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Comment by shantly | Hacker News Reader

It's a sliver of a sliver of the market. Gamers -> PC gamers -> PC gamers with powerful gaming rigs -> PC gamers with powerful gaming rigs who care even a little about VR and so might buy a headset, if they don't already have one

I don't get this move. But hey, maybe I'm wrong and this'll be what takes it mainstream... somehow.

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Valve supports some weird stuff, but I'm glad they do. They've put a lot of work into improving Linux gaming, and their Steam surveys show that more people have VR setups than use Linux for gaming.

Otoh, its also the part of the market that has demonstrated that they have a lot of disposable income and an interest in the hobby.

I think it's a better way of getting VR off the ground than the "social" mass market stuff that Facebook is pursuing. The industry should focus on building high quality niche stuff first, like FPS games and flight sims, then work on broadening the appeal once the tech has matured.

This whole announcement has been a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario for Valve in terms of reception. At this point Valve has put a lot of investment in VR. For years people have asked for a big first party VR game from Valve, often explicitly a Half-Life game. They announce it and many responses are "why did Valve release a game for their own hardware". It's possible that growth will slow in VR and Valve will give up, but why do it now when they have a game ready for release and solidly selling first party hardware?

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