The Elite strap is pretty notorious for breaking.
spiffy
1925
To be honest I’m not too fussed, I should hve bought one with another battery in there anyway, 2.5-3 hrs is just barely enough for some sessions when I’m gaming and then want to watch some Imax-screen Netflix before bed.
Too bad there’s no strap that’ll give me more hard drive space too…
rowe33
1927
The best Quest game keeps getting better! They have a whole slew of courses coming out in the future too. Love how they keep supporting this. Next course is out on 3/9.
rrmorton
1928
If they’re making courses, I’m buying 'em!
Houngan
1931
Longform vid about Apple’s potential set. I’ve laid my money in this thread several times on Apple being the thing that might finally kick VR all the way into AAA gear. Here’s hoping!
spiffy
1932
Quite a lot in there, but yeah, despite the high price tag, like he says at the end, maybe it drives manufacturers into investing in the factory tech to lower prices in later generations, like how tv’s went from $1500 to $400 in ten years. Trouble is the computing to generate images to those higher functioning screens has to keep pace, and that was a lot of compromises being discussed to handle it… Zuckergerg had a video detailling all the same hurdles.
But I have absolutely no doubt gaming and video conferencing and movie watching will go VR in the future. Already it brings more presence, immersion and opportunity to media than a flat screen ever will. It’s just getting to that sweetspot of technology, cost and adoption.
That said, PSVR2, at a combined $1100, seems like it has better potential at clueing in the masses, given a third the current console market consumer is already a potential convert, with some pretty hefty power to amaze the eyeballs. And while the full body tracked video conferencing sounds amazing for Star-Wars-y CEOs nefariously plotting from their lairs across the world, gaming is where normal people will get into it.
Houngan
1933
I dunno, there’s a type of person who has a PS5 and wants a VR headset, which is going to lean male, young, gamer-type. Then there’s a person who believes Apple hung the moon and if they don’t buy the latest Apple product then they are a social loser, and that demographic is older, even-gendered or leans female, and has money. That’s the factor I think might push it over the top. i mean, people bought $200 wireless earbuds, for fuck’s sake, because Apple stopped letting them use $10 wired earbuds any more, and another brand’s $40 wireless earbuds weren’t Apple enough.
Brands matter. Look at Beats, they were huge and by all accounts marked up around 1500%, but people had to have them and had a perception of quality that couldn’t be assailed. Apple makes a great product, don’t get me wrong, but there’s also a strong emotional audiophile-esque detachment from reality about it among a LOT of their users, particularly the ones that don’t have much tech savvy.
That makes the argument that as people (at least right now) won’t be using their Apple XR device on the streets or with friends, where people can see them with their BRANDED PRODUCT, it won’t have that appeal for people.
Meta does a bit more official their already existing partner/publishing program
https://developer.oculus.com/blog/oculus-publishing-announcement-news-gdc-2023/
Interestingly, they are keeping the Oculus name for this.
B&S update 12 is out
Another Pixel Ripped game, this time with the Atari license and everything
A teaser for the Boneworks-like Into the Darkness
This is a Tarkov-like released on Applab
I never heard of this game before, I have to try
New game in Moss setting… will be a pvp competitive game?
spiffy
1936
Ooh, that reminds me I need to pick up the original game ‘DLC’ on Quest, I really enjoyed PR '95. This looks cool too, but it’s funny once she’s in the game the characters are so chunky… the danger is that it feels cheap. But I’ll pick it up fo sho.
Speaking of Moss, I just finished the sequel… fantastic work. I guess the PvP would be a mixture of what they had at the end, a double battle of Readers and their animal proxies. Could be interesting, but I admit, I just really want more platforming goodness from this team.
Houngan
1937
Counter argument: Apple users look down on people who send them texts from Android phones. That’s remote and absolutely a thing. “Ew, green text bubbles.” Or whatever color it is. The least technical people I know have strong feelings on that. I don’t know but I would put a decent bet on Apple making VR also look “bad” to non-Apple users by hook or crook.
Do Apple fans who buy the phones also buy Macs? Do they buy the Apple TV homepod? I’m not convinced that Apple fans buy everything Apple. I know a lot of people who have iPhones who use PCs, not Macs.
I still see VR being associated with being a dork. You look dorky wearing the glasses. I’ve seen a couple of TV commercials for non-VR stuff where someone is wearing VR glasses in the background and the commercial makes them look dumb.
To me it will all be about the software that runs on the Apple AR stuff. If it’s really hot shit, maybe that pushes it over the top.
Well, shit (for the second time). The plastic strap that holds the top strap in my Quest 2 has broken again. This time from the left side, instead the right now, so now it’s fully separate from the device.
(you can see the glue I had used on the right side before)
Houngan
1941
Do those tabs have a hole? If so, I would get some 100lb test braided fishing line and do several loops (for thickness, not strength, a single strand would be plenty strong but probably cut the strap.)
No, it is all solid plastic, well, it was all a single solid plastic piece, now it’s two pieces :P.
Right now i’m talking with Meta support, to see if I can get a replacement (although I’m out of the warranty period…)
The other solution will be a BOBOVR M2 strap, where the weight is distributed in a another way and mostly rest on the forehead.
Djscman
1943
Please let me know what it’s like. Based on your linked video, I dove through the steam page and official website. It looks like, based on the Steam reviews, the developers may have pivoted or at least redesigned what a conductor VR game like this should look like a few times. With luck, they are dedicated and willing to incorporate feedback. And their occasional updates based on adding songs are nearly completely designed to catch my interest. (Me browsing through updates: …WOAH THIS GAME HAS VON SUPPÉ’S LIGHT CAVALRY OVERTURE???)
Potential drawback – earlier videos seemed to highlight that these songs were based on MIDI files, which greatly expands the potential additions to a conductor’s repertoire, BUT there’s not much sadder than hearing a MIDI file playing back through a cheap tinny MIDI soundcard.
There’s one feature that would make this a must-buy for me, no matter how early release quality it is. If you could cue the piccolo players to stand up during their solo in “Stars And Stripes Forever”, I would immediately buy the game. My late grandpa played flute and piccolo for the local big orchestra for over forty years, and him standing up during that solo was kind of his move. I love seeing other piccolo players doing the same thing in performances of the same piece, and it would be a real thrill to be a part of that in VR.
There’s probably a whole other potential game in there for Orchestra Management, dealing with the egos, tight salaries, waning audience interests, stunts, strikes, and suicides, but the conductor wouldn’t quite be in that position to deal with those situations, and that would be a heck of a lot of feature creep. Just piccolo players standing up, that’s all I ask for.
