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Perhaps, but Mozilla need to pick their battle. They can’t keep splitting their resources on so many fronts.

Maybe there's a way that Hubs can make money? "Virtual office service" seems like the obvious answer in this growing remote work situation (see also: Immersed VR), but with Facebook's lower level hardware access they may be poised to eat that space too.

Hardware-agnostic seems like a big selling point for Mozilla's service vs FB. Unless my company is going to go all-in and buy everyone a 'work headset' like how we have work laptops, they'll want it to be cross platform compatible so users have a choice.

Hubs already makes money, by offering turn-key self-hosted Hubs instances for corporations via AWS image.

Health nightmare wearing a headset for hours and hours or a full workday.

Just how many people do you think they have working in Hubs?

Hell, before the layoff, they only had one person working on WebXR for desktop Firefox. Seems like being penny-wise, pound-foolish.

> VR and AR are going to be big

Why do you think so? I don't disagree, but I don't feel that confident about it either.

I think the social side of it will be a big part of this. It lets you get together with someone who's hours away from you and have experiences together in a shared space. The avatars actually convey a pretty convincing sense of "this is another person next to me that I'm talking to" in a way that video calls don't. You trade facial expressions for a sense of physical proximity.

Or comparing to normal first person video games, you can see your friends' character as a fully detailed model, you know they're controlling what direction it turns, when it moves, whether it jumps. But the character fundamentally isn't them, it's a character that they're controlling.

And that's the weird thing about people's avatars in VR, it might be a low resolution floating torso and hands, but being in VR where the physical motion of their head and hands is directly translated to avatar movements makes it feel like the avatar is a low-detailed person instead of a high-detailed puppet.

The games and other experiences are obviously part of the selling point too. Being able to deflect blaster bolts with a lightsaber, throw droids off the top of a building with the force, shoot hordes of zombies, fly a jetpack, become a wizard, solve puzzles by working together with giant and tiny copies of yourself, have your friends talk you through defusing a bomb, and so many other things that we haven't thought of yet.

Smaller market, but I can see a lot of promise for virtual training simulations as well. Less sophisticated than flight simulator cockpits for pilots, but dramatically more accessible.

Alternate video answer for Star Wars fans, which has to be a sizeable market: https://streamable.com/nxr445

ILMxLAB has another project in the works, I think in the setting from the Galaxy's Edge stuff at Disney's parks, which I'm not personally familiar with. But I'll get to try the VR experience, since my headset is a lot more convenient than a trip to Florida or California.

Missed the edit window but another cool thing to note here is that Vader Immortal is inherently ambidextrous. That's a pretty common setup in VR software.

I learned to mouse right handed because that's always where the mice were (and often specifically shaped for right hands). Other peripherals like joysticks and throttles tend to be set up that way as well. First person shooters always have all their characters holding items in their right hand, even if that doesn't affect gameplay.

But in VR the two controllers are often equals - they're your hands, and you can use whichever one of them you like. There's a ping pong paddle or a lightsaber or a laser gun, and the game doesn't care what hand you pick it up with. The lightsaber dojo clip I posted has me using the sabre with my left hand the whole time, but you can even pass it from one to the other mid-game if you want to.

Probably not exciting for all you righties, but I enjoy it.

I own an Index and I love VR, but I have the feeling that if VR was going to be huge it would be a lot bigger than it is already. In my opinion it's more likely that in the future it will remain a niche, but never become really a hit in the general population. A bit like flight sticks or wheels are mostly for people who like to play simulators and have a small but very dedicated public.

There's still some room for growth as better products come out for better prices, but I don't see everybody adopting it, it's too much of a hastle.

The quest is really not a hassle. You put it on, trace a safe area out on the floor, and you're in another world within 30 seconds.

I think their biggest challenge for growth is that you really have to experience it to get it. People understand what "new Xbox" is all about, it's the same as the last one except improved in easily quantifiable ways, and they'll go spend $500 on it.

VR is still a new thing that people don't understand. But I think it'll get there.

I've experienced VR with a good setup as few times and I'm meh to it. There's a bias where people who love something assume everyone will love it just as much if they only experienced it the right way.

The old Quest was amazing. The new one is cheaper and it shows. Plus it requires a non-anonymous FB login just to turn the thing on. No thanks.

Most of what I hear about the new one is how incredible the pixel density is, but Facebook account I agree with you on.

Just got a Horizon beta invite today but I'd presumably need to merge my Facebook/Oculus accounts to use it. Instead, I'm thinking about nuking my Facebook account (dating back to 2005) and having to create a fresh one for Oculus useage only when they force me to for the Quest 1 to keep working.

I guess it's now or never, since once the account merge is required I'll have a bunch of real money purchases tied to my Facebook account and can't just up and delete it anymore.

I love the Quest 1. What I read about the 2 is that the headband is flimsier and harder to fit, with other purely mechanical corners being cut like the controllers being fatter and less accurate.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-reco...

FWIW, the controllers feel exactly as good as the Quest 1. They are bigger, but I don't think I would call that a "downgrade."

I did read that review, but it's got to be the single most negative take on the Quest 2 that exists. Most people love it.

The standard head strap is cheaper, with upgrade options available if it bugs you (obviously that kills the $300 price point, but for most people I think it's fine). The controllers feel and perform the same as before, except now there's a thumb rest that isn't "Oops I pushed the Oculus button."

For certain IPDs between the 3 positions, the new lens setup doesn't work well, but the software apparently does understand more IPD steps and will position the displays properly if you carefully balance the lens position slide in between its spots where it locks.

The worst thing about it might be losing a sliver of peripheral vision at the sides, but from what I understand this only happens if you use it at the wide IPD setting and don't use the glasses spacer. And even if you're one of the people affected by that, the screen is still a good trade-off for the higher resolution and framerate.

EDIT - I should say that's the worst thing about the hardware. The actual worst thing is the Facebook account.

I'm concerned about it as well, but I've read about people getting their accounts banned for getting flagged as fake when set up freshly and solely for the Quest. Facebook is supposedly working on that. I'd like to create a separate account for oculus, but do I want to risk losing my purchases if they flag me? Even if I can get an appeal, all of this feels like a hassle. I've got a quest 2 arriving in a week, so I gotta decide.

I think it will be big among the population of people who play video games (i.e. young people who aren't strapped for time and energy). As a relatively young adult (30s no kids), I can't imagine fitting anything like this into my day. Wake up at 6am, exercise, work for 8-10hours, eat dinner, then trace an area out on my floor and enter another world while my wife sits on the couch alone? I think the tech is cool, but can't practically fit into my life of real-world responsibilities.

Or you and your wife and her extended family across five states in three time zones all get together for a game of mini-golf, a round of bowling, a hoverbike race, or a match of zero-g ender's game quidditch.

There are cool single-player experiences, sure, but that's not all it's good for. And with standalone hardware that doesn't require an external sensor setup and powerful gaming computer, they're really quite accessible.

Dude, you’re clearly not married. The last thing most married people I know want is more time with the in-laws. I didn’t dislike my in-laws but something like that would never have been in my list of “top 50 things to do after work”.

I know you were just reaching for an example, I’m just saying it’s a pretty bad one. A better one would be “the kids can spend time with grandparents far away”, that’s an actually-desirable outcome for most people.

I guess I was thinking “wife’s siblings and nieces and nephews” more than “wife’s parents,” which in my experience have gotten along with well, but the point is it could be her activity that you're joining in with just as much as it could be your thing.

For older family members, Echo VR and Void Racer are probably not the games you’d want, but mini golf and bowling you could.

And you always have the “Oh no! My battery’s dying! Nice seeing you!” escape hatch ;)

Or VR could have been being relegated to a niche because of expensive computing requirements, difficulty to setup, lack of portability, and expensive headsets.

The direction the Oculus/Facebook have taken with the Quest line addresses many of these issues (sacrificing quality of the graphics). VR is possibly going to have its breakout moment.

Yeah especially with COVID which has caused an ideal situation for this to flourish.

Interesting to note that Carmack was talking about this untethered dream of android-powered VR back in 2013, which practically feels like the stone age for this modern generation of VR devices.

