VR - Is it really going to be a success? Or, thanks Time for starting a discussion!

I’ll really try not to flame Quest as I’m a huge believer in VR but Oculus is really flubbing this in more ways than one.

It looks like an amazing piece of hardware but the business end is back-asswards. It’s firmly in #whatweretheythinking territory for me right now. A walled-garden approach on a niche product begging to be open source? And who is the genius curating the list of titles who went with Orbus over Vendetta? Before anyone says “side loading” no, I did that song and dance with Quake on GVR; it’s no substitute for official support.

Anyway, I hope I’m not rabid but I’m content to sit on the sidelines for now and watch how this all shakes out.

For 99% of users, they have no knowledge or exposure to any of the “controversy” (which has now pretty much died down on reddit.) And the launch titles and drip of new and upcoming titles is also pretty sufficient and varied for non-ethusiasts, which is where this set is being marketed toward. Anyone who wants to “hack” it, which takes trivial effort, can do so. I’ve spent the morning traipsing around in Vivecraft, running from a Shadow PC over the internet. I’m pretty happy with the Quest; the total lack of wires is really a game changer.

Awesome: I’m looking forward to experiencing it, in concept at least, and hope I don’t sound too curmudgeonly. Just wondering if maybe someone will come along and do it better, with more titles I want to play.

No, I’d love to play it but I don’t have a PSVR! :)

Rubin has been really communicative lately (fighting reddit fires). It’s pretty great.

A tweet from Carmack also hinted that they might be working on their own streaming thing too.

image

They don’t want it to be niche, so they’re trying to ensure everything in the store is up to snuff and doesn’t scare new users off.
https://twitter.com/Jason_Rubin/status/1139645538658185216
https://twitter.com/Jason_Rubin/status/1139645542407950336
https://twitter.com/Jason_Rubin/status/1139645543238393856

If you wait long enough, sure they will. :)

Maybe the Vive Cosmos will be enough to entice you. I think they’re releasing full details next week. It’s Vive Pro+ res, has inside-out tracking, Oculus-style controllers, and connects to PC and possibly mobile devices for on-the-go play.

So I wrapped my batteries with band aids. Now the controllers never lock up. If I disappear it’s cause they caused my house to burn down. Let the fire marshall know.

I’m really curious to see what the main selling point for Cosmos is, besides the inside-out tracking. I’m not sold on the “it connects to mobile devices” bit, and definitely don’t think it will sell headsets. If it is just another high-end headset, it will have stiff competition.

IMO, they should just release an enhanced Focus Plus to compete with the Quest instead. Their subscription game service would help.

Oh my goodness is the Quest amazing. Played a bunch of Beat Saber and Super Hot VR.

Such a slick device. So incredibly fast and easy to set up, so much more accurate than my PSVR ever was, and it’s comfy enough too.

I’ve got a new pc coming on Thursday, and the Valve Index arriving on Friday. Hopefully will have some time this weekend to try it out.

Can’t wait to hear impressions. My friend’s should be arriving soon as well, but I’m probably looking at August or September.

Ooo nice. If it was wireless I would probably pick one up too. But now I am waiting again.

Yeah. I definitely have hope that Valve will treat Index like an ecosystem, and follow-up with enhancements such as wireless.

That said, my main reason for upgrading is to get just a bit more resolution for cockpit sims, where wireless is only a minor convenience. I can’t say that I would really appreciate the difference between Index and Vive when playing a more active game like Beat Saber. But maybe! We’ll see.

I’ve had this thing for a month, and I still pick it up every day. It’s just so easy to use. I can easily take it wherever I’m going, it takes 10 seconds to set it up in a new space, and being untethered is really what VR needs. There currently aren’t any 6DoF games that really take advantage of the untethered nature of the Quest (though Superhot is pretty close), but they’re coming. It’s the future of consumer VR and it may be the tipping point for mass acceptance.

Also, someone needs to figure out how to make an HMD you can sweat in comfortably. I could see a whole gym based around a VR workout routine. Imagine using a treadmill but running through a forest or on a mountain trail in VR.

The Quest sounds really interesting. Is there a good VR dungeon crawl game for it?

I wonder what kind of holiday sale we might see on it? Probably not much off, maybe a game bundle.

I wonder how much bandwidth trying to stream 1440p per eye at 120Hz would require to make the Index wireless with minimal latency and minimal artifacting (e.g. thus the need for data loss correction).

I was able to sweat comfortably with VRCover’s leather face mask for the original Rift. DIdn’t feel disgusting and was easy to wipe off.

The Quest can stream VR content from your PC over WiFi. Virtual Desktop streams VR at 3648x2016 (total resolution), with a latency down around 70ms (which makes most content totally usable.) Bandwidth requirement is something like 20Mbps for full resolution, which most WiFi environments permit.

I’m going to be really interested to hear how the Index compares to the HP Reverb.

I’m happy with how much clearer the Rift S makes cockpit sims – it’s a marked difference from the CV1. But the Reverb is getting really good feedback on the DCS forums, and it’s way cheaper than the Index. (Plus, no base stations to deal with.)

Yah, the reverb looks pretty good, though I’ve heard about some reported quality control problems. For sim experiences, I think it might be the best choice right now. I do a fair bit of room scale and standing stuff, though, so that’s why I opted for the index.

Tested have looked at all of them, I think

There are not many games available for it yet this close to launch. Given its popularity you can bet devs are rushing to port their Rift stuff though!

This is probably the closest there is to a good dungeon crawl:

I got mine recently and it’s a nice piece of kit. The untethered portability combined with the full 6dof touch experience is a bit of a game changer. :)

Couple of specs for Vive Cosmos: