Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 157 posts

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#61

Post by netcan »

MatthaeusHarris wrote: post #24
onewaystreet wrote: post #15

There's been a lot of fighting between Vive owners and Oculus owners over which HMD is the best, but they both miss the reality that the biggest challenge to getting the average person to adopt VR isn't room tracking or motion controllers, it's getting them to even want to put the things on. There is very little compelling software at this point that would make anyone but an enthusiast want to use either of them for…

Literally every person I've put into my Vive has been blown away by it. Sure, there's probably some selection bias, but I've been buttonholing anyone who sets foot in my house, including my 70-year-old in-laws. So far, of the 20+ people to whom I've shown it, one has taken it off voluntarily, and all had variations of, "Holy shit, this is really amazing."

They're impressive. But, we're impressed by the technology, the potential. It's a demo.

To get usage though, it needs to get past that stage where you are putting it on to see how cool it is. It needs to get to where you don't care so much about the headset, you just want the content.

I prefer game of thrones on a shitty laptop to storage wars on a hd

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#62

Post by visarga »

kranner wrote: post #20

It's especially a problem if you live in a hot and humid climate like I do. No matter what I did I could not prevent the lenses from fogging over and I tried everything from antifog sprays for ski masks to stuffing paper towels into the sides of the headset. The steamy, foggy, bad-smelling experience contributes as much to the nausea, or at least it exacerbates it in my experience.

Perhaps it needs active ventilation.

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#63

Post by droopyEyelids »

onewaystreet wrote: post #15

There's been a lot of fighting between Vive owners and Oculus owners over which HMD is the best, but they both miss the reality that the biggest challenge to getting the average person to adopt VR isn't room tracking or motion controllers, it's getting them to even want to put the things on. There is very little compelling software at this point that would make anyone but an enthusiast want to use either of them for…

Actually, there hasn't been a lot of fighting between oculus and vive owners.

It's the least acrimonious tech choice I've ever seen.

There has been a lot of grumbling about the choices Palmer & Facebook have made about the Rift, but people have not been attacking each other like they used to with android/iOS or other famous tech disagreement centers.

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#64

Post by mikeweiss »

BigJono wrote: post #48
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #5

Apparently I can't read this article due to using adblock. Neither visiting the article nor the "web" workaround work. http://i.imgur.com/8LN6ec0r.png Fascinating. I wonder what the web will look like in a decade. On-topic: I was one of the original backers of Oculus, but missed the opportunity to get a free Rift. I guess it didn't matter much. It seems like what happened to the Oculus is what happened to many platfo…

I disabled my ad-blocker, and they gave me an "ad-light" version of the site for 30 days. Their "ad-light" version (that people can actually choose to pay for) displays more ads than most sites, and the entire site lags when scrolling (on a beast of a computer no less). I'm never going to read a piece of Forbes content again. Let this be a lesson in how not to Internet.

And they could care less, since you do not view their ads, you provide them no value.

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#65

Post by cm2187 »

onewaystreet wrote: post #15

There's been a lot of fighting between Vive owners and Oculus owners over which HMD is the best, but they both miss the reality that the biggest challenge to getting the average person to adopt VR isn't room tracking or motion controllers, it's getting them to even want to put the things on. There is very little compelling software at this point that would make anyone but an enthusiast want to use either of them for…

I have actually purchased both so I like to think I am impartial. The oculus is better pretty much on any metric: easier to set up, better tracking (the htc shows a grey screen regularly), better games (valkyrie, lucky's tale in particular), and most important, it hurts a lot less to wear, the htc is an absolute pain in the neck (and what doesn't help is that game developers feel they need to give you a black screen with very long, non skipable narrative instead of giving you some VR, bad point for oculus for putting this narrative on pause when you take off the headset). The only problem of the rift is the large vertical band in the middle, very visible in a dark environment.

But both have few games, most of which are merely proof of concepts more than games, and have their own troubles (lucky's tale is great but it forces you to look down all the time, again it hurts). Also both are unfit for non gaming. They work on the assumption that your eyes will focus only on the centre of the screen, so the edges will be blury. That's simply not what we do when we work, only when we are shooting zombies.

And like the author, I now only use them to demo them to friends.

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#66

Post by fsloth »

visarga wrote: post #58
jkelsey wrote: post #30

I did the Oculus demo at a Best Buy. The technology is incredibly impressive, but I found the experience annoying. Besides the face sweat, I just can't envision myself coming home and enjoying my time in a headset the same way I can enjoy myself in front of a TV or computer, and I think that's because you can't see around your physical space without taking the headset on and off. Maybe I'm just being a troglodyte abo…

Maybe the headset idea is not so great. If we created a spherical room around the user and displayed the 3D image on it, in all directions, it would be more natural. Especially if we can still walk inside the sphere in any direction.

That's pretty much HTC vive

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#67

Post by Dylan16807 »

newacct23 wrote: post #43
gear54rus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So maybe someone from that industry can comment if that helps anyone at all?

If there is news about a company and it's recent it might be interesting information how the stock of the company is affected? It's useful information for the people that normally read Forbes.

It makes sense for breaking news. Looking at a single day's stock movement doesn't make any sense for a discussion of a product that came out months ago.

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#68

Post by Trundle »

bunkydoo wrote: post #51

VR is going to be somewhat like the advent of the 3D television in 2010-ish. Every manufacturer will make one, few people will buy one, and the people who do will likely only use it on novelty occasions. VR is really only a stepping stone to augmented reality, and mixed reality mobile operating systems. On a side note Oculus and WhatsApp seem to be some of the dumbest expenditures Facebook could have ever made. 13 bi…

We've been to the moon plenty. At some point one has to ask "why do we keep visiting a big desert that's difficult to get to?" It doesn't create any value for any one. WhatsApp does.

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#69

Post by dclowd9901 »

It's been my complaint since the beginning: This isn't virtual reality. It's clever, non-sickening head tracking. Great. Now I won't throw up when I move my head around in a 3D space.

We're a bit closer, but not nearly close enough, to total immersion. You can play a racing game or a flying game and get some pretty good immersion, maybe even trick your brain here or there. But VR is a fever dream until we understand how brain impulses work and can manipulate them directly to simulate experience.

Of course, by then, we'll probably be questioning the whole thing altogether.

Re: I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

#70

Post by reustle »

symlinkk wrote: post #6

> The headset doesn’t always fit quite right, and the experience can be straight up exhausting I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get really tiring after a while. I hope - and believe - that as game devs get more experience with VR, they'll design VR games differently to take into account its strengths and weaknesses. This is actually one of the reasons I think Oculus has a good chan…

> I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get really tiring after a while

Is this really the day and age we live in where needing to mov e your head around is considered a con? You move your head around all the time while walking around, driving, etc and nobody complains about that

Post reply on HN