Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order
shop.oculus.com
shop.oculus.com
I think of the Palm and WinMo phones I paid $500+ for during the early generations of smartphones and it starts to make more sense. And just as I'm sure those devices from Palm and HTC could've been a lot nicer even with the tech of the day, the price would've pushed into the $1000 range. Gen 1 is always gonna be fairly expensive and still not quite as good as you wish it was. With later revisions, price drops and capabilities go up.
The only issue I see here is that rather than looking at relative openness and ability to run in-development software on something like the Vive or the Rift, many people are going to look only at price and wait for something like a $300 Playstation VR headset that's limited to whatever can be sold and approved for a game console.
As I see it, it's still an early-adopter techie toy/luxury so whether it costs $399 or $599, I'd only really buy it if I had that sort of dough in my "fun stuff I don't need" budget. Even as someone who bought a Rift DK2 at launch, I'm both waiting on buying any consumer device and not too concerned with the price difference between a $400 device and a $600 device. If anything ends up striking me as really worth buying, I won't just buy a lesser device to save a couple hundred bucks. I'd rather wait until I see something I really want and will use and not buy anything at all until then.
Interesting comparison, but most people are able to finance phones through their carrier (although I haven't looked into that for a bleeding edge new phone model).
The interesting question is how long before this version of the Rift becomes obsolete, or will Oculus provide a contract-based upgrade plan (like for phones).
I'd be totally OK with it costing $1000 if it could really provide a great VR experience.
This is what I imagine will be the most common outcome here. Sure the Rift is 'only' $600, but you need a $400 video card to make it work on top of a decent rig, so a minimum $1500 investment?
Meanwhile, millions of kids with Xboxes and PS4's already have everything they need for a perhaps lesser experience, but come xmas that $299 console headset is going to be crazy attractive. The hands on reviews I've read with Morpheus compared it to a later model Rift. No idea how it stacks to this new consumer model, but if Sony can sell that level of resolution and performance on consoles, then its going to hurt Oculus severely. As someone who owns both I'm leaning on wating for the consoles to ante up. I think the PC end of VR is going to be a lot of half assed indie games, non-VR games tied to some crappy driver that makes them 'VR' but with a very poor experience, general steam shovelware/paid beta's, and demos masquerading as "games" while the consoles will only allow polished AAA products on their VR platform.
Later on, sure, there will be plenty of fully commercialized and polished software on every VR platform that's still around but right now this is inherently an early-adopter platform. Sony will offer a handful of launch titles that work with Morpheus and maybe let you rent VR movies for $20 a pop. But when the HMD is just a peripheral, you'll get the polished stuff as well as the beta stuff and honestly that's where all of the cool software and applications are gonna be for a little while still.
I can't imagine Sony allowing something like Riftmax Theater or letting you use something like VorpX to simulate playing your games on a giant 3D IMAX screen. I'll never get to enable beta VR support in a game like I can with Steam and I'll never get to fire up Unreal Engine and model out some neat stuff, hit "play", and then walk around it in VR.
Basically if AAA games are your priority, Sony and other console-type platforms will be more polished but probably more limited. If you're here as an early adopter with enthusiasm for VR as a platform and eager to try out every new concept or application, you're better off with a more open platform for creation and distribution.
And as for the cost, needing a $400 video card only applies to some people. Since I already need and use a computer for lots of things, I tend to spend the extra money on a nice GPU instead of a gaming console for roughly the same cost. This won't apply to everyone but it's the market that PC-based VR is after at the moment. My GPU cost me $100 more than the launch price of a PS4 with no additional peripherals and lets me play any new games (as well as my huge library of older ones) at 2560x1440 with all the bells and whistles. I think for a lot of people who enjoy gaming and multimedia work/hobby, it's a solid way to go.
Either way, in 5-10 years it'll go the way of much other consumer tech and you'll be able to get top performance at mainstream, affordable prices. The high costs and tradeoffs on various platforms right now will become less of an issue with volume sales and mature hardware/software.
It's like blaming the plate for overeating.
To use a food analogy: You sell pizza, it is the best pizza in town, but the delivery driver sucks and food is constantly arriving cold or smashed. Your patrons aren't going to care that you always blame the delivery driver for the problems, or that the pizza COULD be good if not ruined, they're going to either shop somewhere else or quit buying delivered pizza. Same thing here, regardless who ruined the thing, the experience is still the same.
I absolutely would not blame the restaurant if my GrubHub delivery guy ruined the order.
And regardless, what the mythical "average consumer" does or doesn't do is immaterial. You should know better.
I don't know if "blame" is the right word, but eating off a large plate does make you more prone to overeating.
http://www.tomsguide.com/faq/id-2355037/minimize-oculus-rift...
The Rift itself, in conjunction with good software, is excellent at tracking both rotation and translation motion and keeping the display in sync. More often than not, the nausea one experiences has to do with locomotion within the game. Spinning your character around with your mouse, for example, produces a spinning sensation with no corresponding input from your equilibrium, resulting in a sick feeling in some people.
The good news is: Many people are able to "get their VR legs" by starting with simple experiences and slowing introducing more complex ones.
They did charge a relative high amount for the dev' kits and made wishy washy claims that they could produce the consumer version for less.
really? seems fine to me. this is cheaper than most high end tv / monitors.
tech early adopters and taste makers have six figure incomes, many are just straight up rich.
