Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe Steps Down

The Rift is more comfortable to wear, but it comes at the cost of reduced Field of View. The Vive can really be strapped onto the face hard, giving a view that almost verges on providing peripheral vision. The Rift feels like looking through binoculars in comparison.

The Touch controllers are much lighter and better balanced that the Vive wands. Personally, I found the grip gestures expected for the Touch to be very painful, but that will vary by person. I do think they are too clever by half. I got a better sense of "I'm holding a gun" out of gun-games on the Vive than on Touch. I also found the ability to aim at and hit targets easier on the Vive. Ultimately, I think the argument on which controller is better is missing the greater point though, as neither is an ideal design. A hand-tracking system would be much better (and no, not the Leap Motion, that thing is garbage, yes, even after the Orion update). Though Vive-centric games have always had both motion controllers and room-scale by default, whereas the Rift market is now fragmented between gamepads and Touch, and seated versus standing. Also, Touch is only just now out, whereas Vive has had developers working on content for over half a year. Indeed, Valve is already working on a new form factor for the controller.

The two camera setup for the Rift is absolutely, hands-down awful. In a room dedicated to VR setup, I constantly lost tracking when turned to the left or right. The Vive's Lighthouse system is designed to be much, much more scalable. I've never had such pervasive problems maintaining tracking with the Vive.

Yes, you're supposed to have three cameras for room-scale on the Rift. To me, that's another point against the Rift. It's a very complex system that is prone to failure. I can get the Vive to track a space about 20ft by 20ft on stock hardware, in default configuration, with no special finagling, just calibrate and go. I have to spend more money on an extra camera with the Rift, extra PCIe cards for all these USB3 cameras, and it's hit or miss whether or not I can get 10ft by 10ft working.

The Rift's camera based system is limited by how high of a resolution they can pack into the camera, how sensitive they are to tiny IR LEDs across a room, and how many spare cycles they have to run the image processing algorithm on all those camera feeds. In comparison, the Vive's Lighthouse system is limited by how bright they can make the sync pulse, which basically amounts to an IR flash bulb.

In general, I think this is indicative of a much larger problem in VR, consumer reactions, and journalistic reporting. These are all amazing pieces of technology. If you've never seen any VR system after 2015, then you're not prepared for the experience these things provide. It's really easy to get lost in the wow-factor and fail to evaluate the system as a whole. E.g. the Rift headset is more comfortable, but is comfort an important metric compared to FOV? Is it enough that the Touch controllers are theoretically "more ergonomic" than the Vive wands, or is application design built around the controller important, too? Or the MS Hololens: wave-guide displays and inside out tracking are craaaaazy! But they are also kind of janky, the FOV is unusably narrow, and Windows Holographic has terrible UI affordances.

When I stop losing the forest for the trees and focus on a unified experience, the only system I have time for in my personal life right now is the Vive. We support "everything" in the projects we build, but if I'm just trying to relax and enjoy myself, I know the Rift and Gear VR and Hololens and Daydream are all staying on the shelf.

One related theory I can't find any wikipedia information on stems from an old TED talk from 2010:

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/first-follower-theor...

Even if we traditionally consider ourselves (I've always been a "nerd"/"core"/"early adopter"/whatever) on the sidelines, when our industry and interests have taken center stage I think we have had a greater influence than we care to admit, or even want.

Some people want to be first at something, but many people don't, either for lack of anyone else to use said thing with, or lack of support, or high cost of entry, or unproven quality, etc.

I hate to get political, but I think it's increasingly clear that movements can begin with something as simple as a few memes from someones computer.

But it's of course hard to tell if "our" audience is the right one at all times (eg Google Glass, Google+), when comparing to Facebook (select few colleges) and Snapchat spectacles ("celebrity" millenials).

Oculus was brand new, and as one of their first acts they pissed off most of the people who had supported them, and the VR community in general.

With a perfectly good alternative (that is in some ways better), why would any enthusiast choose Oculus at this point?

And non-enthusiasts aren't buying the systems because they're too expensive and there are too few games. They effectively handed their entire market to another company for the next few years.

> [...]

> There's no doubt that "influencers" are important in driving sales, but I'm skeptical whether they can play a similar role in preventing sales--especially if average consumers see value in the underlying product.

The problem is: The necessary system requirements for an Oculus Rift (CPU, GPU (in particular), USB ports) are rather high. The average potential consumer you mention might see value in the Oculus Rift - but will probably not be enthusiastic enough to be willing to additionally buy a high-end PC etc. So the large pool that you believe Facebook is aiming for will contain many more hardcore enthusiasts and much less "average consumers" than you think.

The differences between the market of people buying console-focused first-person shooters and the one for virtual reality headset systems make this comparison not really work.

Call of Duty was originally a much-beloved FPS series during a time when the genre was dominated by multiplayer games with high skill ceilings and "twitch" or reflex-based mechanics. They catered to the market available to them at the time, which was enthusiast gamers with the hardware required to run 3D video games (and to a lesser extend internet access that could play them online.) Consoles had existed for a while, but they weren't always in the position they are now. CoD 2 was released in late 2005, the Xbox 360 was released right around the same time, and the PS3 wouldn't come out until the next year. Internet multiplayer has been a reality on the PC since the 90's but Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network didn't even exist until the early 2000's. Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox famously didn't support internet multiplayer, but its PC version did.