The first generation of Rift dev kits came out in 2012, and the consumer version didn't ship until 2016.

https://www.theverge.com/2013/10/18/4853108/oculus-cto-john-...

> "The way I believe it's going to play out is you will eventually have a head-mounted display that probably runs Android as a standalone system, that has a system-on-a-chip that's basically like what you have in mobile phones," Carmack said during an interview with Engadget. At least for right now, the VR device relies on its host PC to assist with its immersive functionality.

> "Maybe that means you can only do Quake 3 or something inside there," said Carmack, the man who himself helped build franchises like Doom and Quake at Id software before joining Oculus. But he also predicts a "best of all worlds" scenario where such a headset would still be able to connect to powerful PCs for higher-end games. But an untethered experience offers many benefits, he said. "It does make a big difference not having a wire dragging off your shoulder. It's significant."

> I own an Index and I love VR, but I have the feeling that if VR was going to be huge it would be a lot bigger it is already. In my opinion it's more likely that in the future it will remain a niche, but never become really a hit in the general population.

Historically (that is, from the point that VR first became a buzzword in the '90s), the importance of low latency and other ergonomic issues has been consistently underestimated. Improvements in hardware were usually eaten up by greater rendering fidelity and scene complexity, keeping latency right on the edge of acceptability, which unfortunately means that about 10% of the population experiences loss of orientation or motion sickness. A similar effect occurs on standard desktop setups, but affects a much smaller group (something about the difference between moving the scene in response to head vs. hand movements).

As long as developers (of both platforms and games) keep trying to push more polygons at faster refresh rates without addressing latency, 1-in-10 people are going to reject it outright, and rather more forcefully than in a "eh, not for me" sense.

Keep in mind that the reason disagreement between the inner ear and visual field causes nausea is to get you to vomit harmful psychoactive substances, so it's a pretty deeply rooted response that doesn't respond much to desensitization through exposure (ie. If it's a problem for you, you may not be able to "get used to it").-

> VR and AR are going to be big,

Yes, in 20 years, let's see if Mozilla survives long enough...

that's my take once the patent expire then we will get decent mass market adoption for average consummers.

E-ink is in the same boat to many patent held by people unwilling to license them for a reasonable price, in 15-20 years most will expire and we will get e-ink everywhere

> Without cross-platform social systems like this...

Perhaps I missed this in Mozilla's hub, spoke, and developer documentation but I'm not seeing how this would be cross-platform. I'm not saying that you're wrong, but maybe i missed this. Or, or, or...maybe I'm conflating cross-platform with federated...like this would be good concept if operated over established federation protocols like ActivityPub, though of course higher up the chain to incorporate the neat VR elements...? Don't get me wrong: if Mozilla's foray into this space can displace FB even a little, and empower users with more freedom, independence and decentralization, then I'm in favor!

It's cross platform in that it works in the browser with WebXR, so any VR device with a web browser can use it.

For the time being, when Oculus launches Horizon, maybe anyone with an Facebook account can still download it and run in on their Valve Index using Revive, but if competing standalone android-based headsets come out I think workarounds like that become less likely. If you want Horizon, you buy a Quest. But any of those other headsets could use Hubs regardless of where their friend-group is.

It's the iMessage group text problem but on a system that's probably going to be a lot less easy to just substitute with WhatsApp. It remains to be seen if we'll have a functionally equal option that isn't platform locked.

Or maybe they'll just port it everywhere, own the main social space, and squeeze all the advertizing tracking they can out of that. Either way, I don't love it.

Thanks very much; this clarity helped!

I don't think Mozilla are playing the long game here, VR in it's current form is not going to get "big". Headsets and three dimensional experiences on 2D planes is not virtual reality, as such I don't think innovation here is well placed. There's no point competing with Oculus, I hate how tied in the FB ecosystem is with Oculus, but Mozilla in it's current form isn't suited to exploring novel ideas to compete with Oculus.

As an engineers passion project, I'm all for it but this will inevitably get dropped.

That's why Mozilla Hubs supports multiple clients like VR headsets and browsers on desktop and mobile.