Of course we all understand why Oculus does not want to offer cheaper, low spec models that might fill the "beginner model" gap. In that kind of situation, maybe Oculus would do well offering franchise kits for rent-a-rift shops. The last remaining video stores might be a good match, the audience is open for technological home entertainment and their economic situation is likely to be desperate enough to try new side lines.
This doesn't include their touch controller, if that's what you mean. If it did I'd consider buying it (I'm still annoyed by 30 dollar shipping costs).
http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10723568/oculus-rift-remote...
I do wish they'd sell it without the Xbox One controller since I already have 2x wireless 360 controllers. Nothing in the new one sounds particular worth re-buying.
I might be priced out this generation regardless. Ah well.
I don't need a wireless xbox controller, I have 2 sitting right next to me.
I have no interest in those two games, they'll be thrown on the stack of AOL floppies, Colin McRae: Dirt download codes, and McAfee CDs I have gathering dust in the corner.
The headphones are nice I guess if you don't have wireless ones but I do so they'll be relegated to the bin.
The Oculus Remote doesn't appear to be integral, it just looks like an optional accessory you could use instead of another input means.
One of the reasons I think Oculus went with an onboard DAC is to precisely sync audio, visuals, and head tracking. Using a non-Oculus audio pipeline could introduce unpredictable timing and a worse experience.
The quality of a user's experience with the Oculus is going to be directly correlated to the quantity and quality of games/experiences available for the device. Even if it's silky smooth and you can use it for hours on end without issue if you run out of quality content in two hours there's a problem. Quantity/quality are even more important to the user after making such a significant investment.
The problem here is if developers will be able to make money creating quality experiences for Oculus if the userbase is tiny because no one can afford one. The user market is already being fractured by the different units available - if I develop a game for the HTC Vive (which supports room tracking) is it easy or even possible to port the experience to the Oculus?
Developing a high quality gaming experience is EXPENSIVE, and AAA regularly do not recoup their costs even when they're being offered to a huge user base (XBOX/PS4/PC/etc). Due to the nature of VR a quality experience is going to require a significant investment to build. If companies can't recoup that cost they'll stop developing and if there aren't any killer experiences people will stop buying the Rift.
For Oculus (or any of the upcoming units) to be successful they need to walk the line between quality and price, and I'm not sure they've done it.
I'm starting to think Sony is in a better position even though it's looking like they have inferior hardware.
The problem is that you're associating quality with only AAA titles. There are have been plenty of quality indie titles for years now.
> Even if it's silky smooth and you can use it for hours on end without issue if you run out of quality content in two hours there's a problem.
I don't know about the oculus store, but there's already enough content with existing titles on Steam.
Another way to look at it is that the Oculus isn't just a peripheral, it's a platform. Console makers have learned how important it is to either keep console costs down or subsidize in order to reach the largest user base, which in turn draws developers and subsequently a larger library which leads to more platform purchases.
Most titles aren't going to work with the Oculus out of the box. Even for a standard FPS you can't just check box and enable VR. The best experiences, and the ones that will drive sales will be designed specifically for VR.
Think about 3D movies and the difference between seeing something like Avatar that was created with 3D in mind and some of the terrible 3D addition cash grabs that have come out. A lot of those poor post 3D additions have turned people off to 3D movies altogether.
So everybody, even the AAA guys, are going to be putting you into environments like cartoons, space and buildings rather than natural environments, and the people you interact with are going to be in vehicles or space suits or avatars or anything to avoid having to model a human face.
So, ironically, AAA budgets probably aren't going to be a hugely limiting factor, at least in the first wave of VR games, in my opinion.
I agree that AAA games have the marketing power to broaden appeal. However, indie gaming is becoming a powerhouse of sorts. Look at the Steam Top Sellers list at any time, and you'll usually see at least half the games listed there being indies. Currently, it looks to be a solid 50/50, although I'm sure the residual affects of the last Steam sale are there.
Something with the viral appeal of Minecraft, released for the Oculus, would be a massive draw.
Well there are plenty of great 3D indie games as well, so it's a moot point.
> Console makers have learned how important it is to either keep console costs down or subsidize in order to reach the largest user base
That happened generations ago. With the growth of the internet, now they're inefficient gatekeepers compared to the app stores, notably Steam. It's much easier and cheaper for developers of all sizes to make a release on an App Store. How this translates to gamers is that they get a lot more variety of quality content that risk averse giant publishers would never approve for release, let alone development.
> Most titles aren't going to work with the Oculus out of the box. Even for a standard FPS you can't just check box and enable VR
Yes, but this is a PC release with an audience that's accustomed to tinkering (mods, custom desktops, ...)
> Think about 3D movies and the difference between seeing something like Avatar that was created with 3D in mind and some of the terrible 3D addition cash grabs that have come out. A lot of those poor post 3D additions have turned people off to 3D movies altogether.
When consoles like the NES, Genesis, PS One, Xbox, and the Wii were first released, you can say the same thing about plenty of 3rd party titles. That didn't turn off consumers from video games altogether.
EX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Naruto_video_games
You can also adapt many AAA games to 3d glasses with minimal issues. The physics and models are unchanged just a 'minor' change to the UI and renderer.
The Vive will be as expensive and likely more expensive than the Rift.
> Developing a high quality gaming experience is EXPENSIVE, and AAA regularly do not recoup their costs even when they're being offered to a huge user base
Oculus has already paid for a number of Rift exclusive games. Expect them to keep doing that.