By this point it's obvious that the numbers in gaming are shifting. The relatively low sticker price of a gaming console means you don't have to work with the segment of the population who have enthusiast-grade computers. Pretty much anyone can afford to buy an Xbox 360. Crucially, the expense of console gaming isn't frontloaded. The most expensive part of being in the PC gaming segment was (and still is) either buying a bunch of components and assembling yourself, or spending even more for a prebuilt. Assembling computer parts is actually not that hard, but not assembling computer parts is even easier, and you can walk out of any department store with a home console for a few hundred dollars. You'll spend more than that over time from subscriptions, peripherals, more expensive games, etc., but you won't have to spend a grand up front just to start playing.

Call of Duty's publisher, Activision, observed that this new pie is titanic compared to the old one and decided to focus on grabbing a slice of it. There's now a market available to them that's way bigger, will pay the same amount of money for the disk, and doesn't necessarily need things like a dedicated server with admin features. Their new approach of releasing titles on a more annual schedule for this market works because it's substantially larger.

On the VR side of things, an HTC Vive costs eight hundred dollars. The Oculus Rift, which is just the headset and has no hand controllers or "room scale" features like the Vive, will still run you $599. Its "Touch" hand controllers became available only recently and buying those will send you up to the same price point as the Vive. Keep your wallet out, because VR applications require high end GPUs with as much memory as possible, like the Nvidia GTX 1060, which is likely to run you $270 or more. Today's virtual reality options are restricted to dedicated enthusiasts with expendable income to a much greater extent than early Call of Duty games were. Aiming for a market other than "VR enthusiasts" is senseless, there is no other market.

There are VR products that aren't quite so ludicrously expensive, like the Gear VR that uses a phone, but my experience is that they have very little to offer and casual consumers aren't going to line up to buy games for them.

I think Oculus doesn't want to dillute it's marketing and reach the largest core group, so front facing standing. Many people don't have 5 by 7 feet free. We're currently at the stage of enthusiasts though, which have more money and space than typical users, and will move shit to make space (I sure did), which could definitely be a mistake...

I think that Oculus is avoiding marketing room-scale because Touch legitimately does not do it very well compared to the Vive:

* It almost certainly requires a third camera, which adds another $79 to the cost.

* Even with the third camera, the controllers lose tracking fairly easily if they're oriented away from the cameras (e.g., orient them towards your torso, but with nothing blocking the line of sight to the cameras).

* Even with the third camera, you end up with a smaller tracking volume than with the Vive.

* Lots of Touch owners are reporting serious tracking issues by just setting up two sensors in opposing corners. Others say it works fairly well. Your results will most likely be random.

* The Rift cable is barely long enough to work well if you're actually walking around your space rather than just standing still.

* In the same vein, Oculus does not sell or endorse any extension cables for the Rift HMD. I've seen folks try out a lot of them with mixed success.

* The sensors have to be plugged straight into your PC, which with three cameras uses up a lot of USB ports.

* Even with the third camera, you'll only get one extension cable from Oculus, so the two existing sensors will still be pretty tethered to your PC.

* Even with the extension cable, it's not easy setting up the cameras in optimal locations throughout the room.

* Oculus does not supply any mounting brackets or sell any brackets on their website for mounting against the wall.

* The Rift and Touch do not come with any linking box, nor does Oculus sell one separately.

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With all that said, Touch is a fantastic product and deserves the glowing reviews it's getting. It's just not designed for room-scale. It's workable, but not ideal.

As for PSVR, I've seen reports that they are actually supply constrained (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/14/sony-expect-playstation-vr-sh...) and the smaller market size isn't due to lack of demand. It might also be because there still isn't much content available for PSVR and Sony is waiting for a larger lineup and for more PS4 Pro unit sales.

One of the most exciting VR apps is Google Earth VR, which highlights that the "killer app" for VR will have telepresence at its core.

https://vtime.net/

The demo at the bottom of the page is a virtual meeting room. It is... unfortunately broken right now and I've been too busy supporting VR clients to fix it yet, but perhaps you can see the idea there.

I disagree. The biggest drawback of the DK2 and every other VR headset on the market is that the headset itself is big, bulky, and uncomfortable.

VR manufacturers really need to get the headsets down to around the size and comfort of regular glasses to prevent them from being tossed in the closet with the rollerblades and other novely items which are too annoying to use on a regular basis.

Once the novelty wears off, people will stop using it if it's not comfortable and convenient.

Clean up the fit and finish and minimize VR sickness for the mass market 2.0 product. Early adopter products are about keeping people engaged with content and unique features.

Do you have a source far that percentage? It seems high.

I trust Facebook with the information I explicitly share with it, i.e., posting photos or comments on Facebook. I do not trust Facebook to have unfettered access to a microphone, camera, and activity just to be able to play a game. The Facebook integration was, well, integral, and not just an opt-in for enhancing social aspects. You can't use the headset to play local content without phoning home (short of using old drivers/OpenVR or something).

Of course maybe this still places me in a minority of users because I have the same reaction when a mobile app requests every permission possible, which seems to be the case with all apps now.

The average person is not an early adopter of expensive tech gadgets.