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Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

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Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a small hand-held controller This doesn't include their touch controller, if that's what you mean. If it did I'd consider buying it (I'm still annoyed by 30 dollar shipping costs).

There's currently a media remote. http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10723568/oculus-rift-remote...

Yeah, that's what I meant. Honestly, for casual experiences, I expect this is going to be very nice. I can imagine sitting away from my desk in my swivel chair, using that controller instead of the gamepad, to do stuff like organize photo collages, watch videos, do teleconferencing, maybe even just meditate.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#172
post #163

I think the biggest risk to adoption is real-world interest. I get that VR is a fun tech, and has some potentially cool possibilities. But to me and seemingly many other people, it's just not that interesting. I don't know why, maybe I'm not geek enough, but I just have zero interest. And frankly it feels kind of like a gimmick. I'm especially averse to the idea of strapping on a clumsy headset every time I want to u…

Agreed. To look at a monitor, only the eyes have to move; with VR goggles, something needs to be attached to your head AND you'd have to move your whole head to see the environment. Also, is it good to have your eyes focusing on something that close to your face for a long period of time? (not a doctor)

>is it good to have your eyes focusing on something that close to your face for a long period of time?

The converse thought about the differences between viewing a VR screen vs a 2D monitor.

VR Screens you have the capability of your eyes needing to adjust to different depths. That is, the muscles that dictate the position of your eyes will need to be recalibrated slightly when you start viewing entities at different depths.

With 2D monitors you're approximately at the same text tracking rate.

There's ergonomic software that will periodically instruct you to look away from your computer screen to focus on points in the distance for the health of your eyes.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#173

$599 may seem like a perilously steep price to debut at, but right now, Oculus faces a much bigger risk than low sales volume: Poor reception. If this was the MSRP required to ensure a comfortable, nausea-free experience, it's far better to have a killer product at a high price point than a "don't buy the first generation" product at the price point people were expecting. The former can lead to a cheaper gen 2, but t…

My thoughts as well. Plus the price is roughly comparable to a higher end smartphone. Given the hardware and software involved, it's not terribly far off for a gen 1 device. I think of the Palm and WinMo phones I paid $500+ for during the early generations of smartphones and it starts to make more sense. And just as I'm sure those devices from Palm and HTC could've been a lot nicer even with the tech of the day, the…

Unfortunately this is socially positioned more like a TV or a games console, rather than a smartphone (used every day all day), which have much longer lifespans than a smartphone (5-10 years vs 2-5 years).

The interesting question is how long before this version of the Rift becomes obsolete, or will Oculus provide a contract-based upgrade plan (like for phones).

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#174

I think the biggest risk to adoption is real-world interest. I get that VR is a fun tech, and has some potentially cool possibilities. But to me and seemingly many other people, it's just not that interesting. I don't know why, maybe I'm not geek enough, but I just have zero interest. And frankly it feels kind of like a gimmick. I'm especially averse to the idea of strapping on a clumsy headset every time I want to u…

I bet opinions like yours were prevalent when 3D games first came out. "This 3D thing is nice, but why don't you just concentrate on making a better videogames?".

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#175

The deed is done. I guess I have about 2 months to figure out how to convincingly explain to my wife, just as our baby is born, that it's a business expense and I neeeeeed it.

Research and development!

That's how I justified the KickStarter.. boy has that paid off! :D

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#176

Good to see the Oculus Rift is on its way. Early tech will always have nosebleed prices and growing pains, but after a generation or two we'll be able to experience high-quality VR without getting a headache or our cars repossessed for nonpayment. And it means we will have decent competition to the Rift, for those who don't want Facebook monitoring our every glance and gesture.

> And it means we will have decent competition to the Rift, for those who don't want Facebook monitoring our every glance and gesture.

Howso? I was super interested in the Rift, until it was acquired. Now I have absolutely no interest in it.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#177

I think the biggest risk to adoption is real-world interest. I get that VR is a fun tech, and has some potentially cool possibilities. But to me and seemingly many other people, it's just not that interesting. I don't know why, maybe I'm not geek enough, but I just have zero interest. And frankly it feels kind of like a gimmick. I'm especially averse to the idea of strapping on a clumsy headset every time I want to u…

I bet opinions like yours were prevalent when 3D games first came out. "This 3D thing is nice, but why don't you just concentrate on making a better videogames?".

As someone old enough to remember that time, no one said that.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wasn't this Google's strategy with glass?

Google Glass never shipped to consumers, only to developers... They did charge a relative high amount for the dev' kits and made wishy washy claims that they could produce the consumer version for less.

Not true, they sold it on Mr Porter

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#179
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They released minimum system requirements specifically so that you wouldn't have to upgrade 9 months down the road.

2016 Q3/Q4's new fancy toy may not be a RiftV2 and may have a minimum requirement of a Pascal GPU or Skylake/Broadwell-e CPU. Its just a really horrible time to buy computer hardware right now.

Release cycle for VR is not less than a year. I've read anywhere between 1 (mobile) and 10 (console) years.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#180

I think the biggest risk to adoption is real-world interest. I get that VR is a fun tech, and has some potentially cool possibilities. But to me and seemingly many other people, it's just not that interesting. I don't know why, maybe I'm not geek enough, but I just have zero interest. And frankly it feels kind of like a gimmick. I'm especially averse to the idea of strapping on a clumsy headset every time I want to u…

A lot of people felt the same way about Smart phones, until cheaper options with decent features arrived. Now nearly every one agrees with the utility of smart phones, to a point most people would find quite difficult to live without one.

The same will unfold with VR over coming years. Affordable options with great content and applications can make this a common place gadget.

I currently live in a living room, disturbance and lack of privacy are the biggest annoyances. Something like this looks like an ideal way to create a wall of privacy regardless of who is around. The use cases for such a device are uncountable.

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