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Comment by tomxor | Hacker News Reader

The "Metaverse" has way too much hype right now, IMO it's damaging to the current VR audience, which is gamers. I've tried the "Metaverse" and it's an absolutely awful half baked collection of vaugeley purposed games and sandboxes.

But it's just one app on a quest, I uninstalled it and carried on using it for what it's meant for (gaming), rather than Zuckerbergs failed attempt at forcefully making it into some new market.

> They're basically just an android phone built into a headset, and they're capable of significantly less than a PC.

You're missing the value in these things, it's also capable of significantly more, because it's not all about how fast your GPU and CPU is. A lot of work has gone into taking commodity mobile technology and tightly integrating all of the sensors in a way which is low latency enough to make VR a pleasant experience rather than a horrifically sickening one.

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Part of my job is developing apps on the Quest 2. As a headset, it's bargain basement tier. The absolute minimum hardware you can get away with, plus some clever position tracking software. Everyone else does it better, at three times the price.

It's the first consumer level headset at an acceptable cost/performance point. Nothing about it is particularly good, merely acceptable. And I'm pretty sure they're being sold below cost, FB is subsidizing them, hoping to sell you more ads in VR.

> Everyone else does it better, at three times the price.

Yes and this is the key part, it's the first affordable option. Also if you combine it with a PC then it's both affordable and decent quality

> plus some clever position tracking software

I don't get why everyone devalues this so much, the cost of new integration for something like this is high, once it's been done it's easier for others to follow, but how we got here wasn't just people throwing expensive hardware at the problem, it needs much more than that.

> I'm pretty sure they're being sold below cost, FB is subsidizing them, hoping to sell you more ads in VR.

They were selling it bellow cost, now they've added 100 $/£ to the price tag to put it above cost. Which was one of the last thing Carmack got them to do before he left. He didn't want the incentives to be messed up since a large free/sideloaded games ecosystem has emerged and it doesn't make sense to be at odds with that.

What are some examples of VR headsets with better inside-out tracking or hand tracking than the Quest 2?

On the software side, is there a comparable standalone game library to the Quest Store and App Lab?

Metaverse is literally just AR and VR over the internet. It is not owned to tied to a single company. VRChat and RecRoom are also part of the metaverse. You can even consider Roblox as part of the metaverse since it has VR support.

Apparently, Facebook’s marketing is so good that they’ve convinced most of the world, even techies, that they own and control the VR AR equivalent of the internet.

Well it's not surprising since the company changed it's frickin name to "Meta". Regardless I'm pretty sure the parent's were all referring to Meta's Horizon worlds.

> Metaverse is literally just AR and VR over the internet

Not really, that's way to vague, it's come to mean something more specific. VR games existed first on VR and they are just games, often over the internet, they are much like games on PCs and Consoles but with an extended human interface and perception.

> I'm pretty sure the parent's were all referring to Meta's Horizon worlds.

That’s my point. meta Horizon is not the entire metaverse. It wasnt even first, nor will it be the last destination on the metaverse

> Not really, that's way to vague, it's come to mean something more specific.

Actually, my description is straightforward and to the point. It’s your description of the metaverse that is vague.

You're right.

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