Not to mention, it's only 1 game... for this to work, pretty much 99% of AAA titles need to be designed for VR (not just the "enable VR" checkbox).
Call of Duty Black Ops III was just released... no VR support. Battlefront was just released, same thing. These are the AAA titles that would bring support... but they aren't. (it also shows Facebook et al did a terrible job of convincing AAA studios to think towards VR... which could be a nail in the VR coffin in they don't come around on their own).
(and yes, I know there are ways to get both games to work with VR... but it's not native, and the game wasn't designed with VR in mind).
Given it can take 1-2 years to develop a AAA title, it could be a long while before we see it becoming the "norm". In the meantime, all of Oculus' competitors will be on the market, probably cheaper and better (due to learning from the first-to-market's mistakes).
AAA status is usually reserved for big studios that produce many games of high quality(ish), and yes, with big budgets (GTA5 cost over $265 MM to create).
A parallel would be a big budget movie produced by Sony vs. Veronica Mars. Veronica Mars was produced by successful people within the film industry, but it's not on the same level as a full production.
> $105 million (and counting) in dev costs
Well, that's not in dev costs... that's money raised... and they're trying to bootstrap a company at the same time, so not all of that money will even go to the game development (unlike a big budget big studio development where literally every penny of their quoted budget is in development cost as the business is already established and earning on it's own).
(Although expect to see people playing FPSs on virtual IMAX-like screens in VR. A little bit of stable context can mitigate the nausea.)
But why are you counting the titles available today? The Rift hasn't even been released yet. Even if they are planning to adapt those titles, there's not much incentive for EA and Activision to rush their ports out.
The development kits have been out for years. The failure to bring big AAA titles to the Rift at launch clearly shows one of two things:
1) Facebook et all were unsuccessful in persuading AAA studios to work with them on VR for relative lined-up launches.
2) Facebook et all did not try to persuade AAA studios to work with them on VR, instead opting for it to grow "organically".
Both are total failures for the Rift, and may spell disaster. For an expensive device like this, it needs several AAA titles featuring full support... they don't exist.
Part of this miraculous unplanned and very sudden firesale to Facebook was so that Oculus could have "virtually unlimited funds", which would be used to further the platform... Facebook could have easily subsidized AAA studios to produce full Oculus/VR support on their next title... but that clearly didn't happen.
Right now they have a serious expectation management problem with their price - they're turning off customers because they nearly doubled their asking price overnight. Those free units would translate into a sizeable discount for their paying retail customers, so I argue that the problem here is both real and self-inflicted.
I doubt it. Initial runs are always more expensive because you're paying for the initial tooling and investment, not necessarily because of the actual raw price of the unit. Depending on minimum size commitments and the like with the manufacturers, the 7k "free" units may even be netting a discount on the remaining unit costs.
[1] http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/build-an-amazing-gef...
Regarding the other things - the fact that nice components exist is entirely irrelevant to the failures of expectation management here. If NVIDIA spent 2 years marketing the Titan X as the best GPU to have at the $1k price point, and then on launch day it's suddenly $2k - their customers would very justifiably be pissed and it would certainly affect sales.
It's neither here nor there, but you can also cut build costs quite a bit further than they did in that article. You can bring it down to about $800 for the same set of core components. Buy the CPU at MicroCenter, use the stock CPU fan instead of a cooler, buy a refurb 970 from EVGA, look for a 750W Gold PSU around the $50 mark, buy a cheaper mobo, buy cheaper memory. You can even go cheaper if you make some minor compromises - use a 2500k and overclock, get a refurb 780 Ti from EVGA B-stock (same performance as a 970), and you can also drop the HDD until you really need more space. That lets you squeeze at least another $200 out of it pretty easily without affecting performance, which would get you down to around $600.
I think you are wrong on that. I honestly doubt the 6500 free units they are giving out would actually affect the price at all. Think about this, what would have been worse, your 6500 most loyal and vocal customers being pissed because the price of an oculus rift was doubled overnight or goodwill from dropping the price of a rift 10 dollars?
With that in mind, 7k free units may very well indeed be sizable.
Regardless, they already pissed off most of their original backers during the sudden-no-forementioned sale to Facebook (which to this day remains a bizarre marriage). Sure, it may make some folks feel better, but it's unlikely to tip the scales in any sizable manner (or effect the eventual outcome of bringing this product to market).
Just wondering if we would think the same way if Apple had launched this even for something as high as $1000.
Perception matters. The apple watch is median $500. And its not even something novel. Watches have existed since hundreds of years.
I think Apple will come to launch VR sometime in the future and it will be ~$1000, and people will buy without blinking, because people will think it's Apple, and a expensive product means a good product.
The few OSX gamers I know just gave up and run parallels or bootcamp.
VR could be the next paradigm shift, but it might not be.
If it is then the transformation could arguably be bigger than mobile was and the hardware/software companies can't ignore it. Games may just be the first obvious application.
While autonomous cars have been more obviously coming since 2012, VR is more uncertain. I'd imagine Apple is doing some work here though or at least watching it closely.
You have to be really rich, and have the right attitude to think that just cause something is expensive it is good.
I spend a lot of money with Apple, but I'm always paying attention to cost-- I count every penny, and if I could get comparable quality elsewhere I would certainly consider it.
