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Comment by kruczek | Hacker News Reader

> At this point it's clear that Facebook have "won" VR.

Eh, it doesn't look clear at all to me. It looks like its main advantage is slightly higher resolution than Valve Index and wirelessness. On the other hand from what I read Quest 2 only now will finally get 90Hz - this is what even old Vive provided. And Index goes beyond that - up to 120 and 144Hz. Also I wonder how Quest's screen quality compares to Index, besides resolution and refresh rate - couldn't find any information about Quest's field of view, pixel persistence or fill factor. And with Facebook behind Quest, I consider Index to be cheaper - I'll take $999 any day over $299 + my data.

I'd say it's hardly a clear "win".

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> And with Facebook behind Quest, I consider Index to be cheaper - I'll take $999 any day over $299 + my data.

All that really means is you have enough disposable income that it's actually a decision worth even considering. For most people it's aimed at that's not the case.

This isn't Gmail for free vs some paid service for $5/mo, this is more than three times the cost for something that already costs multiple hundreds of dollars.

I'd say all it means is I value my data above $700, which I understand is not the case with many people. If I would not have enough disposable income, then I wouldn't buy Index nor Quest.

Your comment was about whether facebook "won" the VR segment, not whether facebook won over you specifically.

I'm sure many people in hackernews value their privacy above $700, me included, but that's clearly not the point here. We're just a blip in facebook's radar.

A squawked and ident'ed blip, linked to a/s/l and ML estimates of personal data self valuation and price sensitivity on VR headsets.

True. Then going by Steam's VR statistics from August (https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey):

46% for all Oculus types 36% for Vive+Index

Well, Oculus does seem to be more popular and perhaps that is what the parent meant by Facebook "winning" VR segment. To me "winning" sounds more like total domination, where any competition is near a statistical error. This doesn't seem to be the case here (though I admit Steam statistics may be skewed towards Vive/Index).

Oculus Quest in particular is in majority a non-steam headset. If you want to use it with steam, you need to buy an additional cable (Oculus Link).

When I see people talking about Oculus dominination technology-wise, they mostly talk about the Oculus Quest. More specifically, a wireless standalone headset that doesn't require static captors to have 6 degrees of freedom.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, as I only started looking into VR recently.

Oculus Quest works with stock USB cable. Even via a passive, copper, extender to make it longer.

Oculus desktop software gives you a yellow mark, but games still work.

I'm not familiar with the Facebook integrations on the Oculus, can you clarify how the use the these devices would force you to give up your data?

Classic knee-jerk reaction. Don’t use Facebook and they literally can’t do anything with their data. I’ve stopped using FB beyond messenger and I doubt my data helps them in anyway shape or form.

Well, if you use it only for their messenger, then they can still for example track webpages you visit (either via cookies or some finer fingerprinting based on e.g. user agent).

It may also be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, but in a world where even seemingly innocuous data is used to find unexpected correlations and identify people, I certainly prefer to keep a safe margin of error and steer away from companies which live on our data.

Quest 2 requires to have a Facebook account linked. And to have a Facebook account you need to provide phone number and real name (as per their TOS). If I provide fake information, they may terminate my account. And if they do so, I fear it would make that $299 piece of hardware useless.

Besides, knowing Facebook's hunger for data, I certainly don't trust them enough to install any piece of their software on my PC. Nor do I trust them enough to use a device which could potentially identify some unique traits of the way I move in VR (akin to gait analysis).

Not to mention you need a relatively beefy PC with Windows installed to use the Index.

The Index works just fine under Linux.

You're describing specs, not market share.

And comparing a 1000 dollar headset which requires a 1200 dollar computer to drive it, to a 300 dollar all in one unit.

It's akin to suggesting that Toyota haven't done well in the car market because they don't make Bugattis.

Facebook absolutely have won this generation in terms of market adoption. They've strategically withdrawn from competing at the higher end of the market. Which, at least today is a relatively tiny luxury segment.

> I'll take $999 any day over $299 + my data.

As someone already pointed out, that's a nice problem to have! For me, I considered the Index but the cost of upgrading my PC + the Rift S still came out a couple hundred £ cheaper plus I don't have to dedicate space to it.

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