Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

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A lot more computing horsepower by being tethered, really. A standalone unit naturally can't have the same kind of graphical fidelity than something tethered to a full-powered current-gen console.

I think there are two strategic errors worth considering here:

- wireless vs. tethered. Was it really worth it going wireless or was there viability in being tethered?

- the hype around PSVR2 is around the Horizon game, which seems like a legitimately great, full-length game that's both a gameplay and technical achievement. What if Meta had spent their $$$ on funding and shipping titles like it? Beat Saber is the only title of note for them and it's getting very old.

One gets the feeling that Meta only begrudgingly services the gaming applications of Quest, even though it's the only application right now. This is understandable as the console market as a whole is far to small for Meta to be interested in long-term, but one can convincingly argue that the status quo doesn't serve them either: they have a product that doesn't have non-gaming PMF but also are visibly annoyed at being in the gaming market at all.

Their existing customers have no confidence in the platform and have reasonable expectations to be jettisoned the moment they become inconvenient, while the company has no line of sight to another market.

There's a lot of execution here that feels like it puts the cart before the horse. Of course you want a bigger-than-console-gaming market, but you have to excel in your space before you can convincingly lay claim to another. Finding viability (both product and financial) in your current market gives you freedom to pivot later.

The step away from Quest Pro feels incoherent. You don't really see yourself and your product as a gaming product, so you pivot towards MR/productivity use cases... and now you're... pivoting back to gaming? What? Yeah, ok, the Quest Pro was definitely underbaked, but it suggests that the company has no confidence in its own strategy. If you believe in the MR/productivity path, double down and fix the problems with a follow-up. If you believe in VR gaming, then act like it!

I think Meta really doesn't get the whole gaming console business. They got too excited with the technology for technology sake, and drank too much of the Snowcrash-esque kool-aid to realize that the most obvious target audience to drive meaningful usage is harcore gamers. And the novelty of Beat Saber will only go so far; you really need AAA titles and publishers.

But this would mean investing heavily in tools and SDKs, 1P titles, and publishing deals, neither of which is a world that Meta is very familiar with, and - given the track record - doesn't seem very excited about.

The launch of Meta Quest Pro was abysmal (my comments here at the time [1]), but unfortunately things haven't improved much since then, other than the price reduction. I ended getting the Pro at the launch day, but returned after a few weeks, given the underwhelming experience. It was disappointing, because I wanted to love the device, but it just doesn't deliver.

I received the PSVR2 last week, but didn't have time to unbox yet. Really hoping it gives Meta a run for their money, and sets the bar high (despite being tethered).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33166291&p=3#33170171

> the most obvious target audience to drive meaningful usage is harcore gamers. And the novelty of Beat Saber will only go so far; you really need AAA titles and publishers.

I really feel like what you need is omni-directional treadmills. I really like VR rhythm games, but for most other games beyond that feel like you really need some more natural way of moving around. The only exception to that would be things where you'd naturally be playing sitting (in a cockpit, in a car, etc).

> The launch of Meta Quest Pro was abysmal

As far as Meta being out of touch goes, the Quest Pro not shipping with a total light blocker seems pretty indicative. i.e. you need to spend 50USD on https://www.meta.com/quest/accessories/quest-pro-full-light-... if you really want to properly game on it, on top of the $$$ you already need to fork out for the headset.

> I received the PSVR2 last week, but didn't have time to unbox yet. Really hoping it gives Meta a run for their money, and sets the bar high (despite being tethered).

If I compare the PC, Quest, and PS versions of a game like Beat Saber the PC version is moddable and a vastly better game for it with loads of custom contents, the Quest version is semi-moddable but cranky about it, and the PS version AFAIK isn't moddable. Even for games with official custom song support (e.g. Synth Riders), the PS version doesn't support any of those.

Even if technically superior in some ways I'd consider PSVR2 mostly an expensive paperweight unless they were to release PC drivers for it (which they won't). Only seemingly decent piece of exclusive content for it seems to be Horizon: Call of the Mountain, but that's only 10 hours or so.

> I really feel like what you need is omni-directional treadmills.

Gaming platforms (and games) that require dedicated hardware are a very tough sell.

Gaming platforms (and games) that require a gaming rig that probably costs >$1k, that is really big (2m x 2m, from what I see) and that weighs 200kgs are close to impossible to sell, I'd imagine.

Yup. I think that omni-directional treadmills are what's needed to make a lot of possible games feel great, but I'm not very optimistic that they'll become commonplace anytime soon.

2m x 2m is probably an overestimate (https://omni.virtuix.com/ is selling the Omni One which seems to require 4ft x 4ft), but even then this is still much larger than existing gaming gear requires. That said, people do buy things like treadmills, exercise bikes, and ellipticals - but still I think it'd be extremely tough to make these mass-market.

> What if Meta had spent their $$$ on funding and shipping titles like it?

They did, e.g. Resident Evil 4. However the highest-selling games on the store are Beat Saber (by a large margin), sports games and social games. That's what people want to play with the Quest. Going wireless/low-spec was absolutely the right decision and that has been proven by the sales figures.

Best thing is you don't have to compromise. Want high specs? Use Air Link with your PC, it works really well. Sensitive to latency? Plug in an extra long USB-C cable. Granted it's not quite as frictionless as the PSVR, but tethering is a deal breaker for me personally.

> The step away from Quest Pro feels incoherent.

Agreed. As far as I know the intention was always to make money in the MR/productivity space, with the Quest 1/2 being a sort of trial run (evidenced by all the 'experiments' and new functionality they added over time). Perhaps the Quest 1/2 are doing better than they expected and now they don't have a strong direction.

> - wireless vs. tethered. Was it really worth it going wireless or was there viability in being tethered?

Tethered to what? Sony has a much better answer to that question than Meta.

They've been trying to fix the "MR/productivity path" for years without much success.

Perhaps there is some future in industrial assistance but not clear if that translates to the next generation platform to subvert a teenage girl's self esteem.

They could never make a convincing MR/productivity headset because there is absolutely no consumer demand for an inferior experience.

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