Oculus Rift Pre-Orders to Open on January 6
oculus.com
oculus.com
The Oculus is the FIRST high-fidelity consumer VR experience.
And they've got the horsepower of Facebook's cash-machine as their bankroll.
Zuck gets this to the degree that I suspect he believes Facebook & VR will be synonymous within a decade (1)
Do I wish that Oculus was owned by some benevolent billionaire trickster like OASIS in Ready Player One? Sure, but come off it!
This release will mark the starting line of the change in how we interact with computers, how we capture memories, how we tell stories.
Oculus + 3D audio + input + eventual tactical is going to completely blur the lines of reality in ways we can't yet imagine.
Already in the DK2 I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
. . .
Really though, I have had some shocking experiences in the Oculus, starting with the DK1 going off the edge of a rollercoaster and feeling my stomach physically drop.
Yes this is a generation 1 product for early adopters.
Yes it's going to be expensive to buy, it won't be perfect.
But if you're browsing HN because you're a hacker / developer / dreamer you are crazy to discount how substantial this release is (especially if you haven't TRIED it yet!).
(1) http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/feee4a1e-63aa-11e5-a28b-50226...
1. Hardware requirements are steep (GTX 970 minimum), so plenty of hardware -- including plenty of hardware that's good for high-end gaming today -- won't be good enough for this.
2. Only Windows support. No compatibility with Linux, SteamOS, or even OSX means that the techie enthusiasts who'd play with it as a tech toy are going to be less interested.
3. But biggest of all: The games aren't there. It's become very clear, both from playing with the DK2, and listening to presentations by Valve and Oculus people, that VR games can't just be regular games with VR bolted on. "Skyrim, but with VR" sounds cool, and makes for a cool five-minute demo, but will just make you sick and be unsatisfying in the long term.
VR games need to be designed for VR in a really fundamental way. It's not clear that there are any interesting games that do this, or that there's a lot of effort going toward making games like this.
If this were a product that were coming out from Nintendo, I'd be confident that they had a good idea about how to adapt their franchises to take advantage of VR in a really cool way, and that there'd be at least a handful of games that made it an absolute must-have. But from Facebook... well, they're a tech company, not a gaming company, so they're depending on someone else to make the games that will justify this thing. Maybe that'll work in the long term, but right now, it doesn't seem like there's any must-have VR game.
Add that all up, and this is a product that won't appeal to most gamers yet, and won't appeal to a lot of tech geeks due to the Windows focus, so... yeah.
2) Only windows. Agreed. But I'm glad they did so they could get one platform dialed in instead of chasing multiple rabbits. For now.
3) Games - copying part of this - do yourself a favor and try with Elite Dangerous or Assetto Corsa. And gaming doesn't scratch the service in terms of application - training, social interaction, SEX, therapy, etc, etc.
As for 3: I played Elite for a bit. And then quit when I got motion-sick. I'm not particularly motion-sensitive, but DK2 got me there pretty quickly.
Maybe the retail one is better in ways that wouldn't make me sick in that case, but from what Valve people have been saying, the only reliable way to get rid of the sickness is to remove the disconnect between not-moving and seeming-to-move, aka make games that involve only your real-world motion.
If that's the case, it implies that what we need are radically different games than what we have. So I'd either want to see those games, or see some proof that you can do Elite-style gaming with no motion sickness even when playing for hours.
I feel pretty confident in saying that the people who spend big bucks on computer gaming are mostly not giving two shits about Linux while they do it. SteamOS and general Linux gaming is pretty decent these days but still... if you are a hardcore gamer, odds are overwhelming that you are running Windows.
Or not. Give it a year and it won't matter. Today's top-of-the-line tech is tomorrows middle-of-the-road. And if you saturate the market in the first year, who will you sell to then?
There are a lot more tech geeks on Windows than you think. Get out of your bubble sometime and you might see that there are probably more of us than there are of you.
The games aren't there? The games aren't where? Where is this "there" you're talking about? I keep hearing people talk about this "there", but I've been playing games in VR for over a year now and been enjoying the heck out of myself. I think you mean to say "the games are here already, and only going to get better".
You're not going to get the standard AAA experience level graphics in VR, you're talking about a ~20ms difference in render time, with twice the amount of view to render (In polygon processing at least) But good VR is very sensitive to hardware performance.
This is not a requirement. It's a nice-to-have. 60fps is good enough for most people. 75fps is good enough for the vast majority of people. And asynchronous timewarp largely makes the issue moot, too.
Regardless, Microsoft bought Mojang for $2.5 billion dollars. Zynga has a market cap of $2.4 billion. I think the era of AAA games like Call of Duty being your main cash-cow are over.
You don't need to spend anywhere near all of your cycles to make a good VR experience.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/does-porn-still-ha...
I also recall reading a different article (can't find it now and don't want to do too much Google searching at work for it) about how almost all the most trafficked porn sites are owned by a single entity now. From what I remember of the article, it posited that their technology has fallen behind and they have little incentive to keep pushing tech forward given the razor thin margins they have on operating the sites.
> Oculus + 3D audio + input + eventual tactical is going to completely blur the lines of reality in ways we can't yet imagine.
kind of just make me roll my eyes. We've been hearing things like that for decades. Is it really going to blur the lines of reality? You'll still be sitting a chair with a machine strapped to your face. People also think it will change video games forever, but I honestly don't see how. It improves immersion, but for me, immersion isn't even on the top 10 list of things that I care about in games.
Feel free to disagree, but I'm just saying that people are really hyping this thing up.
I agree that there is a ceiling of how much VR as a technology can 'blur the lines' of reality, but as someone who has a DK2 - I fully believe that VR is going to be huge in the future. It doesn't feel like you're 'sitting in a chair with a machine strapped to your face'.
Just to challenge your thinking about what comes next:
> kind of just make me roll my eyes. We've been hearing things like that for decades. Is it really going to blur the lines of reality?
Tricking your vision is HUGE to changing your reality. We perceive up to 80 per cent of all impressions by means of our sight.
(1) https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...
> You'll still be sitting a chair with a machine strapped to your face.
-=> Give the form factor a couple of years. Every sensor in there is being miniaturized by the day. Magic Leap (and others) are using tricks to project imagery directly onto your retina. Google's already filed
> People also think it will change video games forever, but I honestly don't see how. It improves immersion, but for me, immersion isn't even on the top 10 list of things that I care about in games.
-=> Ok I'll bite, on gaming - Go play Elite Dangerous + DK2 + Motion Sim and tell me that you don't believe you're flying in outer space. It's that good. More accessible, and I bet we see a lot of these, is VR coasters w/motion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcmQr2y5Z88 - another easy one to try is Assetto Corsa + DK2 + driving wheel.
Games are a popular idea about VR's application but doesn't scratch the service in terms of application - training, social interaction, SEX, therapy, etc, etc.
You can look up and see out of the top of your spaceship. You look to your left and the holographic display of your ship appears. You look down and you see your body, wearing a cool spacesuit. But most of all, it feels like you're piloting a ship instead of watching a ship fly around on a screen.
However, the final demo (a Portal 2 derived scene) freaked me out. I felt like I was being bullied by the robot. I've had nightmares about it since, for reals.
Others are free to disagree with me here, but I've seen 2 technological concepts in entertainment/immersion that became huge in the last decade and slowly died off as people became tired of the gimmick: motion-sensors and 3D. You have a lot of people very entertained by stuff like the Wii or watching Avatar in 3D, but over time I've noticed people don't really care anymore.
VR has the same challenge as those past technologies: how do you create something truly unique with this concept? Is this like the dawn of the television, or is it just another way of watching television?
The vast majority of Facebook users has neither consoles nor PCs nor any interest in ever purchasing a peripheral in the targeted price range (even if it drops to 100USD).
I don't doubt that they can break even regarding development costs, but it won't be a cash cow.
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/gear-vr/
My impression is something like this is a big part of the future of the Oculus platform, and that the Rift is designed to deliver higher quality experiences until mobile catches up.
Zuck knows he failed with Facebook Home. He has surveyed the landscape and he knows he'll never be more than the most-used app on someone else's phone. But he's still salivating to own a platform, so he's looking to the future.
Think about this: if you're sitting on the train, or waiting in the Doctor's office, would you rather wait in VR, or in a waiting room with your nose in a mobile phone?
And if you remove all of the bored killing-time-in-spaces-you'd-rather-not-be uses of mobile phones, how much use is really left in them?
Think too, how many phone calls will you make when you can run around a virtual dinosaur park, or sit under a virtual night sky with your friends and family?
I don't know the answer to these questions, but it does seem like VR could put quite a lot of pressure on what is now the dominant category of computing devices. And Zuck is better positioned than anyone to be the pack leader.
Also consider that phones are fundamentally disconnected from remote friends. You don't really want your sister scrolling through the news with you when you're on the train. But you might be totally happy to have her sitting next to you in a flowery meadow in VR while you both catch up on your news feed. Or maybe she is on the surface of Mars and you are in a flowery meadow but you both feel like you are together. Maybe she's fighting aliens in a forest while you are collecting mushrooms, bantering back and forth about what happened at work.
VR is fundamentally more amenable to social than flat screens are. Look no further than social console gaming to see the start of this. I think the merger of Facebook and Oculus is fascinating.
You mean when she's not on the train too? That's not going to happen anytime soon, because mobile networks are far too crappy. On public transport in a major city in germany I regularly get latencies of 60+ seconds (yes, seconds) and a bandwidth of a few kilobytes/s max. There are also spots where you don't get any connection at all or you get a connection but it's so congested that you can't even make a DNS request that doesn't time out. Yes, I'm still talking about the middle of a big city. That's on the Eplus/O2 network.
Other than the added privacy, I'm having trouble imagining the advantages of that. I'm reading my facebook feed, but now nobody else can see it, oh boy!
But see, I already don't care if people see. So that doesn't help me. Being immersed might actually hurt me though. Honestly, the idea of being on a train and having no idea what's going on around me is kind of terrifying.
Pricepoint determines market adoption. It could be the "best thing ever" at $1k and no normal consumer would buy one, leading to a drying up of interest and market adoption, resulting in a dead product. Given who's supporting it, granted, that's not a very likely outcome, but it's still something to keep in mind.
I will say that I have tried DK1 and I was extremely impressed with it. That being said, I'll probably jump on this bandwagon in the next 3-4 years.
But if you mean Oculus in general the Gear VR is an ok start (and widely available) but I'd recommend
(a) Get yourself to one of the many VR meetups that are fairly geographically distributed @ this point http://vr.meetup.com/
(b) Visit www.reddit.com/r/oculus and make a request for a demo in your area if you're in a less populated area.
> But if you're browsing HN because you're a hacker / developer / dreamer you are crazy to discount how substantial this release is (especially if you haven't TRIED it yet!).
I bought a Rift DK2, because they said that they support linux. Their linux support was never complete and always pretty bad, especially mesa support was always buggy. So I haven't seen much in the DK2 until I sold it after oculus dropped linux support.
Enthusiasm for VR is still there, but for oculus? They didn't deliver what they promised for their DK2. The only good thing is that - unlike with the DK2 - linux users know for sure not to buy it now.
Maybe Valve will get it right with Steam OS.
The last word I heard from the Oculus team is that the game releases would be restricted for use with the Oculus only. No morpheus, no holo-lens, no (insert startup here).
This has killed my desire to support Oculus.
The DK2 is 1920x1080@75hz, and the CV1 (subject of OP) is 2160×1200@90hz. I'm sure the SDE is still perceptible in the CV1 if you look closely enough, but most reports say it is no longer an issue.
hacker / developer / dreamer you are crazy to discount
how substantial this release is (especially if you
haven't TRIED it yet!).
i know, i know.. i sound crazy
but, as far as your comment on 'release' one of my favourite things about hn is the communities' reliable response 'congrats on shipping'
i'd rather see more of that than people breathing this effluvium of delphi
so, congrats on shipping
1) First generation devices are usually flops/riddled with bugs, but usually exploitable if you don't upgrade firmware/etc.
2) I would probably need to buy a 980TI ($600) or Titan X ($1k) to make up for my i7-2600k's failure. (I want a Titan X for deep convolution neural networks anyways).
3) Nvidia is on the verge of releasing their Pascal architecture. The Titan X was just recently released (Mar '15?). While it is a powerhouse, the pascal base Titan may come with 12-16GB of memory and a 10-20% speed increase.
4) Intel is near release on their broadwell-e platform which should be able to consume 40 pci-e lanes (like haswell-e). No word yet on if they plan on being able to use 40 pci-e lanes with skylake.
Summary: In 1 years time, there will be a base Pascal Titan that outperforms the Maxwell Titan X, a new ~$500 CPU that will be on par with the current $1000 CPU, and an assortment of VR options available. As much as it pains me, unless I see a Titan X for $600-800 on craigslist, I'm going to wait this one out.
Edit: I meant "worked"
No need for a Titan.
/* And since this is not reddit, please share your opinion if you downvote, it brings up debate and that's what makes HN interesting. */
That is pretty damning on the amount of users with a 970/780ti/980/980ti/titan x. My 560ti plays most games at a decent resolution in mid-settings at 144hz. It is hard to validate a $400 replacement for non-time consuming entertainment.
Note: a 970 is in the top 6 -- http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
None of those games you listed are available on the Steam shop and aren't included in the stats linked. The Steam stats do have tons of other games and is pretty much the most accurate consensus on PC gamer's hardware.
And GTX 970 is pretty much in the top 5% of GPU hardware, the vast majority 90%+ of PC gamers aren't even close to that.
I'm thinking I'm going to be waiting a bit before getting into this business.
The specs of the Oculus Rift are fairly steep and are basically a middle high end gaming PC, but they have said that the requirements won't change over the life of the device so it'll go down. It was about time for a GPU upgrade for me anyway, so I've been pondering over going for a new GPU + Rift.
I'm confused though; why do a pre-announcement for an announcement about pre-purchasing a product that's only two days away? They should have simply opened up pre-orders immediately.
That being said I can't imagine they expect to sell much. It requires such a beefy PC (of which fewer and fewer are buying them nowadays for ultrabooks and tablets) and it's going to be expensive plus it won't ship with the touch controllers.
I think VR will ultimately become HUGE but until I can get one for at most $200 and use without a beefy PC I'll pass.
That's fair, but not really relevant.
There are more than enough people willing to pay to meet the early adopter 'exclusivity' target they are going for. And If they deliver it right (and the included games are half decent) word of mouth, and trying it at a friends house can create a snowball effect.
The question is if VR is ready for the mainstream and vice versa. That will be down to the ingenuity of developers and the capability of the hardware. I don't think cost or the current limitation to PC is at all relevant in that aspect. Of course these will spill over to consoles in time if it is successful, and of course they will become cheaper if mass demand follows.
200 dollars I could see, but you will need a powerful machine to drive the resolution and frame rate required (or get sick, up to you).
and the reason is likely because they expect backorders and announcing preorders means it's fair for everyone.
Any sources?
Edit: interesting that when asking for source regarding the parent's claim I get multiple downvotes. I don't really understand why.
The Vive has more features (like head tracking) but maybe it will be more expensive? There's been nothing but silence in terms of pricing of either of them... I do have a hard time justifying $500+ for a screen I'll strap to my head that will probably be obsolete in a year or two.
I will say though, I recently bought a Steam Link and a Steam Controller and I am pretty impressed with the quality of Valve's hardware.
The Vive has "room-scale" tracking that lets you walk around a large room-sized space, and includes hand controllers that are also tracked in the world.
The Rift should support "room-scale" with more cameras, but is not a main focus/supported use case yet for Oculus. The Oculus Touch is like the Vive's tracked hand controllers.
They are far more similar to each other than most people realize.
It is unlikely to be obsolete in 1 year. The update/release cycle for VR headsets (at least for Oculus) is expected to be somewhere between consoles (6-8 years) and smartphones (1 year).
Pricing will be announced on Jan 6 morning and should help you decide.
Note: I work full-time developing VR software and own every VR headset.
Interesting to think about obsolescence of the headsets- I wonder if it will be tied to graphics cards getting more powerful and allowing for higher resolutions or more "breakthroughs" in the headset hardware itself, i.e. lenses and screens and eye tracking.
Wires are suboptimal but tracked wires (just like the headset is tracked. i.e. you'll see the wire in VR) should alleviate this problem until wireless technologies mature.
Mobile VR will provide room-scale tracking without wires in 2016. Watch this space.
Positional tracking with a smartphone's built in camera is already possible[1] thanks to SLAM[2]. Let me say that again, Google Cardboard and GearVR can (technologically) do positional tracking, right now.
The reason they don't is probably because you have to spend time scanning your room. But that's a really poor reason, I agree with OP, we should expect to see this happen very soon.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3axtxl/streaming_to...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7bjsIqlbS0
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_...
http://www.techradar.com/news/wearables/major-htc-vive-break...
Honestly both are rad. Everyone here is a professional programmer, if you care about VR and all it's potential I don't see why people wouldn't buy multiple if new ones are better than previous version. Ha, well except I know my wife is definitely giving me a budget, cause I want to buy every peripheral.
I also feel that the Valve team has been working on the non-sexy issues like controls, motion sickness, advanced eye tracking (rumor?), and head tracking as opposed to the narrative that comes out of the Rift which seems to be centered on "OMG RESOLUTION AND FPS!" Obviously, gamers will lean towards the latter but I suspect work on the former will be more important.
I'm also concerned that this stuff will look great, but will require a $2,500 gaming machine to make it all work right. I just upgraded to a Nvidia 950 and from what I've read that's really too weak to do 1080p per eye at 60fps on anything coming close to AAA graphics. I really don't want to be forced to deal with PS3-like polygons and textures for the 3D effect to work correctly.
I guess I'll wait and see. I'm certainly not doing any preorders. I'll let the early adopter crowd figure this stuff out. I'm also waiting for magic leap to produce an AR product, but don't expect that to happen anytime soon. I am somewhat concerned that AR could strangle VR in the cradle.
Not sure where you'd get the idea that Oculus isn't working on non-sexy problems, considering how many people Oculus has working on controls (Oculus Touch), motion sickness, and yes eye tracking too. Obviously Oculus is working on "head tracking" - that's been around since 2012.
Either way, you are correct: waiting to hear about the Vive is a good idea. VR in general (Vive, Rift, etc.) is very much an early adopter technology for the next couple years.
Minor note: AR is far from maturity. The FoV and resolution pales in comparison to VR. 30-degrees (like looking through a pinhole) versus 110-degrees is a massive difference that's hard to explain. AR and VR are like sister technologies that will one day converge.
AR approaching VR by improving FoV and resolution over the next decade, and VR approaching AR by improving real-world capture & scene reconstruction.
The recommended card for this is a 970 which chimes in at around $350 today. Another $450 (more?) for the Rift, well, you're pushing $1,000 with tax and shipping right there without a PC, CPU, OS, etc. This stuff is fairly pricey and downplaying the cost is being a little disingenuous. I think if you want to remotely future-proof your rig, yes, you are much closer to the $2,500 mark than $1,000. My point stands; this stuff is really, really expensive. Especially when the real competitors in the PC VR gaming space are going to be consoles. I suspect Sony's offering with come in at a cheaper cost and work with the existing PS4. That's going to be a value proposition that's going to be tough to beat.
>motion sickness
This is unsolved in the VR space. Oculus struggles with it and HTC/Valve claim their "lighthouse" technology can greatly limit it, but there's been no public demonstration or study here proving any of these claims. Hand wavey readings of PR bullet points from vendors isn't convincing.
I'm not a graphics hacker, but the gist was that a lot of modern rendering techniques had broken the ability to split workload via alternate frame rendering.
However, since each VR eye can essentially be independently run as its own pipeline, they'd see a much more ideal speedup in "same scene, two eyes" workloads.
When you boil down a product to simple terms its really easy to make it sound pointless.
Oculus, first to "invent", (almost) last to market.
Given all the hype and big names that joined the Oculus team, and even the sudden sell-out to Facebook (leaving most of their Kickstarter backers feeling used), Oculus has yet to produce a consumer product.
At this pace, they're on track to be 3rd to market (well, "tied" if we count pre-orders being taken at CES), even though they were "leading the way" just a short time ago.
In addition, from a consumer perspective, their "finished" product looks almost identical to the "developer" previews they shipped years back...
The first consumer VR hardware on the market was the GearVR, made by Samsung AND Oculus.
The second consumer VR hardware on the market is likely to be the Oculus Rift (Q1 Jan-Mar shipping) and the Vive is likely to be the third to market (est. April shipping)
This is nothing like the developer previews from years ago. You should read up on the major differences from the DK1->DK2->CV1. Each was a massive leap forward in capability.
Note: I've been developing VR for 1+ years and own every VR headset.
Even a Virtuality? ;-)
We're talking about consumer items, not dev kits. In reality, Google Cardboard was the first (modern) VR kit released.
I think it was Google's way at having fun with all the VR hype around last year's I/O conference (and to show it's not anything really groundbreaking).
Graphics cards really need a huge performance jump to make VR work, and given both Nvidia and AMD seem to be happy releasing a new set each year with only modest 20-30% performance gains then what does this mean for VR?
Worst case? It means that details are scaled back in the name of framerate. Presence still works in a world that doesn't seem perfectly lifelike, so as long as the player is in another world, that's the single most important thing.
Less AA, less texture resolution. We can dial that back up as the tech gets better.
VR is the new Crysis when it comes to stress testing your hardware :)
No, the worst case is that using them makes people sick.
Most gamers that I see nowadays are all about the detail. Crank the AA up to max, the texture resolution to max, draw distance, and so on. If you lose a frame or two, it's not a big deal as long as the average is 60+.
VR completely reverses that - losing frames destroys immersion and causes motion sickness. Since even a fax-machine detail world still produces presence, we can easily sacrifice some detail for better framerates.
Given that 2016 is supposed to be the "year of VR", it makes (marketing) sense that the GPUs released this year will be designed and/or optimized for that purpose. We'll have to wait and see how that plays out.
[1] - http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-pascal-is-10x-as-powerful-as-...
Also, with VR, you can just upscale. You don't need to render a 4K/8K image to eliminate the screen-door effect.
> I won't send them more money unless they're going to support Linux.
Careful, they already said they support linux with the dk2 and we know how that went. Don't rely on what they say they "are going to do". Only buy it when they demonstrate complete and fully working linux support, not earlier.
You're right, but I spoke with support and made my case and since it had been such a short time since I bought it, they went ahead and did the refund.
>Careful, they already said they support linux with the dk2 and we know how that went. Don't rely on what they say they "are going to do". Only buy it when they demonstrate complete and fully working linux support, not earlier.
Sorry about my wording. I'm not going to buy it until there is actual support that I can actually use at the moment I open the box.
Being cross-platform is a design decision, and it effects how you go about developing your platform (what technologies you use, etc...). So the fear is, they'll go down the Microsoft path and find it difficult to bring in other platforms down the road.
This has been untrue for quite a while now [1][2]. In fact, it's starting to look like OpenGL on any platform (even Windows) is better than DirectX.
[1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=win10-nv-...
[2] http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/133824-valve-opengl-is-fas...
Once you can compare an engine/game that has been optimized for OpenGL with equal effort than for D3D, then you can make a fair comparison.
But it's true, OpenGL drivers are often worse. Not just on Linux. Look at what happened when RAGE came out. Presumably that's also only because drivers for D3D are optimized and hacked on much, much more because there are so many AAA games that use it.
That there are already cases where AAA games run at times better on Linux than on Windows, even through a wrapper, is a very, very good sign for the performance to come if only a little more effort is put into the drivers and ports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZYIa-6UooM
That said, Unity and Unreal are the engines that matter most for VR right now. Both have linux versions. Unity 5.3 was recently released and they have updated their OpenGL backend significantly. I've not seen benchmarks yet...
Of course, the end result is that you keep strengthening the "standard" platform and thus there's never critical mass for "alternative" platforms (for different values of "standard" and "alternative" depending on product), and so the cycle repeats itself.
But in the end Oculus is there to make money and making new hardware is very hard, let alone a whole new type of hardware.
This, I agree, is unfortunate, but I can't imagine how hard it must be to develop something like this for Linux, with the myriad of 3d drivers, sound drivers, etc. If you end up developing for say, Ubuntu Desktop only, then probably a lot of people would still complain and say "hey, Ubuntu is not the only Linux out there you know!".
Maybe Steam will take advantage of this and develop for Linux as well, thus putting pressure (and opening the market a bit) on competitors to move into this "alternative" market.
One game that I was never able to get into before Oculus Rift was Minecraft. My kids have been begging me to play with them, but I really struggled to remain interested in the game. I could see why they loved it, but I didn't get into myself.
It bugged me that I was missing this opportunity to connect with my kids, especially with something computer-y, so over the holiday I spent a little time getting the Minecrift mod working.
Wow!
I now totally get it, and it seems to me that Minecraft will be at least one huge driver for the adoption of VR hardware amongst folks who are able to use it. (Recommended 13+.)
The low-resolution polygons in Minecraft really accentuate the 3D effect. When you're going up hills or looking at trees, the depth effect is crazily pronounced and amazing.
The basic graphics in Minecraft also have the benefit of rendering quite nicely even on incredibly limited hardware. For example, I spent hours playing on my 12" Retina MacBook, which I believe is the weakest hardware Apple ships. (Maybe it benefits from a GPU that powers a Retina display? I don't know.)
Getting attacked by creepers and zombies in the first-person was an insane experience. My heart rate was actually going up as I attempted to escape and ultimately failed.
And I was there. I grew personally attached to the cave I mined for myself where I hid to protect myself throughout the night, and felt a little sad when I accidentally let water flood in and destroy it. I was in that cave. Very cool.
I would frequently look down at my hands to remind myself of what weapon or tool I was holding and go through my hot keys until I saw the tool I wanted to use.
I'd spend a good deal of time just watching that big pixelated sun set over a landscape, and if I found a safe place, I'd sit around and watch the stars move through the night sky as the earth rotated. (Mostly I think this is when I became the most aware of the "screen door" effect.)
Anyway, if you've got DK2 hardware, I highly recommend trying it out with Minecraft if you haven't already. Microsoft announced they're planning official Oculus Rift support for Minecraft in the first half of next year, and judging from the way my son talks to his friends about it ("he's actually in Minecraft,") I think Minecraft will be a huge driver of sales of Oculus Rift.
Just announcing the price without details of what you're getting for it is just going to make a bunch of forums and subreddits very angry in the way only gaming communities can get really angry.
If they haven't released the price, it's more likely because FB wants to throw some serious money behind the marketing push. Which either means they were going to anyway, or the price is going to shock people.
It's likely that there are substantial differences between the product and the DK2, or even what's been discussed in previous interviews/previews, so it makes sense to not talk too much about the product until they're in a position to present it properly (e.g., a big keynote followed by journalist demos).
And yeah, it's going to be expensive - the fact that they've said as much in previous interviews means they've already been trying to soften the ground for the revelation. It's almost certainly going to be more expensive than the DK1/DK2.
I wouldn't be surprised if they announce the price before that timer goes away, just to get another round of press.
[0] Stuff like this is outlined in "Trust Me, I'm Lying" - http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...
If I had to pull a figure out of the air: $425.
[0] http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-founder-palmer-luckey-explain...
Mobile gaming became hugely popular without high-end graphics because of the easy of use, portability and touch input controls. I would have thought it would make more sense for VR games to focus on experiences you can only have with VR games (e.g. highly immersive, having sense of scale, use of hand input) and play to its strengths rather than limit its audience with high-end graphics.
I'm very excited about VR but having to buy a Rift and a high-end Windows gaming PC is asking a lot to get involved.
Yes, I've seen this a lot on mobile especially and also with things like "Job Simulator". What I'm confused about is everyone (especially on /r/oculus) being very adamant about needing a GTX 970+ for VR.
My ~$200 GTX 760 can consistently run Team Fortress 2 at upwards of 200 frames per second, and TF2 looks fine to me.
I'm sure many people will appreciate having games for VR that take advantage of their fancy hardware, but why scare people away with such high requirements? Can't the industry tighten its belt a little for the first round and live with the fact that VR games won't look quite as good as their 2D counterparts? Surely even a $700 gaming PC would deliver a better experience than GearVR, which is already quite good.
Anyone want to discuss setups for both? I need to buy a new machine for that.
I'm not saying that I know for a fact that one is better than the other, but I'm surprised that you think one is 'years better'.
Not sure what type of flight sim you are into, but using a proper yoke, throttle, and rudder pedals makes the experience much more immersive.
I currently use a TrackIR with two monitors, but truth be told it's a bit janky and I find it very difficult to visually tell angles (for example: what's the angle of my plane to the runway? I could use the heading indicator for that purpose but I don't want to develop bad habits for real-life flights).
The hands thing would let me flip switches in-cockpit, which is nice. No more mouse!
Does this mean that there won't be an Oculus for me?
I look forward to seeing reviews on the Oculus Rift from those with glasses ;-)
[ While Facebook and Oculus VR aren't quite ready to reveal a price of the Rift, Luckey suggested that it'll cost more than the $350 developer's kit.
"You know, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you," Luckey said in an interview back in September. "We're roughly in that ballpark... but it's going to cost more than that. And the reason for that is that we've added a lot of technology to this thing beyond what existed in the DK1 and DK2 days."
While $350 may be too low, $1,000 seems to be too high. Elaborating on the Rift's pricing on Twitter recently, Luckey stated that Oculus VR has the backing of Facebook and doesn't need an immediate hardware profit.
"A company that has to survive on immediate hardware profit would have to hit with a much higher price - think $1000+. Not greed, reality," he tweeted. "1st gen VR users are being heavily subsidized by major players who want VR business to grow, though few seem to understand that." ]
Source of Above: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/120994/20160103/oculus-rif...
When it comes to making predictions, i'd remind you of this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
How cool would it be to ditch multiple monitors and spread out over a 360 sphere code windows / browsers / documentation / etc... ? Use the head tracking to navigate the desktop world and still use the keyboard / mouse to interact.
What you're talking about however can easily be done with [Virtual Desktop](http://www.vrdesktop.net/) -- I've used it a few times while developing, it mostly works. It's definitely a nice experience to have your IDE infront of you, documentation a head tilt to the right, and Google a head tilt to the left, but the resolution was too low for me to be comfortable reading text for a long time on the DK2.
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/oculus-rift-pre-orders-to-...
Also, no mention of the promised Xbox One controller among the bundled items. Wonder if they'll just be sending a coupon or something in the box.
If you haven't tried it, you don't understand the difference between head tracking and moving a mouse around in an FPS game. They are not just different ways to move a pointer around. They are fundamentally different. They are so fundamentally different that it's actually difficult to combine the two concepts.
VR is not comparable to the Wii or the Xbox 360 with the Kinect (which were massively successful products, so I don't know what the point of comparing them is), because there is zero disconnect between motion and reaction. You aren't looking at a mirror version of yourself moving around. You're just moving around.
If you haven't tried it, you don't understand the difference between waving your hand around at the Kinect, trying to line up hits with no depth perception, and using VR with even a relatively low-res positional tracker like the Leap Motion.
If you haven't tried it, you just don't know what you're talking about. You have nothing in your life from which to draw a conclusion. That includes anyone talking about the systems from the 1990s. I can, today, in a weekend, create a full VR experience that would blow Dactyl Nightmare out of the water, and give it to you for a handful of dollars. The order of magnitude difference in realism and price is staggering. It's the between a real car and one of those RC cars that only turns when you put it in reverse, and then only in one direction. Except the real car is the one that costs $50, and the RC car was $20k.
VR is going to fulfill the promise of teleconferencing. If VR was a "flop" in the 90s, then teleconferencing definitely was, too. Talking to people face-to-face in VR is night-and-day better than using Skype or FaceTime. There is barely any comparison to be made. You forget you're using technology when having a f2f with a person in VR. And this isn't a prediction. This is available today.
The product development lifecycle is going to speed up, as VR is going to give us a new, virtualized testing cycle that isn't bottle-necked by physical prototypes just to check look-and-feel.
Architects are going to make better pitches. Universities and hospitals are going to sell more buildings and research wings to big-ticket donors. Other universities will do away with their physical presence entirely. Doctors will be able to share life-saving techniques and train other doctors across the world in the fine-motor skill to perform it. Museums are going to be able to record exhibits in full detail, into perpetuity, and provide patrons unprecedented access to artifacts that would otherwise be too sensitive to put on display in public, relatively uncontrolled environments. Psychiatrists are going to be able to treat more patients. Data scientists are going to be able to recall and organize more information.
All of these things are doable on a smartphone in a cardboard box, say nothing about the rapidly developing market of purpose-built devices. Have you not been paying attention? Technological advancement has only been accelerating. It's not going to be "many years" before these devices are any good. It's going to be two. It's going to be less time than it took the iPhone to get any good. Remember that original iPhone? That no-app-store-having, no-3G-having, no-GPS-having, no-speech-recognition-having iPhone? That glorified iPod with a relatively crappy phone crammed in it?
To quote Tom Hardy's character Eames, speaking to Joseph Gordon Levitt's character Arthur in the Christopher Nolan film INCEPTION: "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."
This is perhaps the most important aspect of VR to me. Presence with people who aren't present will be VR's killer app. Time and time again we see that messaging is the biggest use of most platforms. Messaging in VR will just be turning your head and talking to someone.
I am really interested to see whether meatspace office buildings will be able to compete with shared virtual workspaces.
Turning your head or walking across the room to ask someone a question was always the key differentiator for physical offices. VR takes that away. Maybe there is some killer feature left for offices, but I kind of think this might be the moment where the disruptive technology (telecom) overtakes the incumbent (meatspace).
Go Mondo2000!