The thing is, nobody is making decent laptops, or mobile phones or watches to compete with Apple, certainly not at Apple's price points. Those who think Apple is expensive have a much lower threshold for what is "Good" -- which is fine, they are not using the items in the same way I am.
$599 is nothing for their target: a Dell "Gaming Monitor" is $699.99 (S2716DG) for instance.
Avid gamers do have a habit of going overboard on things, such as buying 64GB+ of RAM even though they never use it (and wont unless they run VM's, or huge services/server software, etc...).
It's easy to spend $2,000-$4,000+ on a super high end gaming rig, but in reality the $1,000 rig will game just fine for a long while before mandating upgrades.
The monitor will last you for at least five years, the Rift will be outdated within the year.
I'm very interested to try Oculus, but not until the price is around other gaming accessories (i.e. south of 200€). Unless someone comes out with game or app that completely revolutionalizes the way we use computers I'm not forking over 750€ for a fad
Furthermore, the PS3 was a known quantity because of its predecessors. You could reasonably assume that you could get hundreds of hours of entertainment for that initial purchase. VR is unproven and the asking price is just too steep for such a gamble (for me anyway).
Almost all serious PC gamers I've ever known upgrade their graphics cards every 9 - 18months. Very few serious gamers keep a gaming rig untouched for 2 years.
Also the comments about a screen or a graphics card being used for more than gaming. Again, sorry, but most hardcore gamers have a gaming rig for gaming, and will use a phone/tablet/laptop for their more casual usage. They generally dislike cluttering up their primary machine with office productivity apps, etc.
It's a false comparison. It's like someone owning a car for track racing, and saying: "yeah, the seats are expensive, but they will be useful when driving down to the shops to pick up some milk". Absurd. Sure, people might drive their road legal track car to a car show, or a garage, or a parts shop, or their friends, from time to time, but that's part of the hobby experience - not used as a justification for the parts/modification.
I get that VR is a fun tech, and has some potentially cool possibilities. But to me and seemingly many other people, it's just not that interesting. I don't know why, maybe I'm not geek enough, but I just have zero interest. And frankly it feels kind of like a gimmick. I'm especially averse to the idea of strapping on a clumsy headset every time I want to use it.
In fact, I wish Carmack and Newell would stop messing around with it and go back to producing quality games.
Downvote away
Also, is it good to have your eyes focusing on something that close to your face for a long period of time?
(not a doctor)
The converse thought about the differences between viewing a VR screen vs a 2D monitor.
VR Screens you have the capability of your eyes needing to adjust to different depths. That is, the muscles that dictate the position of your eyes will need to be recalibrated slightly when you start viewing entities at different depths.
With 2D monitors you're approximately at the same text tracking rate.
There's ergonomic software that will periodically instruct you to look away from your computer screen to focus on points in the distance for the health of your eyes.
Gaming will be about as important to mixed reality as gaming is to all of computing today.
It's shaping up to be one of the most revolutionary technologies of our generation.
People need to believe in the medium and pioneer content in spite of lack of interest, in hope to generate that interest, or it will remain an unsolved chicken-and-egg problem.
I believe Newell and Carmack do want to make high quality "games" in the sense of interactive experiences, and they see VR as an opportunity for that. What's required is patience and dedicated resources, fuelled by early adopters/aspirers.
Maybe it's one of those technologies that needs a breakthrough moment, or to reach critical mass to where mainstream adoption starts occurring. Because right now it feels very "really? We're trying to make this happen again?" to me.
The best, is piloting a machine - car, plane, etc. You're in a seat, like your real body is.
You're waiting for the: experiencing a X-Wing in motion while in a dog fight destroying TIE fighters over Jakku, R2-D2 beeping in your ears demo.
If you get the chance try Eve Valkyrie on a DK2. It is one of the closest, currently existing, demos to the one I described above.
That remains to be seen when VR headsets arrive in households. We just don't know that yet.
I got convinced by the tech after trying a Develover Kit, but the that people (inclduing me) will get sick from it is my big concern.
Sick doesn't mean cancer or tuberclosis.
I remember from my childhood watching TV was considered bad, because it was thought to be bad fore one's eyes. Ear phones were bad for the ears and reading on the smart phone in a bus makes me motion sick to date.
Like everything there is a middle ground.
If enough people can't use it because they get uncomfortable from it, because they puke on the floor, that would be a bad thing. I understand that there is a lot of work being done to prevent that. And still I think it is something to look out for.
I eventually became less sensitive to it. I imagine the same will happen with VR after we get our "VR legs".
Conversely, if someone has bad experiences and tries to power-through them anyway repeatedly, it can build up an aversion similar to a "bad tequila night" and ruin VR for that person permanently.
Thanks for making Doom! :)
I suppose VR has a higher hurdle-rate because the nausea thing has been pre-telegraphed by early adopters of suboptimal beta tech. But I have no doubt that immersive technology is the future.
Sometimes they were just curmudgeons who don't like change, sometimes they were right on all counts.
The same will unfold with VR over coming years. Affordable options with great content and applications can make this a common place gadget.
I currently live in a living room, disturbance and lack of privacy are the biggest annoyances. Something like this looks like an ideal way to create a wall of privacy regardless of who is around. The use cases for such a device are uncountable.
Case in point - Google Glass. I think Glass could have found viability in specific uses, but they marketed as "people are going to wear this everywhere!" and the resulting backlash completely destroyed the concept in the mind of the consumer.
