Oculus sunsets Go, will add easier Quest app distribution
oculus.com
oculus.com
Low-resolution spherical imagery and video is just not that impressive, and that's all you get with 3DoF. Contrast with the presence and immersion you get with even the cheapest 6DoF headsets, and it's not even the same technology category.
So, now we have a bunch of people walking around thinking they "tried VR" because they had a Gear or a Go or a Cardboard, but they didn't get what the big deal was about.
I believe the Go was a good step to get many people into VR in the first place. I know it pulled me in. But now is a good time to move on.
But the content is a bit lacking right now...
But it's not jaw dropping.
It's like para para or dance dance revolution, but a bit more imersive.
Superhot is the absolute best IMO. If you're open to homebrew, VRigade on SideQuest is my favorite game on the platform, hands down.
Beatsaber and Superhot are cool games, but they aren't 460€ cool.
With an appropriate USB-C cable[1], Quest has access to the Steam and Oculus PC library too :D
[1] As I’m sure most people on HN already know, there are many different types of USB-C cable, each supporting different subsets of USB-C’s potential functionality...
One of the first games I tried with the Quest was "The Exorcist" which was pretty creepy and really showcases the immersiveness of VR. You really feel like you're there in that game, which was not always a good thing.
Unpopular opinion, but personally I don't really like Beat Saber (yes, partially because I suck at it). It feels too casual and very repetitive, which I don't feel demonstrates VR's potential. Too much like fruit ninja but for VR.
Outside of games (you can use Oculus for more than games!), I'd also check out Immersed VR. I don't think it's there yet, but the idea has a lot of potential. Very innovative app.
If you are into puzzle-light exploration in a beautiful space, I would highly recommend Fujii as a hidden gem. The only drawback is that it's pretty short.
Not really "content", but if you are interested in productivity apps, Immersed or BigScreen are among the options for streaming your desktop to your headset, depending on what platform you're on. They can also be used for online VR screensharing. (Disclosure: I have a small stake in Immersed.)
The various streaming apps (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Youtube, etc.) are not exactly novel, but I like being able to watch stuff without being in front of the computer. (I finally have the screen on the ceiling that I've always wanted.)
I think the problem is also content quality.
While most Quest games are already mini games. The Sidequest stuff is even a level lower, most of the stuff there just amount to interesting experiments.
There is no denying that the Quest is light year ahead.
Sidenote, Quest will be mixing between AR and VR [1]. Maybe it'll take a hardware revision to really bring it to the fore, but the future of AR/VR are quite blurred. [1]: https://tech.fb.com/the-future-of-work-and-the-next-computin...
This comes with all the high end VR HMD limitations like compute tethering, physical footprint, & mobility issues - but it will have early productivity applications.
The blurring of AR/VR/XR/EtcR will be felt less where hardware formats are lightweight low cost like Quest or xyzGlasses
[1] https://www.roadtovr.com/qualcomm-snapdragon-xr2-5g-announce...
Why Apple? Think about the level of software-hardware integration for the camera in the past few generations of iPhones. Imagine that expertise being channeled into an ultra-low latency, 90fps passthrough pipeline combined with exhaustive research on optical distortion, perceptual FOV, etc, and then layering the existing SLAM of ARKit on top of it, advanced by another generation or two.
Apple may well realize the original Magic Leap concept videos before Magic Leap does.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-19/apple-tea...
of course 6dof is better than 3dof - that's obvious - but that is also a question of how expensive computing power is. Quest is simply the next iteration of Go - so obviously they'll sunset Go at some point.
The way you sound it seems like you think you split the atom or something.
Early 3DOF mobile VR was an attempt at getting more users, without actually thinking about the user experience. Early mobile VR advertisements (for Gear VR or Daydream), had people using 3DOF VR headsets like they were standalone 6DOF headsets with full hand-tracking. People walking around their hands in front of the HMD, etc. Marketers knew how the device should work, it actually wouldn't be insane to say the device that people want is 3-5 years out and not release 3DOF hardware
The first time people are very impressed with VR, but it is just too much effort for regular use. Even in games like Elite, which has really good VR support, I returned to my flat screen after a while. Nice to find you coffee mug, be able to find your phone... I have "see-through" mapped to a button, but you still feel caged.
