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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

#151

Post by adastra22 »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #120
rjh29 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The VR enthusiast/dev community has gotten caught in a death spiral when it comes to simulation sickness.. They encourage each other to "get your VR legs" and play/demand/make nausea-inducing games, and it just chases away all the normal human beings who don't want to spend months gently training their bodies to become immune to it (FYI, the way it works is you play until you start to feel a hint of nausea, and stop…

When it comes to nausea, it’s once and done for me. Wtf would I ever put myself through that again, for a game? I’d rather go outside, thanks.

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

#152

Post by MikusR »

giobox wrote: post #43
Jalad wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, if you want to play Alyx you can also use the Valve Index. So no Meta involved

At typically more than 2x the cost. I've played Alyx on both, the Index is absolutely not a 2x better experience. I'm no fan of their corporate parent either, but the value proposition on Quest 2 for general purpose PC VR gaming (especially prior to this price increase) was remarkable given size of subsidy Meta were prepared to make on price.

It was 3x the cost now only 2.5x.

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

#153

Post by throwaway092832 »

Not worth it, as somehow who owns the quest 2.

The runtime performance is garbage with frequent hitches in frame rate. The in-game resolution is poor with many games having extremely low texture quality and "jaggies" which could be solved with some sort of anti-aliasing.

There are also barely any games worth to play in VR, the ecosystem just isn't there yet to warrant a VR purchase, especially at this price.

VR experience is greatly improved if you can render it on your PC and stream it to a VR headset so you can get consistent frame rate and 120hz.

I play beat saber which the quest 2 cannot reliably render without performance drops. You can fix this if you render it on a PC though.

Now that the market rate went up, I will probably sell it to a pay pig. My graphics card is still up 200% over what I paid for it 4 years ago.

EDIT: You need to place the headset in some faraday box, as it will still stay on even when turned off sometimes. It maps your entire house to know exactly where the safe play zones are. It's incredibly creepy, but also convenient, since you don't need to redraw the play area.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

mepian wrote: post #142
echelon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 game asks you whether you want standard joystick-based movement when you start it.

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by haroldl »

amelius wrote: post #134
rjh29 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple is big enough to make it happen and there are plenty of iOS game devs out there to make it a success.

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

#156

Post by Firmwarrior »

dieselgate wrote: post #101
kranke155 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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}”

I've been big on VR since the Oculus kickstarter days, and I have to admit that I don't play it every day.. but that's just because there aren't any polished high-end multiplayer games for it yet*. All my friends are on WoW, Fortnite, and League of Legends, and old pancake games with friends are more fun than VR indie games with randos

You should check out Half Life: Alyx to get a glimpse of what VR could be someday. It's a super-polished, super-fun game, and even just standing around in it doing nothing is mindblowing compared to any non-VR game

* There are some good multiplayer action games, but so far as I know they all require you to "get your VR legs" which is a non-starter for me

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

#157

Post by smoldesu »

jdlyga wrote: post #110

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.

I think you're making a bit of a WiiU-to-Switch comparison here. 3D TV's limitations were overtly prohibitive: not only were the units much more expensive than standard TVs, but they also required additional hardware/headsets. Then there's the problem with resolution and color accuracy, display shimmering, bad viewing angles... 3D TV was never meant to be anything besides a slick demo at your local Best Buy.

VR I'm skeptical of, but most of the sticking points I can imagine have been fixed. For $400 you can get a fully-featured plug-and-play headset. That's less than most iPads! That headset will have controllers, inside-out tracking, 6DOF, video passthrough, wireless/standalone capabilities... Meta/Facebook certainly isn't a saint, but the Quest is amazing from a hardware standpoint. Even with the new price bump, these devices still feel oddly undervalued. I bought my Quest 1 a few years ago for the same price, and don't regret it at all.

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

#159

Post by terafo »

ceeplusplus wrote: post #129
terafo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 millions PSVR sold beg to differ.

That's an estimated 1/3 of what Quest 2 sold [1]. And Sony already has a huge install base of subsidized consoles to sell into, whereas high end PCs required to run VR are a rarity. [1] https://uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc

I was disproving his point about VR being dead without Oculus. Prior to Quest 2 launch they weren't even the leader, 1.5 years after that launch they are basically only game in town(not for long, PSVR2, next gen Valve headset and Apple are coming soon). And VR-capable PCs aren't that rare, you basically need performance of 1060 and half of Steam userbase have that.

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

#160

Post by reaperducer »

LadyCailin wrote: post #58
amluto wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By requiring a Meta account as I recall. Not much of an improvement.

Presumably this would mean if you’re banned on Facebook, that wouldn’t lock you out of your device. That was one of the bigger sticking points at least.

If Meta is anything like Google (and it is), we're not far off from getting locked out of Facebook bricking your VR gear.

HN is lousy with stories about people getting tagged by faulty "AI" in one Google program and getting blitzed out of all the others.

The risk is too high that Meta will follow suit one day soon.

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