Not everything has to be an overnight success, or requires every person on the planet using it to be successful. HDTV took years and years to gain traction, during which time the technology improved and became cheaper by leaps and bounds.
I think the current Oculus marketing message - "we know it's expensive; the technology is still improving; we don't really know exactly what the killer apps and best uses cases are for VR yet; this is targeted at hobbyists and people who want to push the envelope and set the stage for the next phase of VR" - is right on. They should stick with that and make sure they don't drift into "VR will revolutionize your life and your social network" territory. Let the early adopters figure out what to do with it.
This is the FIRST consumer release! This is the Palm Pilot 1 of VR.
Yes most of the content right now is mediocre but there are some mindblowing experiences too.
For instance Elite Dangerous + DK2 + Motion Sim.
It literally feels like you are piloting a craft in outer space.
Here's a demo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqr8ee7GORY
I have a similar rig and I literally have to fight off the skeptics / marginally interested after they try it.
The "strap on a clumsy" headset part is going to go away quickly. Every sensor in there is being miniaturized by the day. Magic Leap (and others) are using tricks to project imagery directly onto your retina. The form factor will wind up wireless, probably look similar to google glass.
Oculus + 3D audio + input + eventual tactical is going to completely blur the lines of reality in ways we can't yet imagine - gaming, training, social interaction, SEX, therapy, etc, etc - it's all going to be different in 10 years because of VR.
I believe that being a student of VR at this point, which I believe will be the top mechanism to consume content in the future, is akin to being an early iphone dev.
Plus gave me a good excuse to order the CV1 :)
Actually, there were multiple VR technologies released in the 90s and 2000s. This isn't like being on the groundfloor of some new concept, its like a revival of something old. I wish Oculus all the luck in the world, but this technology has failed in the market many times. Yes, maybe more FPS and higher resolutions is what was needed, but I guess we'll see. Some 90's products:
http://www.cheatsheet.com/technology/a-trip-down-virtual-rea...
Its funny how there's this "everything old is new again and we all suddenly have amnesia" attitude with VR advocates. They talk about the headsets which are pricey and annoying to use(and no one has solved the motion sickness problem perfectly yet). They talk about the metaverse, yet we've had Second Life for a decade and it didn't revolutionize anything and is largely an online joke.
Whether people think the social and economic cost of strapping a tissue size box to your face is worth it, is worthy of being skeptical about. 3D TV's came at a zero premium over regular TV's not too long ago, and no one wanted to wear those dorky glasses. Many people I know, myself included, avoid the 3D showings at theaters because of how gimmicky it is and how those glasses wash out the colors (not a concern with the Rift).
>It literally feels like you are piloting a craft in outer space.
You have no idea what its like to be in outer space. You're getting this manufactured and fake experience by game devs who also don't know what its like to be in outer space. That's what really bugs me about this platform, how incredibly fake everything is, yet somehow the marketing is all about it being 'real.' I would love a hardnosed simulator with all the tactile feedback and such involved, instead we're just getting Unity3D shovelware with basic 3D tropes like moving starfields and everyone suddenly thinks this is amazing. Its not. Its just a lot of hype from gamers obsessed with fake experiences and general gamer fanboyism, which is almost always unadulterated hype. Remember the Kinect and all the hype behind it? Its now a dead peripheral:
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/gaming/consoles/5-ways-xbox...
Hell, even the crowd friendly Wii motion controls have been put on the "gimmick" shelf after a, maybe, 2 or 3 year period where everyone was raving it was the future of gaming.
>t's all going to be different in 10 years because of VR.
According to HN/Reddit/Slashdot we'd have jetpacks, space hotels, 500 year lifespans, cancer cures, and robot servants by now. I'd be very careful with the old "just wait 10 years guys, then you'll see my questionable premise was actually right" trope. Ironically, its an antique.
A better comparison might be the first iPhone. There were smartphones before the iPhone, but the iPhone is the one we think of today as being the first REAL smartphone.
Gee, maybe we should stop pretending we can all spot the next iphone from this far out?
Now, if we were talking about neural interfaces, that would be a more interesting discussion.
But I fundamentally disaggree that it's less interesting. I'm going to assume you're just jaded by the awesome we're constantly surrounded by instead of just taking the easy, boring interpretation. Even 2D animation is advancing where you wouldn't expect (I found the technical work giving the artists better control on The Paperman surprising [0]). New rendering philosophies, networking algorithms, AI/bots, social integration, all of this leads to a refinement that's well worth the effort.
It took a long, long time to get from oscilloscopes [1] to the Occulus, and hopefully in a couple generations we'll have even cooler stuff. Expect to see demos and then have to wait a while for the hard, brutal engineering work to make it actually usable [2].
For the Occulus, the real win is getting the feedback loop between a just-good-enough-monitor and the accelerometer down to few enough milliseconds the brain can kinda fall for it. Like a cartoon, but for motion feedback. Expect other companies to say "I can do better" and let the races begin. The Occulus is a big deal, and better stuff is just a little bit away.
Don't be jaded! Real cool stuff is in the pipe!
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZJLtujW6FY [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two [2] http://dougengelbart.org/events/1968-demo-highlights.html
I was backer 513 for the oculus kickstarter and am beyond pumped for my free cv1.
