveness is fantastic, but movement feels like trying to use a 1970's pong controller while something is strapped to your head.

I want standard joystick-based movement. I suppose too many get motion sickness, or that joysticks are ergonomically awkward to place onto motion controllers while maintaining the "pointing" and "picking up" metaphors.

VR's "aim and teleport" mechanic is the worst, though. It ruins the entire experience for me. I just want to walk in a direction - easy with a game controller. But instead you have to aim, judge distance, and click. It's so weird and feels gross.

Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#108

Post by terafo »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #57
yonaguska wrote: post #3

As much as I wanted to get into VR, Meta taking over the Quest has thankfully saved me countless sunken dollars and hours.

VR wouldn’t even be a thing anymore without their efforts. PC Tower VR is a dead end where the complexity and hardware costs will never take it the customer base size that justifies developing non-indie content. I don’t think Valve would have even bothered building Index without the Oculus threat.

5 millions PSVR sold beg to differ.

Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#109

Post by rjh29 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #57
yonaguska wrote: post #3

As much as I wanted to get into VR, Meta taking over the Quest has thankfully saved me countless sunken dollars and hours.

VR wouldn’t even be a thing anymore without their efforts. PC Tower VR is a dead end where the complexity and hardware costs will never take it the customer base size that justifies developing non-indie content. I don’t think Valve would have even bothered building Index without the Oculus threat.

I agree. Games are selling 10-20x more on the Quest compared to the PC. It's making VR accessible and cheap for everyone. And the market is open for someone else to release a cheap headset if they like rather than requiring people to spend thousands of dollars and have complicated setups.

Re: Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

#110

Post by jdlyga »

I view the Oculus Quest in the same category as 3D TV right now. Yes, it's REALLY COOL. But 3D TV was also really cool, especially watching Pixar movies which I did all the time when I had one. It has potential, but it's just not there beyond some initial great stuff.
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