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Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

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Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#271

Post by bloaf »

owenversteeg wrote: post #106

Among the giant debate over cost and power, I'm just wondering what would've happened had they waited, say, two years to release. Suddenly, the cost (of both the device and of the desktop PC) go way down. With something like this, a poorly received first launch can torpedo not only the product but the entire VR industry, and when someone's spent over $2k to get it to work their expectations will be very high. I'm sur…

I think the only thing that could really torpedo the VR industry is if the Oculus experience isn't pleasant for the early adopters. If their system requirements are accurate, and they have built a decent piece of hardware, then I don't think initial pricing is a problem for the entire VR industry.

That being said, there are currently not a lot of options between their recommended specs (gtx 970) and the current "top of the line" gfx cards (gtx 980 Ti) If their recommended specs are inadequate to get a good experience, people simply won't have many upgrade options until the next gen GFX cards start coming out (Q2 2016 at the earliest.)

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#273

Post by carb »

Wohlf wrote: post #251
darkxanthos wrote: post #205

In a world where hard core gamers will pay >$500 for a graphics card, this price will work fine for a 1st gen. It'll be a smaller audience at first but that will also help them out as they need to focus on their customer support for issues they find in the wild.

Except a high quality graphics card will last for years, and has lots of games that will benefit from it.

As will the Oculus Rift.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#274

Post by gonehome »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #240
kamaal wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>$599 may seem like a perilously steep price to debut Just wondering if we would think the same way if Apple had launched this even for something as high as $1000. Perception matters. The apple watch is median $500. And its not even something novel. Watches have existed since hundreds of years. I think Apple will come to launch VR sometime in the future and it will be ~$1000, and people will buy without blinking, be…

Apple has made special efforts to distance itself from PC gaming, doesn't court publishers/devs, and is otherwise a troublesome platform for gaming entirely. Why would they get into gaming peripherals? What version of OpenGL does OSX ship with now anyway? What milquetoast videocard is shipping with the current gen of devices? Things like the Rift require something on the level, on a MINIMUM of the Nvidia 370, which i…

I think it's a future 'vision' gamble.

VR could be the next paradigm shift, but it might not be.

If it is then the transformation could arguably be bigger than mobile was and the hardware/software companies can't ignore it. Games may just be the first obvious application.

While autonomous cars have been more obviously coming since 2012, VR is more uncertain. I'd imagine Apple is doing some work here though or at least watching it closely.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#275

Post by ptomato »

nardi wrote: post #142
codeshaman wrote: post #128

I see one of the requirements is a Windows computer... So for a Mac user like myself, that $599 would include a good $1k+ for a Windows PC ? Nevertheless I'm very excited about this tech, although I will not jump into it just yet.

If you've got a nice enough Mac, just install Windows on it via BootCamp ( https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/ ).

No currently sold Mac meets Oculus minimum requirements, to the best of my knowledge.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#276

Post by onli »

kamaal wrote: post #234
onli wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And people were getting sick from Doom at far greater rates than they are today from Oculus Rifts. That remains to be seen when VR headsets arrive in households. We just don't know that yet. I got convinced by the tech after trying a Develover Kit, but the that people (inclduing me) will get sick from it is my big concern.

>>people (inclduing me) will get sick from it is my big concern Sick doesn't mean cancer or tuberclosis. I remember from my childhood watching TV was considered bad, because it was thought to be bad fore one's eyes. Ear phones were bad for the ears and reading on the smart phone in a bus makes me motion sick to date. Like everything there is a middle ground.

I mean getting sick, as in having to throw up. A bit like motion sickness, though it is not exactly the same thing.

If enough people can't use it because they get uncomfortable from it, because they puke on the floor, that would be a bad thing. I understand that there is a lot of work being done to prevent that. And still I think it is something to look out for.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#277

Post by AJ007 »

rnernento wrote: post #182
mortenjorck wrote: post #49

$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…

I would argue that price (and this being a high one) could just as easily lead to ruin. The quality of a user's experience with the Oculus is going to be directly correlated to the quantity and quality of games/experiences available for the device. Even if it's silky smooth and you can use it for hours on end without issue if you run out of quality content in two hours there's a problem. Quantity/quality are even mor…

Companies have been developing content for Oculus for years now, with basically 0 market outside of the dev kits. The immersion of the experience alone makes fairly simple indie titles much more profound on the Rift than say a $200 million 3D movie, much less a big budget game.

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#278

Post by semi-extrinsic »

paulmd wrote: post #191
mortenjorck wrote: post #49

$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…

Well, the $599 price is close to double their "ballpark price" of $350. It also comes just days after they announced they're giving away ~7,000 free Rift units as a special thank-you to those who Kickstarted the devkits. Right now they have a serious expectation management problem with their price - they're turning off customers because they nearly doubled their asking price overnight. Those free units would translat…

I dunno, it looks like the system requirements implies a not more than 1 year old gaming computer costing at least $1000 (e.g. this one [1]). They're hardly targeting casual gamers, they're targeting people who are accustomed to dropping $600 on gaming hardware to have the "latest and greatest". See the GTX 980 Ti, any 27" 4K monitor, etc. none of which have exactly flopped. Even slightly ridiculously priced products like the GTX Titan X seem to sell OK, or NVidia wouldn't keep releasing $1000 gaming GPUs year after year.

[1] http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/build-an-amazing-gef...

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#279

Post by tslug »

vegabook wrote: post #266
moron4hire wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As also someone old enough to remember that time, lots of SNES and Sega Genesis owners were saying that. And people were getting sick from Doom at far greater rates than they are today from Oculus Rifts.

"Sick from Doom"?? I don't remember anybody getting sick from Wolfenstein or Doom. Controversy around (for the time) violent graphic realism? Sure. Seasickness? No.

I was one of the developers on the original Doom and got so sick from playing it that it motivated me to debug my code faster. The phases were no problemo, sweating, farting, nausea, then that was it: gotta lie down and hug the cold, firm floor.

I eventually became less sensitive to it. I imagine the same will happen with VR after we get our "VR legs".

Re: Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

#280

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

schwap wrote: post #190
tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a 599 PC is not going to have a GPU strong enough to give you any decent VR, 599 is about the starting point for the GPU only, I would honestly not go with anything less than a 980ti for a minimum of future-proofing, and unless you already have one I would wait for a Pascal card, which in any case will cost at least that much. in VR dropping frames / latency directly maps to motion sickness, so it's not a case of "eh…

> in VR dropping frames / latency directly maps to motion sickness, so it's not a case of "eh, I can deal with the framerate not being super solid" like it can be on normal gaming. Do you have any articles/papers about this? I'm not doubting you, just curious!

don't have any papers specifically about the correlation between framerate / judder and sickness but this older article has some information

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hol...

as somebody who has major issues with their inner ear I can guarantee that you really do NOT want to get vertigo if you can at all help it

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