The actual experience is great despite enormous product flaws. I'm thrilled there's so many options coming down the pipe, as that will make the
Carmack and Newell are going back to producing quality games. Those two have been in semi-retirement for years now, and VR is the thing that finally got them excited to make things again. Those two have been dreaming about VR gaming since the day multiplayer was added to Doom.
Also, the trolls still haven't figured out how to downvote here. Don't tip them off.
You're looking at the Palm Pilot of VR. VR, and mixed reality, is going to get more compelling.
3D TV was very similar in that it worked great for one person, but once you got more than that, you had to make sure everyone had their own pair of glasses, everyone was sitting at an appropriate angle, etc. You couldn't just walk in and out and have a casual social TV experience, because for people without the glasses or sitting at the wrong angle, the image is blurry and unwatchable.
I think there is a market for VR, but I don't think it's the mass market. That doesn't mean VR won't eventually get there, but it's not there now.
in VR dropping frames / latency directly maps to motion sickness, so it's not a case of "eh, I can deal with the framerate not being super solid" like it can be on normal gaming.
This costs less than some flagship cellphones, 599 is definitely not that much all things considered.
Do you have any articles/papers about this? I'm not doubting you, just curious!
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hol...
as somebody who has major issues with their inner ear I can guarantee that you really do NOT want to get vertigo if you can at all help it
Except you'll also need a killer desktop PC that can run it [1]:
- NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
- Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
- 8GB+ RAM
- Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
- 2x USB 3.0 ports
- Windows 7 SP1 or newer
So in total you are probably looking at close to $2,000 [3] to use the Rift not including whatever games or applications cost - of which there are not yet a lot of titles (I'm sure that will change in short order though).
[1]http://www.pcgamer.com/oculus-rift-pc-requirements-revealed/
[2]http://www.techtimes.com/articles/118068/20151219/excited-fo...
Looks like I'll be holding off consideration until I upgrade :)
That's also not a "killer" desktop. The 290 is a a 2.5 year old card. The GTX 970 is equivalent to a 680 or 780. The 680 came out almost four years ago. If you had no computer at all, you could build that system for ~$700 - $750 ($200 CPU, $100 Mobo, $200 Used GPU, $50 RAM, $75 SSD, $100 Tower+PSU).
But that's immaterial, as most early buyers of the Rift have hardware that meets the requirements above. And four USB ports? A $10-$20 powered USB hub solves that. Wouldn't surprise me if it came with one.
~$700 - $750
For casual gamers and the general public it's a non-starter.
Ok, you say, well it's not for them yet. Actually that's the whole point. In every article and everything that people are talking about in and around VR the whole discussion is how it transforms everything. You think Netflix is on-board so they can cater to PC Master Race people?
I'm bullish on VR (moreso AR actually) but lets not pretend that the next few years will see your average consumer using VR like this. More likely, they will be using something like the GearVR, which I think has a much brighter future.
The AMD 290 is a sub 200$ graphics card and an i5-4590 is a 200$ CPU. More importantly this is a 600$ display, and it's not aimed at poor people.
Maybe the number of ports is for power, obviating the need to bundle a region-specific mains adapter? In that case, a powered USB hub would be fine, a passive one wouldn't.
You have to have a house that you can add a charging station to, in order to buy it, which most people don't have.
(edit: This price does not include shipping.)
Which means the fair price would be EUR 640, almost 10% lower.
Also, Luxembourg's VAT is 17% nowadays. [5]
[1] https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A30464Q6OVH578
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax...
[3] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-what-to-do-if-youre-an-overs...
[4] http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/tax...
[5] http://www.vatlive.com/european-news/luxembourg-vat-rise-17-...
I was going to preorder one but that's £100-£150 too much for me to justify spending on it for now to be honest.
Perhaps after the first reviews and supported games start to arrive I'll reconsider.
Edit: and on Chrome mobile
It is interesting to me that the first impulse of so many people in this thread is to try to logically justify the price in the face of people saying they won't buy it -- I'm not saying those people are wrong when comparing the price to a high end monitor or graphics cards, it just isn't relevant to whether or not I'm willing to buy this at $600.
My decision not to buy this doesn't mean I don't think the device is worth the money being asked for everyone, nor do I think Oculus/FB is wrong for pricing it thusly, it is just more than I am personally willing to pay for something that is a fairly niche novelty at this point.
At the current asking price it is very easy for me to justify waiting until gen 2 or gen 3 when things are much cheaper and there's even more support out there.
To be accurate, the next Intel process shrink (Cannonlake@10nm) is delayed to 2H 2017. Kaby Lake@14nm fills in for 2016, and mostly features chipset updates (e.g. native USB 3.1 and more PCIE lanes). Likely no socks to be blown off there.
Nvidia with Pascal will be out ~2H 2016, and is probably worth waiting for. AMD will be out with Arctic Islands as well. Both are process shrinks from 28nm.
If you're looking at buying the next generation, it'll be either existing Intel + new GPU 2H 2016, or Cannonlake w/ likely 2016 GPU in 2017.
Given that CPU isn't a bottleneck in existing graphics applications, 2H 2016 is as good of a time to buy as any. Which also happens to mean missing the hype train and letting real-world reviews of HMDs come in before choosing.
You would probably need a card that supported DX11 or equivalent and possibly DX12 - not sure about the CV1 spec on that.
"Can I use a weaker PC for basic content?
