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Comment by ArcVRArthur | Hacker News Reader

I hate to keep saying "I told you so" but I've had many conversations at Oculus Connect & elsewhere about the abject failure of 3DoF with few people seriously considering that the market has spoken. 6DoF standalone VR is the minimum bar for success with spacial computing. Forget 3DoF & AR. Focus on what's growing and retentive. That's 6DoF VR standalones and currently Quest is king.

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I'd go so far as to say 3DoF was a massive setback for popular perceptions of VR.

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.

The latest vive changed my mind on VR. I guess I’m in that cohort

What does it bring?

I think there are huge differences between Cardboard, Gear and Go.

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.

I agree. I bought a Go on Black Friday for under $100 and it impressed me so much for such a low cost that I’m looking for a “real” VR headset. Unfortunately it seems I started looking just as companies stopped making any affordable 6dof headsets and the jump from $100 for the Go to $1000 for the only currently available VR headset is just too much for me so I’ll be waiting a bit longer. But dipping my toes in the water definitely whetted my appetite for more.

The Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest are both in active production; they're just usually sold out (as is the Valve Index, presumably being the $1000 headset you're referring to.)

$400 for the rift S/Quest are nowhere near $1000 though. As a Quest owner, I'll say that I've been pretty happy with it.

Yes, 3DOF was a gimmick and lead to the perception that VR was another 3DTV waiting to happen. Turns out "VR" is, 3DOF devices and phone holder VR of the mid-2010s had a similar adoption and failure curve as 3DTV. I didn't really get excited about VR until I tried Vive, as tracked controllers are important also.

I bet there are a large number of people who have felt sick because of 3DOF "VR", as well, and have since written off VR because they don't want to feel sick again. Having a system that ignores most of your movements but not all of them is a recipe for motion sickness, even if it _is_ running at 90 frames per second. Developers at Oculus and elsewhere have poured tons of energy into solving that with stuff like Asynchronous Spacewarp, where the goal is to respond to every little movement your body makes as soon as possible. As it turns out, this is really important. And I think we've all learned here that simply having hands is huge. (It doesn't even matter if they do anything: being able to see your hands is immediately reassuring). So it's really sad to me that the product people went on to ignore (might even say sabotage) that effort with the Go.

Funnily enough I had the opposite experience. 3D spherical video made a lot of sense and I could immediately see the point. I still use my Gear VR pretty regularly. Meanwhile my expensive fancy headset sits gathering dust because it's just too much faff to get everything set up and use it, and the overall experience isn't really much better.

I recognize your point of view. For me the Quest was a game changer. Just press the power button and you are ready to go. Even your previous boundary settings are retained. Just step into the circle and fly.

I am a complete newbie in VR. We had a Quest borrowed by a friend a few weeks back, when my family was in quarantine. Playing Superhot was a lot of fun, but it became next level shit when we tried it in our basement, where we have a huge empty 40m² room. It was absolutely insane, moving through the room, around opponents. This was it! So yeah, 3DoF is not what we need. Give me 6DoF, a lighter headset and a wider angle of view, and I will spend the rest of my life in our basement :)

"Forget 3DoF & AR"

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...

The cameras are too crappy for that right now.

Passthrough in high end VR will become the early experience of where Magic Leap / Hololense should be in a few generations (AR with wide FOV, High Def Egocentric 360 SLAM, etc). That hardware is almost available (see Qualcomm XR2 specs [1]).

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...

I think the big surprise in the next few years is going to be Apple coming out of left field and taking the lead in the hybrid AR/VR space.

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.

There was an article recently in Bloomberg on the internal, political struggles the AR/VR team at Apple had with other executives. Seems like it is struggling.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-19/apple-tea...

That's not a surprise... It's pretty well known that Apple is working on VR/AR headsets.

Isn't setting the perimeter already done with AR? I think this is a good start.

Completely agree. I was wholly unimpressed with "VR" until I got a Quest and now I think it's a shame that 3DoF ever pitched as such.

I think people are being a bit harsh on the Go, I still thought it was really cool and I got family and friends to try some VR experience for cheap.

There is no denying that the Quest is light year ahead.

I just opened up my new O. Quest last night...and I'm blown away. This is the future.

Yes, it's pretty awesome tech. Got one a week ago too.

But the content is a bit lacking right now...

I'm getting mine in a few days and I'm very excited. Can you recommend some jaw dropping content to try on it?

Personally I still think beat saber is the best combo of easy to figure out plus completely engaging (i.e. you forget where you actually are)

IdK. Space Pirate Trainer is like the arcade shooter game a lot of us X gens dreamed of as kids. So much fun.

Agreed, that's another easy one to jump into. Love it also.

Beatsaber is really nice, it's the first and only game I bought right now.

But it's not jaw dropping.

It's like para para or dance dance revolution, but a bit more imersive.

That's true, there are others where I'm legitimately frightened. I think of Beat Saber as a good first game.

