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

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

#131

Post by Macha »

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 mean, so far the three titles I would call "non-Indie", those being Fallout VR, Skyrim VR and HL: Alyx, are PC VR exclusives.

Stuff like Beat Saber and VRChat which are the most succesful VR games, predate the Quest, and are probaby helped that beat saber only needs the motion controls part of VR - were it not for facebook using it to sell the Quest nowadays, we would have had a switch port by now I feel.

And VRchat doesn't even require VR, it also has a regular desktop client.

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

#132

Post by sidibe »

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…

I was pretty skeptical but for a few months I use VR every day for a quick midday workout to wake me up (thrill of the fight and pistol whip). Can't believe how much it can get your heart rate up with just head and hands monitored. I definitely think if they start monitoring your feet it'll be used for a lot of exercise

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

#133

Post by Firmwarrior »

zlsa wrote: post #50
agloeregrets wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Current price" Seemed to be purely invented to move units. The hardware margins had to be very large negative numbers. They were losing $2.5B/Quarter for the last two years. To put it in context, the specs of a base Quest 2 are actually somewhat similar to Microsoft's $1000 Surface Pro X or a Galaxy S20 but adding the motion controllers and the specific ground-up custom OS.

> specific ground-up custom OS There are no doubt huge changes made, but Quest 2 runs Android underneath.

To be fair, this isn't like Amazon's "fire OS" where they just added a launcher app and randomly broke some APIs on accident. It's a pretty substantial addition to/departure from stock Android

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

#134

Post by amelius »

rjh29 wrote: post #109
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And the market is open for someone else to release a cheap headset

Increasing difficult as most apps are on Meta's platform now.

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

#135

Post by abledon »

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…

This one looks like its going to take the cake:

Blade and Sorcery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_ZDQnOCTVI

If they open it up a bit as a base platform for creators to make their own mods/rpgs, wow.

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

#136

Post by [deleted] »

trixie_ wrote: post #7

It's a strange move given Facebook changed their name to promote VR and the Quest is their flagship device. Also surprised that after mass producing this device for almost 2 years their manufacturing and supply chain costs aren't dialed in enough to maintain the current price. The message here is that VR is 'failing'. I hope it's not, but that's the message with this backwards move.

[deleted]

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

#137

Post by SpikeMeister »

echelon wrote: post #107
pathartl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's smooth movement and smooth turning options for most games, including Alyx.

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

#138

Post by babyshake »

desireco42 wrote: post #40

This is how inflation looks like, instead of being cheaper, it is getting more expensive. I am early adopter, had Oculus for a long time... Very few things to do with it unfortunatelly.

I'm wondering how much of this is inflation vs. supply chain constraints. I can't think of the last time I saw an electronics product like this with a substantial price increase so long after it has been released. The only comparable examples all involves supply crunches.

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

#139

Post by jjcon »

balls187 wrote: post #30
mark_l_watson wrote: post #5

It seems strange to raise the price of something that has been on the market for a while, right? I do love my Quest 2.

What do you love about it? I have a Quest 2, and it still seems very niche for me.

Everyone in my family has a quest 2 - we go VR mini golfing and VR fishing together all the time. It is a great way to keep connected with friends and family that live far away.

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

#140

Post by agloeregrets »

emadabdulrahim wrote: post #63
rgovostes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever wear headphones?

I do, but I'm not entirely deaf when I wear them. I can hear my surroundings easily if I wanted to. Is there a mode in those VR headsets where one can see what's in front of them without taking them off? I'm ignorant about the tech of VR.

Quest has black and white passthrough. Next-gen's model (Project Cambria) has full color pass-through cameras that supposedly feel realistic enough. Current passthrough is good enough that I can walk through my house headset-on.
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