And then of course in some games with a story mode, if they didn't build in multiple save files into the game then you're just kind of screwed.
I solved the Beatsaber highscores problem by being really really good at Beatsaber, so I only play on Expert+ and he only plays the lower levels. That way our high scores are separate. :)
The Quest is the perfect machine to share with others. I can take it to friends or family (well, pre-covid I could). VR _needs_ to reduce the friction to trying it out.
Even just a generic "guest" profile would be a huge step forward.
This is not exactly surprising, but still a bold and absolutely correct move from Oculus.
As a developer who was rejected from the Oculus Quest store before, it's great to hear that they now how concrete plans to start opening up the store.
Because they haven't given us any of these details that you're imagining. Will there still be an approval process? Will Facebook give up any control? Will this be just like "keys only" distribution, a return of the Concepts/Early Access channel, or something like the old Oculus Share? So...I'll believe it when I see it.
https://www.scribd.com/document/399594551/2015-06-22-MARK-S-...
From that, it seems odd they'd be willing to give up control. So like you, I'll believe it when I see it.
Trying to inject themselves into development at the concept phase (at least for Quest) sucked too. I understand not wanting trash in the store but there has to be a middle ground.
But not funny when you are locked out of that. And they can lock out apps or games that they have a conflict with in terms of titles they are associated with themselves or any other reason.
I think if their new distribution system isn't open enough, that leads the market wide open for someone to come in with a device that has an open marketplace and I would drop Oculus in a second if that were the case. Because Sideloading is a pain in the ass.
I mean they already allow you to install anything you want on the device with a single click so not sure why you're using this sort of language.
Think they clearly just want a middle ground where indie developers can release something but there isn't a chance of malware.
> This is not exactly surprising, but still a bold and absolutely correct move from Oculus.
> As a developer who was rejected from the Oculus Quest store before, it's great to hear that they now how concrete plans to start opening up the store.
If you were rejected from the Quest store, you can still put your content out there on SideQuest.
"May put your account and device at risk" is not going to get you a viable third-party app ecosystem, especially when it's an open question what Facebook/Oculus might decide to clamp down on in the future.
6DoF -> looking & moving around
6DOF is important even for static seated experiences.
I have not adopted more VR options since (still sour from the money spent). But I imagine 6-dof is the minimum requirement.
Box still there, covered in dust.
In my opinion, working with it since day one: It isn't going anywhere. You can still sideload, you can still tinker and the tooling is there to do this in pure android studio + 3d engine.
You don't need anything from FB / oculus for hobby projects as long as the driver is available (and they're already "out" so hopefully FB just puts it on GitHub or similar).
I still prefer the Go for watching content on planes, to "zone out" with virtual zen spaces, etc.
wow, didn't think about that! The battery is not that great though
A lot of apps for media playing and social media for the Go are still under active development. Not allowing updates will effectively cut off Go users from social media.
I sense a class action coming.
If it's porn, you don't have to answer, but it's a genuine question what you're spending all your time in VR doing.
I see it being pitched as stand-alone. Does that mean you can't use it to do VR for PC games (e.g., Skyrim)?
It bascially turns into a Rift.
It's not just about the raw specs, it's about the experience, and Oculus are doing everything right there. It's standalone; the tracking is worse (but not so bad as to be a problem) because there are no lighttowers; it uses optical recognition of your room instead.
This means you can go absolutely anywhere, put it on, and be playing a game within sixty seconds.
I've never had it fail on me, while I've lost count of the number of times I've had to reset the Vive. Getting that thing ready for play is more like five minutes.
Might not seem like a huge deal, but it makes a difference.
