So, for someone who isn’t gonna drop a grand on a Valve rig, what’s the right purchase for a gamer today?
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.
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.
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'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.
It bascially turns into a Rift.
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.