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Comment by zizee | Hacker News Reader

I would love to hear the opinion (anonymously if needed) from some Oculus people about their opinion on this. It feels like Oculus is poised to make VR have its breakout moment, only to have some unrelated Facebook group come in and sabotage everything.

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When Facebook bought Oculus, I remember Palmer promising that they would never require you to have a Facebook account. Apparently this statement was vetted by Facebook.

He is now offering a bounty for the hacking of the quest 2.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/palmer-lucky-offers-5000-bou...

More specifically, he's matching the bounty put up by someone else.

Unless something is contractual and legally binding, I don't know why anybody would take a word of PR at any value. An SLA of 99.99% uptime, sure, I can probably assume there's organization incentive to uphold it, and even still, you should perform your due diligence. Some company like Facebook saying one thing and doing another is to be expected, especially when the stated reason is purely emotional and stands at odds with core business directives.

Not to be too coy, but gaming circles are already pretty bad about questioning marketing narratives. Anecdotally I think it’s gotten worse.

There’s a large incentive for, and a community around “hyping” things. So when they say “You’ll _never_ need a Facebook account” the outlets run with it, and the comments applaud it.

Similar things with the Cyberpunk 2077 “we will have never have micro transactions” statement. People believe what they want to hear in these communities. And it makes their emotional reactions very easy to manipulate.

IIRC he/his account said “Oculus _Rift_ will never require...” So they killed _Rift_, launched Quest, and started requiring it.

Rift will also require it in a few years.

So the phrasing “Oculus Rift will never _require_...” means they can add something rudimentary, such as SteamVR plug-in, that could enable Rift to partially work, thereby satisfy “require” requirement.

Facebook did pay $2 billion for Oculus. That probably helped them position themselves to have a breakout moment.

But yes, it's unfortunate that Facebook is killing them this way. The good news is that everyone makes a VR headset now, and people are writing VR games, so it will probably be A Thing even without Oculus involved. Innovator's dilemma and all that.

Are there any non-Oculus standalone headsets?

Technically there are, practically none.

Yes, HTC makes them.

I think they meant without requiring a PC?

Yup. HTC announced that they're working on standalone headsets, but right now all they've actually released is some 3d renderings. After buying a Quest, I have a bit of a dilemma because I never want to be tethered again, but I also don't want to support what FB is currently doing

Most of my Quest VR is still PC tethered (via Link cable or via Virtual Desktop over Wifi). But that being said, HTC does have a standalone Quest competitor... just not for the consumer market.

https://enterprise.vive.com/us/product/focus-plus/

Arguably their reasons seem sound because how can they compete against Facebook in the consumer market with such a subsidized headset? Facebook is betting on being able to monetize your FB account and VR usage in a way that HTC can't with just hardware sales and software sales. Given that Quest requires a facebook account, it makes it a non-starter for enterprise/business use cases.

Is SteamVR any good? Also HTC makes some, as another commenter mentioned.

Oh wait, stand-alone. I don’t know about that part. Google discontinued Daydream so that’s out too.

I don't think you understand what innovator's dilemma is.

Facebook is poised to crush the rest of the industry. They have the cash, talent, distribution channel and brand to do it.

Innovator's dilemma happens when 1) a low-priced, low-feature startup takes on higher-priced incumbent. High priced incumbent ignores low-priced startup. No one can go lower than FB on pricing

2) Fear of cannibalizations (EV eating Gas-guzzlers for GM, BMW). FB has always let Insta, WhatsApp and Oculus to run like startups with plenty of freedom. Oculus is not a threat to core FB, but an enhancer.

Bottomline, time to load up on FB stocks

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