I also find that the curation matters. The Quest store doesn't seem to have bad games, just games that might not be to my personal taste. Steam... Not so much.
Long answer:
Depends on what you're looking for exactly. Quest is what I'd recommend to most people since it's the only major headset that can operate completely on its own without a PC, and you can still connect it to one if you want to play titles that aren't available on Quest natively.
If you're confident you won't be using your headset without a PC though, there are other options. Rift S is more comfortable and offers better latency and image quality than Quest's PC connection feature does, for example. On the low end of the price scale there are also cheap WMR headsets which have worse controllers and controller tracking but can get you the basic experience of a 6DoF headset for ~$200 if you buy used. On the high end there's also the Valve Index, which offers significant improvements in image quality, FOV, and refresh rate, but you already explicitly ruled that out as too expensive.
I got a Quest thinking I would just use it for some casual portable gaming here and there, and now I'm going to just sell off my vive rig because there's no way I can go back to tethered VR.
A more powerful Oculus Quest would probably be a day one purchase for me at this point.
It doesn't sound like much, but cable tangle as you move is an absolute nightmare. Looking behind you now has to come with remembering the direction you turned in so you can undo the coil after.
I was thinking about eventually getting a Vive rig, but never felt there was a killer app just quite yet. Squadrons got my attention.
https://www.oculus.com/blog/play-rift-content-on-quest-with-...
A lot has happened since then; the landscape today is completely different.
But it’s not significantly cheaper - you want 128GB version because games are huge, this is $500. Then you need a case - this is relatively fragile equipment, and you don’t want your lens to get dirty since it’s hard to clean - $40. Then you need Oculus Link cable to play Half Life: Alyx or other more demanding games - $80. Quest doesn’t have built-in headset - $50 more (I’m actually using over-the-ear headphones with $10 short cable). You may also need grips (magnetic battery cover is the most stupid thing!). You can buy cheaper accessories, but they are hit or miss, so I opted for first-party case and cable at least. Anyway, this is $670, which is getting into Valve Index territory.
On price, the Valve Index is $999. $999 - $670 = $329. Generally a $300 price difference at this level puts you in a very different market price point targeting different users. You may also not already have a Windows gaming PC. Then the TOC difference rises to $~1329-2000 between the two setups because the Quest works just fine without any extra hardware.
Regarding the case, it was unclear to me if you're implying that the Valve Index is more robust & thus doesn't need a case?
Disclaimer: I work on Oculus Link.
Sure, there is a price difference, but my point was that Quest needs a bit more accessories than Index, so it pushes the price a bit up. I still would recommend Quest to anyone, because people who get Index (or other PC-based headset) know what they need already.
My plan is to store Index in the original case. It didn’t work out for Quest because case is not that convenient for reuse, and Quest is not actually stored in the office next to PC (and at the kitchen area I prefer smaller footprint). Also Quest is moved around way more.
>Disclaimer: I work on Oculus Link.
I sure hope you’ll fix the problems because some VD users report better colors (deeper blacks specifically) and better latency (hard to believe, but still). ;) ;) ;)
> after reading bunch of problematic reviews for cheaper cables I ponnied up for the Oculus cable since I didn’t want to deal with potential problems.
That is your choice as the consumer to make. A non-trivial amount of users are using USB2 cables & there are lots of successful reports on the subreddit discussing cables that work.
> but my point was that Quest needs a bit more accessories than Index, so it pushes the price a bit up.
In my experience I haven't observed the need for these accessories personally but YMMV. Still, even with all the extra accessories, you're still $300 cheaper than the Index. I wouldn't put them in the same pricing category. The pricing disparity grows significantly if you consider someone knew to VR without a gaming PC. The TOC for just trying VR content is significantly higher as is the setup complexity.
> I sure hope you’ll fix the problems because some VD users report better colors (deeper blacks specifically) and better latency (hard to believe, but still). ;) ;) ;)
I have not heard any feedback that indicates that VD latency is better than Link. There are some color differences. IIRC VD uses the wrong color space for its rendering (intentionally or otherwise) which can make things seem more vibrant, but that reproduces if you compare against Rift/Rift S as well. "Deeper blacks" generally wouldn't be impacted by anything in the Link stack & this is the first I'm encountering of anything like that.
If you have any actual links to such reports (lower latency, color issues) that would be helpful so we can make sure to be talking about the same thing. If you have links for reports of these problems that would be helpful. Given what you've described it's hard to link it back to anything actionable.
Can someone please explain to me why 64GB of flash memory costs over 100 dollars/pounds in 2020? That's an order of magnitude too much. Okay, they're probably price differentiating, but that's just insulting.
Still lots of content censorship requirements for this new way to distribute.
Why does content have to submit to a blanket rejection of dealing with any sexuality when it's not even going through their store?
That sounds weird: The only numbers they can share with us are that people have spent $100M on game development, but they only point to a total of $20M of revenue. Obviously $20M isn't the entire revenue on the platform... but since they didn't share any other numbers, the default assumption would have to be that they aren't very flattering, either.
"Come develop on our platform! Spend $100M to make $20M in revenue!"
I'd still like to develop for "real" VR and play around with it in the future but this is out of my league at the moment.
Real VR isn't about the 3D effect it's about having body and hand presence.
I don't care about the shop. I just wish people could continue to develop for it as it is (or now was...) a pretty fun device to experiment with VR.
The first solution described there needs users to register as developer (not just unlock it as in Android phones) and being able to use adb. We will have to see if that continues to work. No info about that yet. It's definitely not completely disconnected from the online stuff. For example - when the system needs updates you can't do any development in that time (I learned about that when after some weeks pause it prevented me completely from developing for nearly a full day because of outstanding updates).
The second solution is using the shop which as the as described by the original article will be shut down and not even updates to existing apps will be possible anymore.
But of course we need the early adopters, otherwise things never evolve to the point of being mature, so thanks to early adopters for being our guinea pigs.
To my view, pretty much everybody buying VR headsets today is still an early adopter :)
However, in practice it's not going to get any new software, because developers will be writing for new generations, and porting to hardware with a slower GPU speed is more effort than it's worth.
If hardware can still be used there are generally people around who continue to use it in some way. And the hardware of the Oculus was pretty nice actually (even if many here don't seem to like it because of only 3-dof).
That's exactly why it wasn't nice. It's hard to do much more than media consumption apps or the simplest possible 'games' without movement axes.
My real goal is to have students ship content of their own to the Quest, to dive a little deeper into programming and technology than they might do as mere consumers.
The resolution on the Quest is better too, and when I really need my gaming PC for some VR title I can always use link with it.
The Quest has a lot of cool titles on it, though I'd be lying if I didn't admit that most of the time it's a Beat Saber machine for me. Beat Saber is fantastic.
For PC-backed graphics and exclusives, you can use Virtual Desktop with the sideloaded unlock to do wireless streaming or use Link for a hardwired experience.
The Rift has better quality screens and optics, but the Quest has a higher FoV and I find that ultimately wins out for overall experience.
The hand tracking stuff is very cool, extremely well done, and a bunch of stuff is coming down the pipe for it right now. It's supposed to come to the Rift too, but for now Quest has the advantage there.
I will probably end up selling my Rift at some point. I got the value of playing Alyx at full quality, but don't consider the minor IQ loss with streaming to the Quest to be that much of a blocker. I can do everything with the Quest, so it's the system for me.
Being able to use it anywhere in the house and without a cable just make it a much better experience.
Also when you do use it with a PC the guardian setup process is more reliable and less error prone than having to set up external PC sensors.
Quest is front heavy and Rift S is much more comfortable.
Screen on Quest has better blacks due to OLED. Rift S screen is much sharper but due to the LCD dark scenes looks a bit washed out.
Very much looking forward to the unified headset that supports both standalone and wireless PC connection, that is surely coming next year or 2022