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Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

reuters.com

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Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#171

Post by novok »

GuB-42 wrote: post #37
sneak wrote: post #12

Oculus cannot be used without a Facebook account. Facebook is an advertising company. It's simple: if you don't want ads, delete your Facebook account, and don't ever buy Oculus. I got an HTC Vive Pro 2 three days ago, and it's sweet. No Facebook required.

The Vive Pro 2 is absurdly expensive ($1400) compared to the Oculus offering. The Vive Pros are at its name implies, for pros, or for people with big budgets who want the best. You simply can't compare. I think that if you don't want to buy Oculus and have a reasonable budget (~$400), WMR headsets are the only alternative.

There are cheaper alternatives than the vive pro 2, like the hp reverb. The vive pro 2 is just the 3090 of VR at the moment.

The real differentiator is the cord free aspect of the quest 2.

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#172

Post by mbank »

scrollaway wrote: post #30
mbank wrote: post #15

The saddest thing about these VR companies (or any other hyped yet insubstantial new thing for that matter) to me is the fact that they got acquired too quickly that one cannot short them on the stock exchange...

Calling VR insubstantial is absurd. Just because VR helmets won't be as popular as mobile phones doesn't make them so. It's like calling an Xbox insubstantial. What VR lacks in game variety, it makes up for in how unique the experience is. VR consoles will be able to get new games and apps, while "regular" consoles won't get more unique without releasing new models. Gaming in VR is also a lot more beginner friendly.…

I get your point. But with all due respect, the comparison is unfortunately off by a substantial magnitude: overall VR devices sold world wide in 2019: https://www.statista.com/statistics/671403/global-virtual-re...) xbox sales alone are quite constantly at 50M per month (!!!)

(https://www.statista.com/statistics/1005403/global-xbox-one-...)

VR seems to be one of these things that keep on being promising I suppose...

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#173

Post by floatboth »

freeone3000 wrote: post #112
recursive wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this. Would it be better if YouTube "Free" didn't even exist? No one's forcing anyone to use youtube. How is this different from any subscription service that has a hobbled "lite" version?

YouTube doesn't provide the content, the people I watch do. I send them money. A youtube subscription to them, of which youtube takes a cut, doesn't disable ads -- only a second service, paid to youtube itself , does. Apparently $15/mo gets rid of ads, but $5.99 a month (less 20%, thanks youtube) actually creates the content I care about watching. Youtube has inserted themselves in the middle, and are extracting rent…

> youtube subscription to them, of which youtube takes a cut, doesn't disable ads

This is a really stupid oversight.. Twitch did subscriptions first and there they do disable ads on the channel you subscribe to (if it has them).

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#174

Post by thatguy0900 »

serf wrote: post #32
nindalf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just you, but you are a tiny minority. You’ve expressed a sentiment that’s very popular on HN, but not among the general population. Take YouTube - a popular ad supported service with a premium tier. How many people are willing to pay to remove ads? Less than 1%. Even on HN I don’t think that number would be more than 10%.

>Take YouTube - a popular ad supported service with a premium tier. How many people are willing to pay to remove ads? Less than 1%. I think that's an inaccurate assessment of 'people who don't want to see ads', given that statistics put internet wide usage of ad-blockers at around 42%.[0]. Maybe it's just that no one wants to pay their captors for golden ear-muffs and blinders when they themselves are the ones respon…

Probably a very large overlap between people who would pay and people using adblockers

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#175

Post by floatboth »

wincy wrote: post #87
tomjen3 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one of the reasons I love using a real computer. I can install firefox with ublock origin and sponsorblock. Bomm. No more ads, no more tracking and no more in-video ads. I would only get the first by paying, and I have found videos without ads so more more relaxing.

You also get the “bonus” of full quality videos on mobile. The safari version of YouTube is limited to 720p and music videos 360p.

Well, the web version in Firefox on Android works with 2160p.