> I'm getting mine in a few days and I'm very excited. Can you recommend some jaw dropping content to try on it?

Superhot is the absolute best IMO. If you're open to homebrew, VRigade on SideQuest is my favorite game on the platform, hands down.

Ghost Giant is an amazing story, and the best use of VR I've ever seen.

Echo VR!

Nothing really jaw dropping there right now.

Beatsaber and Superhot are cool games, but they aren't 460€ cool.

Yes, content is the single biggest problem with VR now. There is a lot of it on some platforms (like Steam and Oculus PC), but most of it isn't very good. On Quest there isn't much to play or experience period. VR needs to get to the point where multiple Beat Saber quality games are coming out every month, and an Alyx level AAA game comes out a few times a year.

You’re asking for the release cycle of a console like the Switch. I’m curious what people think is the timeline before that happens?

Im not sure, but the Oculus Quest is constantly sold out right now...so I imagine there is going to be some growth in this space.

That's a good question, I think once a single VR device sells 10-20M units, VR might get there. However, PSVR is at 5M and Quest is at ~0.5M-~1M units. PC VR (really Steam VR) is at ~2M. Headsets keep selling (for now), and we finally have a system seller game in the form of Alyx, Facebook's multiple game studio acquisitions are also a good sign for high quality content in the future. Theoretically these studios will be able to attract better talent by offering FAANG level salaries (3x-4x most game industry equivalents).

> There is a lot of it on some platforms (like Steam and Oculus PC), but most of it isn't very good. On Quest there isn't much to play or experience period.

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...

Depends what you are into but I love Space Pirate Trainer as an "intro" as it really is superbly done and takes advantage of lots of the unique VR capabilities (think, space invaders where you can physically duck or sway out of the way of bullets) - but it is still completely intuitive to someone new.

Oculus Link + decent PC + Half Life Alyx.

or Virtual Desktop + sideloaded Virtual Desktop version that supports streaming VR + Shadow.tech cloud gaming pc + Half Life Alyx

Does that work well?

Yes, surprisingly it works pretty well. I get 10-15ms pings to the server so I could imagine if you have a much higher latency it wouldn’t.

I’ve been using this setup some Christmas and also find it works incredibly well.

Oh also, it's not really a game but there's something called "Ritchie's Plank Experience". I'm afraid of heights and I seriously pulled the Quest off my head the first time cause I freaked out.

EchoVR is very exciting because it demonstrates the 6DoF VR experience pretty well and interaction with space (e.g. you have to throw discs and catch them, while floating), but it's still in beta so it has limited content. Pavlov Shack too but it's also in alpha and requires SideQuest. The Climb is pretty cool as an experience, but not necessarily mind blowing.

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.

EchoVR is nice, yes. The throwing never really worked for me, but moving around like in a space station is really cool. You can basically grapple around and don't need your legs at all.

In the boxing demo on the quest I was surprised at how much my brain did not like the idea of this ultrabig guy getting into my personal space with violent intentions. My primal brain said "Run."

I liked "A Fisherman's Tale", a puzzle game that takes advantage of VR. Charming.

Beat Saber is the big hit, which I love; but if you're really into rhythm games I would also take a look at Audica, from Harmonix.

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.)

Probably gonna get a link to go with my PC for rift/steam content to supplement. But yeah.

Did you check sidequest? If anything I would say there's too much content.

Yes.

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.

I actually found some extremely high quality products on sidequest, for example hyperdash.

I have had my quest for a week and I'm very impressed but the tech has a long way to go and I'm deeply skeptical VR will ever be more than a niche product.

I agree that in the current form VR will not become fully mainstream. But do you remember when you set the perimeter with your Quest and could see your room? If this is refined (a lot), true immersive AR would become possible, which solves the problem of isolation. I think then, and with less bulky headsets, VR/AR has the potential to get out of its niche.

that's like saying dos was a mistake because MS should have just developed xp instead.

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.

You're right that 3DOF needed to exist before 6DOF, which is a much harder problem to solve, doubly so for inside-out. But, PCVR entirely skipped 3DOF as a consumer product, and even though Rift shipped without touch controllers it had tracked controllers 6 months after launch.

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

At the same time the Go was on the market Lenovo had a 6DoF standalone headset working on Google Daydream.

That nobody was buying, because of the lacking fidelty, ease of use, price point and missing software ecosystem.

I'm slightly perturbed that I picked up a Rift S instead of something else. I feel like Facebook^WOculus has it next on their list of abandonware, and the vendor lock-in feels heavier by the day. No OVR stuff, Can't run anything without the Oculus Store app open, etc.

Same. But between the quest and a rift S, I would certainly pick the latter. The quest wasn't for me, it just doesn't do enough on its own (bought the quest first because I didn't know the disadvantages). You can theoretically connect your PC too, but that is finicky. The rift S was fun for a time, but the lock-in is disastrous, but far worse for the quest. Typical for "modern" software, but VR landed in a corner like many other attempt before. It can be fun for a time though.

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.

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