With weaker hardware, it may be possible to run very graphically simplistic content like virtual desktop, virtual cinema (for watching movies), and 360 videos, however you will be totally on your own without support if you choose to do this, and it is unlikely that there will be many (or any) games that support lower specs.
If you do wish to take this non-recommended path, your PC must at least meet the absolute minimum requirements:
Video Card: GTX 650 / AMD 7750 desktop GPU or better and newer
USB Ports: 2x USB 3.0 ports
Video Output: free HDMI 1.3 output
OS: Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
IMHO, this is the biggest issue. The computer landscape has shifted towards laptops/mobile and now this device requires a device whose marketshare is shrinking.
(Although it's quite a beefy laptop, optimised for 3D work.)
Edit: Also remembered that we used as Kinect, which requires Windows
Basically, forcing people to shell out ATLEAST 1600$ to be able to use it (not to mention making them buy a desktop).
Aside: I was always more interested in the potential of Gear VR. Thanks for the info.
That's pretty close.
You can for example get away with rendering at 30Hz for a typical game, but that's a recipe for nausea in VR - where you'd want 90-120Hz instead. That's a lot of extra pixels immediately.
Even something as simple as a virtual desktop is going to be pretty performance intensive if only because of how many pixels your hardware has to push around.
There's not really a good way to make a mass-consumer (i.e., low-end PC, mid-end phone) version of this tech yet, and probably not in the near future either since any hardware gains we make (either in mobile or desktop) will be poured into visual fidelity.
Apart from the recommended spec, the Rift will require:
*Windows 7 SP1 or newer
*2x USB 3.0 ports
*HDMI 1.3 video output supporting a 297MHz clock via a direct output architecture
In the late 1990s-early 2000s a decent gaming PC would cost you between $2500 and $3500, and those numbers represented more money than they do today.
A "very high end computer by today's standard", when it comes to games, would have a GPU that's substantially faster than what Oculus is requiring ... I find their requirement shockingly low and wonder if that is a tactical mistake.
Get off my damn lawn, when I was a wee lad, I reserved my copy of Super Mario 3 and was HAPPY to find a store to hold a copy for me on release, of course full retail price of $65. That's $130 in today's dollars!
While I think the concern for content is a valid one, I think indies and non-gaming apps will come through with a few breakthrough experiences that will drive the first set of sales, paving the way for the AAAs.
And it means we will have decent competition to the Rift, for those who don't want Facebook monitoring our every glance and gesture.
Howso? I was super interested in the Rift, until it was acquired. Now I have absolutely no interest in it.
Some great QA went into this release.
I wonder what the purpose of collecting at as MM/YYYY even is given that everyone will have an expiration date of 20YY for a long time; and that when they don't, the ones collected now will be expired so not an issue. Even if they store it locally as 20YY to avoid some bug in 2100 (which would be rather long term thinking at this point), it still makes no sense to collect it that way and to autocorrect. Why not just append the digits on the back end?
Watching my ship date go from March to April and now probably May was a bit disheartening.
Still no success.
So it isn't just one problem...
I kept getting vague "Something went wrong. Please try again." messages on both the Payment Method and (when I finally got there) the Review and Complete Order pages. Meanwhile, my expected ship date went from March to April. It wouldn't accept my AMEX at all, for some reason.
I guess I should be happy it was only a single authorization charge?
Palmer's thread on twitter "insanely high load": https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/684772857625231360
I'm sure that there are very viable reasons to release now, but I still have a feeling that it was more of a "release as soon as it's acceptable" than a "release as soon as we can be sure the launch will go amazingly."
I wouldn't be surprised if we saw yearly iterations of the Rift for the first few versions. Ultimately I think this tech has to be paired with a console rather than a PC for widespread adoption.
When is this not the case? Two years into the future, hardware will be vastly cheaper /in two more years/
That being said, there are currently not a lot of options between their recommended specs (gtx 970) and the current "top of the line" gfx cards (gtx 980 Ti) If their recommended specs are inadequate to get a good experience, people simply won't have many upgrade options until the next gen GFX cards start coming out (Q2 2016 at the earliest.)
So much for the "ballpark of $349".
Edit: That's without shipping. With shipping its $800 (€745).
Ouch.
I'd love to hear about other Linux users' experience with a consumer unit though. I'm really excited about VR and would love to pick up a headset at some point soon.
I hope Oculus start to focus on Linux support again soon!
The graphic driver situation is abysmal for both. With Linux, you might as well not even bother with modern AMD cards. They've done a terrible job the last few years, often eschewing such things as a change log that shows what this random update you're downloading does.
NVIDIA is much better on Linux overall, but even they have got a lot of limitations and quirks. Performance is much better than AMD, as long as you don't use the open source drivers.
On Mac, the drivers are crazy out of date and seem to be very tied to specific Mac OS releases. I don't know whether to be irate with Apple or NVIDIA/AMD. Linux benchmarks better on many games than Mac OS. Phoronix runs these periodically if you wanted to see some numbers.
Until the driver situation improves a bit, it's going to be hit-or-miss on a per-game basis.
https://mobile.twitter.com/palmerluckey/status/6743118650239...
I'd really like the infinite space for terminals and docs. Maybe turning my head to look over at stackoverflow would suck, but my glasses are thick, so even through the lens vision is blurry at the edges.
I can imagine a goofy hackers style 3d world would be amusing for a while. Even a really pedestrian window manager would be nice. terminals could be very tall, so i could look up to see many commands back. heck, i could float docs where the keyboard is right now.
