It feels like Windows Mobile. Meta has the early start, money, captive audience and enthusiasm, but they don't have the hardware/software edge (that Apple coincidentally also has this time around) to really make the idea work. The headsets are not going to revolutionize much running Facebook games on budget Qualcomm SoCs, and Facebook cant buy an Unreal Engine or an M2 Pro overnight.
VR is not good at general computing yet, and the form factor and way you engage with it means people won't be using it in the same way they use TVs, game consoles or smart phones. Mass adoption takes apealing to the lowest common denominator and VR doesn't do that, which is eventually going to be an issue of fashion as much as utility.
No one wants to sit on a bus in a Quest headset, no one wants to sit alone when their friends are in the same room, no one wants to look like a dork at work. Mass adoption is no where near happening to the current state of the art, we have more technology leaps and form factor pivots before we arrive at something a mass adopted social network would work, let alone something aiming to replace segments of business and commerce use cases.
Once we hit a certain point with the form factor, quite a wide range of use cases will become a no-brainer (for example, sitting on the bus with it).
You'd use an $800 device (with limited awareness of your surroundings) on the bus?
and it's not just the crime angle, it's things like not missing your stop or being aware of the people moving around you so that you're not a nuisance.
Bonus points for the experience being transformed into a Hogwarts Bus journey.
A perfect match and around the corner too.
The oculus go failed terribly, because no-one made content for it. Microsoft's attempt at arm laptops failed, because no-one made applications for it. Apple was able to convince people it was worth considering arm, maybe they can get people to consider vr?
I'm not sure I'd phrase it this way. What Apple did was just great engineering and planning, along with a user focus. Also the fact that it was either embrace ARM or leave. :)
What I mean by that is, they launched their ARM/Apple Silicon line of computers and cut off their ties with Intel. They managed to get people buying the new ARM computers by providing an excellent user experience and incredibly good backwards compatibility with the older Intel binaries via Rosetta2. They also started rolling back some of their unpopular decisions of prior years - namely dropping all but USB-C ports and MagSafe. They also started providing Pro laptops without the dreaded TouchBar (yes, some people like it but I don't think numbers are much in its favour).
Then they engaged with the developer community and their users to help everybody transition.
They did no such thing. They forced their ecosystem to switch to their proprietary ARM platform + extensions.
If you look at other ecosystems, a switch hasn't happened. Cloud providers are offering ARM, but on the desktop, x86 is still top dog.
The iPhone in 2007 was not a good general computing device, and people were made fun of for looking like dorks because they stared constantly at their screens. And yet here we are, in a future where smartphones diligently satisfy all of consumer's needs and zoning out by looking at your black slab is normalized.
Also there is a precedent: decade of successful science fiction that has made people drool about the thought of VR
VR costs more and has been on the opposite trajectory: the only thing you ever hear people be excited by are a handful of games (and maybe VRChat for a few communities) and the way it requires dedicated space & excludes other people means that even the enthusiasts I know don’t really use it much. I think decades of sci-fi created some demand but I think it’s still in the Palm Pilot era, especially for the number of devices purchased by people who thought they’d use them more.
The Oculus has been out since ~2016 or so. I don't think it's a rocketship ready to take off with the right hardware or software. I'm sure there's profit to be made, better days to come, etc., but it's not going to be a smartphone.
While it's less than those two, it's still a very respectable number and incredibly high considering it doesn't have any of the major studios releasing their AAA games on it.
But there's corroborating data that suggests those numbers could be fairly accurate, such as Qualcomm saying way back in November 2021 that they shipped 10 million units of the chips that power the Quest 2[2]. And also seems to be the only number that's being reported anywhere.
[1]: https://80.lv/articles/meta-s-quest-2-has-reportedly-sold-ne...
[2]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/22785469/meta-oculus-que...
My feeling is that Meta is rather running away from a failing business and less running towards a new green meadow.
But for adults.. well after staring at a screen all day the last thing I want to do is stare at another screen, I'd rather lift weights or play guitar or whatever.
That said, most adults need to work in order to survive. Couple that with the fact that most jobs these days are done either directly in front of a computer or using some screen-enabled device, and it's not hard to see that most adults will have been staring at a screen all day most days.
Disclaimer: we are the devs behind VRWorkout
In the fitness space there is a huge group of people who would like to go to the gym but don't because of social anxiety. And VR fitness is already one of the major pillars for the headset manufacturers ( Meta, Pico and HTC ). So the social anxiety issue may very well be a driving factor overall
Where VR fitness does shine is the social aspect without the social anxiety.
Doing an intense full body workout with people across the globe and seeing other express their movements without having to show themselves leads to a much more relaxed an fun experience than for example a Zoom workout.
I am fully aware that this is not for everyone, that's why it's good to have options. I for one wouldn't even have the space or money to put up a peloton bike but I can temporarily allocate 2 square meters between our living room and kitchen for my calisthenics exercises in VR. And by using mixed reality I can even shrink that a bit further.
It's probably a bit hard to explain with only words so here is a short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WGOZlFXjQU
To me these are proofs of concept that meta verse is a real thing. The open questions are if these experiences will eventually transition to VR, or if traditional form factors are immersive enough; and if Facebook can make a more compelling experience than the existing services.
It felt so detached, and the interviewer was very mellow, only saying that perhaps the cost is a problem, but the Meta guy insisted that it's needed so they have to find the money.
I mean, I've been to Palo Alto, and its crazy... but not that crazy.