Apple is still not supporting any free codecs on the web. Apparently they actually do have a hardware VP9 decoder in the newest chips but it's only exposed to the YouTube app?? https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-m1-vp9-av1-decodi...

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#176

Post by lawl »

tpxl wrote: post #161
lawl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly this is likely a pandoras box we will not be able to close. Valve has tried that a long time ago too and it wasn't successful. There's still some hope.

Valve had ads in games?

yes.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/103060/Valve_Plans_InGam...

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/counter-strike-gets-in-ga...

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#177

Post by floatboth »

rijoja wrote: post #144
freeflight wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s pretty much already the case. By now Occulus only exists as a brand inside the Facebook ecosystem, only legacy Occulus accounts are allowed, everybody else uses their Facebook account to login and tie purchases too. The same Facebook account that FB can at any time arbitrarily block and demand the owner properly ID themselves. A situation that originally was deemed as “will never happen” when Occulus originall…

At heart Occulus is really an android system right? It would be such a shame if they where to grab control over this ecosystem. Unfortunately their set seems to be the most viable path to mainstream adoption. Valve exists but Valve's alternative is way pricier and requires a computer right? Facebook would be able to mass-produce these devices at a low cost in a completely different way it seems. So since it is an and…

> they seem to be a bit more pricier as well

Well, the only "new" headset is the HP Reverb G2 which is indeed in the premium segment. But if you consider the used market, Samsung Odyssey+ is an incredible value option.

I hope Microsoft aren't completely sitting on their asses, they have everything they need to enter the standalone market and provide an alternative to Facebook. They have the Qualcomm partnership, they already have a standalone AR hardware project, it really shouldn't be hard to offer Windows-for-headsets to partners like HP…

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#178

Post by nawgz »

dTal wrote: post #154
nawgz wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maybe the movie ticket ... is just a bad deal Think about entertainment options and name one that is a better deal than $60 for 20 hours worth. It's just not common, perhaps outside of books. Life is expensive and publicly available entertainment is far from an exception.

You can get a season pass to Six Flags for $60. What do I win? https://sf-static.sixflags.com/wp-content/uploads/ttic-sp_sf...

I think I might be the winner here if I live anywhere near a Six Flags...

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#179

Post by scrollaway »

mbank wrote: post #172
scrollaway wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling VR insubstantial is absurd. Just because VR helmets won't be as popular as mobile phones doesn't make them so. It's like calling an Xbox insubstantial. What VR lacks in game variety, it makes up for in how unique the experience is. VR consoles will be able to get new games and apps, while "regular" consoles won't get more unique without releasing new models. Gaming in VR is also a lot more beginner friendly.…

I get your point. But with all due respect, the comparison is unfortunately off by a substantial magnitude: overall VR devices sold world wide in 2019: https://www.statista.com/statistics/671403/global-virtual-re... ) xbox sales alone are quite constantly at 50M per month (!!!) ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/1005403/global-xbox-one-... ) VR seems to be one of these things that keep on being promising I suppose…

Then it sounds like you're not really getting my point.

VR as is today is a new tech. The Quest 2 is a recent release, second model of a new lineup. Xbox 360 was released in 2005 so look at xbox sales in like, 2006 instead. Which… checks numbers, hey look, 4 million units.

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#180

Post by chaostheory »

jnwatson wrote: post #60
cj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't Oculus games typically $20-50? The price points for games always seemed very high to me. In an ideal world they'd offer a "no ads, full price" version and a "discount with ads" version. My guess is we'll probably just be left with "full price with ads" as the only option.

How is $20 high? I'm continually amazed how much fun a $20 game can provide. For the price of a movie ticket and a coke, you can get a dozen hours of entertainment. That seems like a pretty good deal to me. And the $60 are AAA games where you'd easily get 30-40 hours worth. These have budgets of ~$70 million; they have to make their money back somehow. One of the secondary reasons I've avoided Oculus is that it is a…

You can play Steam games with an Oculus headset.
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