Full visual field seems neat.
Add a high refresh rate and that's far higher datarate than we can handle right now. And you'd need display tech that's pretty insane.
While it's not a replacement yet, if you're happy with some oldschool low res displays it's probably fine. Someone should do the math of the resolution you'd get in some examples.
But you're right, ideally your desktop becomes this pseudo 2D space in 3D, where you manage multiple windows at once all around you.
Linux support is slightly sadder.
Maybe one day!
A Mac Pro is theoretically fast enough but only in games set up to leverage both GPUs - one of them alone doesn't meet the minimum spec either.
- touch controllers not available yet
- Valve/HTC Vive may be considerably better -- wait for solid reviews of consumer units together with the games we're interested in
- AMD & NVidia will have card refreshes in a similar time frame. These refreshes finally move to a new process, from 28nm to 14nm FinFET, so the performance increase should be quite massive. This means that a mid-range video card should be enough.
Also, people with monocular vision have reported that the 3D-ness and presence of VR headsets works just as well as real life. In fact, it's fairly common for people with stereo vision to have a hard time noticing when they are running VR software that intentionally/unintentionally displays in mono.
This will remain a small niche market until mainstream killer apps arrive - and those won't be games. The obvious killer apps are a) immersive major league sports, b) immersive animated movies, c) immersive porn. Then the tech gets cheap enough that useful killer apps will emerge (education, history, etc.)
It's frustrating enough having to own multiple redundant game consoles to play all AAA titles, but it'll be even worse (and basically unaffordable) having to own multiple VR headsets.
It's not really that different from multiple consoles, what did an Xbox360 and a PS3 cost in today's dollars?
Is there a killer app for this yet? The roller coaster simulators are fun for about ten minutes. Second Life now works with the Oculus Rift [3] but few people care.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGIIQf3krMM [2] http://www.amazon.com/Oculus-Rift-Developers-Kit-Dk2/dp/B00F... [3] http://secondlife.com/destinations/oculus
(Also, it really needs a steering wheel. Trying to drive a realistic vehicle with a game pad/joystick is awful.)
But you gotta give 'em points for mapping the FOV control to the 'seat position' (or something close).
I kinda hoped that the other vendors would have had something remarkable by now.
The Oculus is a different kettle of fish, of course. But $599 seems almost like a deliberate reference.
I will have to wait for retail demo units or something.
Oculus is the Apple of VR.
So for a Mac user like myself, that $599 would include a good $1k+ for a Windows PC ?
Nevertheless I'm very excited about this tech, although I will not jump into it just yet.
The closest comparable console is the Virtual Boy from 1995.
O_O
Oh well, maybe they forgot to look at it on retina.
document.getElementsByClassName("op-item-info__cost__price")[0].textContent;
"$59900"
I think it's unwise to target 'hardcore gaming pc users' who will drop 600 on a new video card enough to not bat an eye at this price. In that context it might be a hit, but that's hardly going to forward VR into the mass market as was the original hope of this device, at least for me.
Like other have also touched on, Sony seems to be in a better position now. They are a consumer product company and have learned the hard way of the perils of a roughly 600 dollar gaming device and how that works out in actual sales (the original PS3 was 599 at launch at got pummeled by Xbox360).
This would all be a moot point if there were that one true killer VR app that made us all want a Rift but it doesn't exist right now either from what I can tell. This again plays into Sony's hands as they can sit and wait for that one product to emerge and maybe have already grabbed it (they seem to be holding the reins now on No Man's Sky, which could very well be the VR killer app we are all waiting for).
Time will tell but I'm disappointed. VR for the masses will have to wait a bit longer.
Even iPhone only sold 6 million in the first gen.
I think PSVR, which is already rumoured to be cheaper will be far more successful, and the install base for the PS4 is already there.
Sony are in a unique position to use the PSVR as a loss leader to sell VR software, which Oculus can't (currently) compete with - hence the high price.
The resolution is lower than typical on PC games, framerate is important, and the experience is very different.
So I bet they could get away with repurposing a lot of old content into new oculus games.
I experIenced a lot of overload issues: "Something went wrong. Please try again." in red when I try to pay. I solved it by just keeping on trying. Issue was oveload, not my credit cards. See followup too.
When I got the DK2 I spent way more time grinning that I could stand up and look around behind my flight chair and around my cockpit in Elite Dangerous than I'd like to admit. Just having a 3d "surround" image to look around is cool but positional tracking makes you feel like you're really "there".
The part that really pisses me off is the 30 dollars for shipping. What a joke.
Sony (PS4) has their own VR tech.
The Xbox controller ensures all Rift users have the same hardware, which is especially important with VR experiences.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/13328295/minnesota-vikings...
[0]: http://www.mercurynews.com/49ers/ci_28784441/virtual-reality...
Still gonna hold off on this and thankfully I can still do stuff with the DK2 until future runtimes stop supporting it in newer applications. I'm mostly just looking forward to watching the whole platform (VR in general) evolve past the initial "make Fallout/Minecraft/CoD in VR" phase and get into more immersive movies, VR telepresence, and new ways to communicate and create stuff.
Its no Virtual Boy, but its the best substitute I can find. :)
The $600 price point is not targeting average consumers -- this is a PC enthusiast product.
Expect the next generation of VR -- one with a clearer set of best-practices -- to hit mainstream.