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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

#331

Post by GekkePrutser »

Schinken_ wrote: post #243
shahar2k wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or an HP reverb G2, or HTC vive or one of dozens of other non meta vr sets... that said a cheap quest 2 second hand with virtual desktop makes for probably the best wireless experience / dollar you can have

To add to that: Even though the Pico brand is now owned by Bytedance (TikTok) I really enjoy their Pico Neo 3 (it's a hardware equivalent to the Quest 2, actually due to active cooling it has a bit more performance headroom). The wireless streaming works great. There is no account setup whatsoever. Null, nada, nichts. You can just boot up the HMD and you're good to go.

I find it strange when people hail them as a more privacy-friendly alternative to Meta though.

Personally I think ByteDance (and TikTok in particular) is an even worse company than Facebook ever was. It's like they learned from Facebook and made it worse.

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

#332

Post by dougmwne »

rblatz wrote: post #253
dougmwne wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think not really. Quest 2 is not feature complete because it lacks core social features like color passthrough cameras, eye tracking and facial expression tracking. I’m guessing Meta thinks those features are so critical to their Metaverse experience that they are willing to forgo sales in the short term.

I just read a thread from 2021 on reddit yesterday where an Oculus employee said that they wouldn't be adding color passthrough cameras, and that the current cameras worked on ir and likely would for a while. I'll see if I can dig it up, but it seems like color passthrough isn't going to be on the menu for the 3.

I think that color passthrough is confirmed on the Quest Pro. Your linked comment from Reddit seems to be raising the issue that the cameras will be fixed focus and will still be a second rate AR experience. I don’t know what is planned for the Quest 3 as that is still at least a year out.

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

#333

Post by Macha »

filoleg wrote: post #322
Macha wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 VRcha…

You can play any PCVR games on Quest by either using a cable or through airlink connecting to your PC. Both are native features. I've played through Half-Life: Alyx this way with zero issues whatsoever.

Right but this is just using the Quest as a peripheral for PC VR, and therefore has the same issues that parent was complaining about with PC VR in terms of hardware requirements, because it is just PC VR

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

#334

Post by parkingrift »

PaulsWallet wrote: post #297
parkingrift wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I’m sure they do. I’m sure Facebook cares deeply about your data and they absolutely would not ever lose it or accidentally give it away. They definitely don’t see the VR devices as a gateway to another frontier on data collection. That’s why they paid billions for Oculus and then spent billions to sell the Quest devices at a loss. Ignore the fact that one of basic features of the Quest is to scan your room and bu…

This is such a weirdly aggressive comment. I'm not saying you have to trust Facebook but there are much better ways to shake Oculus users down for money than risk getting caught watching people on the toilet through their VR cameras.

And I am saying you absolutely should not trust the least trustworthy company in tech.

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

#335

Post by rjh29 »

balls187 wrote: post #287
rjh29 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Beat Saber (play daily), Walkabout Golf (feels like minigolf, can play with friends anywhere in the world) and Resident Evil 4 (a classic game excellently ported into immersive VR). Also the price. Before the Quest I'd have needed to buy a gaming PC and expensive headset like the Vive or Index. And it's wireless and doesn't need any sensor units placed around you. The tracking works great and it tells you when…

RE4 VR worth getting?

I think it's a great port. Even if you've played the original, playing it in first person with real aiming/reloading is a very different experience. It's also one of the few full-length (20+ hour) single-player titles on the Oculus store.

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

#336

Post by rjh29 »

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…

Most VR devs are making games that they want to play themselves, or for their community. So it's not surprising that they don't want to compromise. Teleport works on some games but can utterly ruin others and there isn't a good solution to that.

Then again I've never got sick. If I got nausea when playing I doubt I would have bothered to invest time getting used to it - VR is good but not that good!

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

#337

Post by dmix »

FractalHQ wrote: post #212
dmix wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing out, Quest 2 was one of the best purchases I've made in the last year. I also don't think VR is good enough to be worth investing $1k+ into a VR headset like Vive. $300 seemed like a very high return on investment for what I got. Not sure about $400 since I already have one but I'd probably still do it. I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus store, so I don't feel like it's a priv…

My Quest 2 runs glorified arcade games with 20 year-old graphics. What games are you playing that you enjoy for more than 5 minutes? Beat saber and VR-Chat bore me to death.

Resident Evil 4

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

#338

Post by dmix »

anonymousab wrote: post #305
dmix wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing out, Quest 2 was one of the best purchases I've made in the last year. I also don't think VR is good enough to be worth investing $1k+ into a VR headset like Vive. $300 seemed like a very high return on investment for what I got. Not sure about $400 since I already have one but I'd probably still do it. I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus store, so I don't feel like it's a priv…

> I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus store If this isn't your main account, then this is a violation of the ToS and Meta/FB can (and in many cases, have) ban you and remove access to everything you bought at the drop of a hat. If it is your main account, then you should assume that they are linking all of your VR data in the backend with whatever shadow profiles they have generated for you f…

I dont have another account on Facebook.

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

#339

Post by dmix »

parkingrift wrote: post #201
dmix wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing out, Quest 2 was one of the best purchases I've made in the last year. I also don't think VR is good enough to be worth investing $1k+ into a VR headset like Vive. $300 seemed like a very high return on investment for what I got. Not sure about $400 since I already have one but I'd probably still do it. I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus store, so I don't feel like it's a priv…

>I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus store, so I don't feel like it's a privacy invasion. You're kidding yourself with that. You gave Facebook literal eyes into your home through an internet connected device. If you don't think Facebook know who you are I have some coins I'd like to sell you.

What is the threat model exactly? That someone will have access to Facebook's entire credit card DB to connect a random email to my real identity AND be able to hijack the cameras/microphone to spy on me? So basically a nation state or Facebook? I can't see a private hacker getting that sort of access nor bother to get me.

I use it maybe an hour or two a week now (used to be way higher) and when I'm not using it it sits in a case in a closet. I dont see any value of getting images of my office and audio of an empty room.

I'm really struggling to see how this affects my privacy. I dont even play multiplayer games where I'm ever talking.

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

#340

Post by dmix »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #264
PaulsWallet wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to someone who used to be at Facebook's reality lab and they said they have very VERY strict controls on user data and no one just has remote access through Oculus cameras including devs but reputation is hard to shake when tied to a company like Facebook.

That developers not having access is likely. Still there certainly is different data analytics running over it to identify what works and what ads to sell where. Also there mere fact that the data exists can lead to some (ab)use sometime in future. Even if I were to trust Mark Zuckerberg (which I don't, but for arguemnt's sake) this won't give me trust in a successor.

What data are you talking about that's being released from someone who never uses Facebook besides playing Quest 2 once in a while? My location and game preferences? A video/audio of my empty room while I play a game by myself?
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