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Comment by whywhywhywhy | Hacker News Reader

>I think Half Life Alyx will be an interesting juncture and maybe even a make-or-break point for VR

PC VR is a dead end for anything outside of creative tools, very few adults want tower PCs in their homes anymore. When I demoed my Rift to friends they were completely blown away and the first question was "Can I use it with my MacBook?" and that was that.

When I demoed my Quest, one person sat down and ordered one straight after taking it off, he demoed it to someone at work and they ordered one, took it to a family barbecue and two of his relatives bought Quests.

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CSGO just broke their record # of players at one time, at around 900,000[1].

Steam alone regularly has over 10,000,000 people logged in at a time [2].

I think saying "Adults dont want a tower PC" is a pretty wide sweeping statement. I agree about Alyx. If they release a full length game that has the same level of quality that Half-life 2 had, with the same level of mod and customization support, that is going to be the tipping point. If VR is still a sub-niche in gaming/PCs, we won't see it takeoff for another 20+ years. But we may see it become the new standard.

[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/808630/csgo-number-playe....

[2]https://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Ditto for the Quest. I have a Vive Pro and a traditional gaming rig, and I'm very happy with it, but I can't deny that my friend's Quest is by far the more convenient setup. Even discounting the lack of power, the ability to just pick it up, put it on, confirm the play space and go makes the thing infinitely more attractive. Even the low battery life isn't a major concern, since I rarely want to spend that long in VR anyway.

I don't think tethered PC-based VR is going away, simply because that setup is most flexible for development and experimental purposes, but for the mass market, I think a device like the Quest is the only thing with potential to truly take off. Especially if the weight of the headset can be reduced, as comfort remains one of the most nagging negatives of the whole experience.

”PC VR is a dead end for anything outside of creative tools, very few adults want tower PCs in their homes anymore.”

Call it a tv and manage to get something to market before those have effectively gone extinct, and you have a market.

Independent headsets are getting good enough that all the computational power can fit on your head. Getting rid of the PC is just the natural progression of hardware like this.

> PC VR is a dead end for anything outside of creative tools, very few adults want tower PCs in their homes anymore. When I demoed my Rift to friends they were completely blown away and the first question was "Can I use it with my MacBook?" and that was that.

Get out of your bubble. Among non-casual gamers, tower PCs are very common.

> "Can I use it with my MacBook?

Who cares that won't be needed for long

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