Imagine the kind of pearl clutching you would find in The Guardian if Zuck built something closer to VR Chat or Roblox.
VR in the Enterprise just isn't good business sense. The ROI isn't going to be there for an enterprise use case with typical office workers/professionals. As ruthless as it sounds, eliminating the need for people with AI handling easier/simpler tasks is a much better investment that scales than purchasing, supporting and training people on VR hardware for some "productivity" benefit that really can't be defined right now.
I was gonna argue that AI doesn't exclude VR, but you are right. Employees have only so much energy to expend investigating experimental tech.
Isn’t this how insurance companies have operated since the mainframe computer age? Why would an adjuster need to talk to this with chatgpt?
To reach the scifi potential of VR, you need to be able to put on your VR headset, recline in a comfy chair, and then run and jump around a virtual world without moving your body.
As long as you need a controller or to physically walk around your living room, it's a neat trick, but a limited one.
Famously, Facebook "missed mobile" (were focused on the web) and had to scramble to recover, which they did very well. I see the metaverse efforts as a way to avoid that happening to them again. Which is smart. The point is not to make any money on the hardware; the point is to understand the metaverse so well that when it eventually emerges they will know it better than anyone else and can dominate rather than be squeezed out.
In other words, under this model, Apple's release of some excellent headset would help meta, not threaten it.
All that being said I don't think Meta will succeed. The biggest problem is bootstrap: headsets are clunky and nobody wants to wear them for long, if at all. Because it's early days everybody needs to provide transitional interfaces, but by doing so you are working against learning / predicting what will really happen (remember all those virtual worlds in the early days of the web where you would supposedly move around in a virtual mall? Nobody wants that; they want to jump straight from gap.com to Merrils.com (or in HN case from VScode to Stack Overflow and back), or visit them side-by-side. But the company's efforts are still "me too" like demos from others years ago. They haven't managed to move the state of the art; and if they had would people have booed it too? Probably.
Also, decent, non-enthusiast hardware is so far away that it will be difficult for Meta to maintain focus. It should have been a skunkworks project, or at least a side effort, not something as prominent as it has been.
Except they dont understand it...
We already have pseudo-metaverses in Minecraft, Fortnite, and such, and Meta (so far) is entirely missing the point in their own VR game. Its like they are an AI that has literally forgotten what it is like to be a regular human.
https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1619818349525086208?s=...
From internal emails from Zuck^. Also has a bonus glimpse into their VR/AR strategy
It would do a lot of harm to Unity's relationship with smaller developers though, to Godot's benefit.
"An innovation brand comes from building tangible new products. Our work in VR/AR is the best example we have. Our core social networking work is no longer new, Internet.org is extending something rather than inventing it, and AI is not yet tangible... succeeding in VR/AR has the most innovation potential in the next 5-10 years."
> AI is not yet tangible
Did Meta bet on the wrong horse?
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/the-inside-story-of-...
There are some other good articles I remember reading about Pioneer Studios that I am unable to find right now. I think Microsoft could have absolutely dominated the mobile space, but they really sat on their laurels for far too long. I think they had the talent and ability to handle the technology development. They just didn't want to because of Gates and Ballmer.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2: 12726 (76 fps)
A16 Bionic: 9827 (58 fps)
https://nanoreview.net/en/soc-compare/qualcomm-snapdragon-8-...
Phones with A16 were available in September 2022.
Phones with a SM8550 (Snapdragon 8 gen 2) were available in January, 2023.
You're saying it is unreasonable to compare the last two (4 months apart), and instead the valid comparison is between the first two (8 months apart). That doesn't seem fair.
Samsung/Qualcomm used to do the "June release / Sep available" model about 10 - 12 years ago, they always lose to Apple from every aspect. So instead of directly compete with the "in cycle" release for the holiday season, they made the release looks earlier in the year, but then compete with a product released last year for the holiday season.
I was a bit dubious about the benchmarks posted earlier in the thread, for the last decade we're used to Apple having such a long lead that timing didn't matter. But given how hard you're pushing this "it's unfair to compare the currently available phones" angle, I guess the benchmarks are legit and they really have lost the lead.
I don't think they have any concrete "idea" either, except "let's make some metaverse".
There’s about 7 million PS5s sold in the last quarter and about 1 million Quest 2s sold in Q2 last year. I somehow doubt that every one of, or even 1/7th of those PS5 owners will spend the cost of a console on PSVR so I would argue that it’s still very much Meta’s game to lose.
Edit: clarified the sales numbers are for a single quarter. The point is that even if there’s a lot of potential buyers for the PSVR I don’t think there will be nearly enough conversions.
You put either of them on to play games. That’s it. Where’s the market differentiator?
To a common person, they’re not going to see the differences that exist. They will say “oh Timmy wants to play VR” and get whatever option they can to allow Timmy to play VR. Both the Quest and PSVR2 are options for that.
And the Quest has been out longer, has an existing user base 1/7th of a PS5 and doesn’t cost the same price as a new console. All of those very much work in it’s favor.
They made a solid move into vr. But vr will be gaming well before it is anything else. To try and break into that market as anything else is just not a likely entry.
Can you break into a market with money? Sure. Microsoft did it. They are still a distant 3rd in that market.
If only consoles could be used for more "workstation" things, including VR. I would have killed for a windows/linux desktop with a PS5 or XSX chip and 24GB-32GB of unified RAM.
Wow, that's actually a really good comparison!