Comment by phh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phh | Hacker News Reader

It basically doesn't say anything about what's new (besides color passthrough), that's rather annoying.

I love my Meta Quest 2, and I'll blindly buy Quest 3 as soon as available. It's an awesome game console, and the games' quality is very consistent (I also do PC VR, and even though PC VR has some neat stuff, it's much more effort. I usually can do PC VR only 1 hour in a row because any frame jitter gives nausea, while Quest manages 1 frame drops per hour).

That being said, I'm expecting to be let down: - No more Carmack. I'm pretty confident he helped push quality forward, and quality is really what puts Quest 2 ahead of its league. You must really have 0 head tracking issue and 0 frame drop. - the design with camera islands screams at "designers wanted a say", but they forgot practical use. Quest 2 was smooth, which makes it easy to put into a bag and out, and camera' lenses were kinda protected. Here you've got the worst part of all. If my smartphones are any reference, the ones with islands are scratched within 6 months. My Quest 2 is 2 years old and looks to be able to sustain 5 years without a hitch. I'm not optimistic about Quest 3.

>I love my Meta Quest 2, and I'll blindly buy Quest 3 as soon as available

As another happy Quest 2 owner, please wait for some reviews before puling the trigger. It seems most of the Quest 3 improvements come on the AR side, which I honestly don't care for, as I just want escapism out of my apartment in the form of immersive VR games.

Also, the Quest 2 will be getting extra performance via a SW update, so don't throw it away just yet:

"In an upcoming software update, we’re updating the Quest 2 and Quest Pro GPU and CPU. Quest 2 and Pro will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19% GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro."[1]

I'm honestly impressed how much graphic performance they can squeeze out of that old-ish smartphone SOC. Wish all SW companies would put in such efort in continuous performance optimizations, especially on the PC side (the Electron Windows 11 weather app uses 500MB RAM lol)

[1] https://about.fb.com/news/2023/06/meta-quest-3-coming-this-f...

The Quest 3 looks slimmer and lighter in weight, that might be a big win in itself if it is just as good as the Quest 2 (and doesn't regress like the Pro).

Yup I completely agree with you. Quest 2 is an awesome game console because of the immersion. I expect AR to be as gimmick as it has been on smartphones (though I'll probably find a game or two that will be fun for few hours), but passthrough is a useful feature. My expectations on Quest 3 is exclusively better performance, to have a wider range of games.

I perfectly agree that the amount and quality games that can be squeezed on Quest 2's GPU is freaking awesome, but still PCs have better games, and I'm not just speaking of graphics. For instance "open world" games like Derail Valley doesn't seem possible when I see performance of Synthriderz on long "experiences". It looks like loading anything that isn't already in RAM is painful (which is weird for a unified memory architecture, but anyway)

If the AR on this headset is good, it could become the primary AR platform for devs/commercial use. If it's $500, that'd make it 7 times cheaper than the hololens.

Meh, commercial customers already had AR headsets and even at more expensive pinpoints those were still justifiable for business as they're tax write-offs anyway.

Also, I doubt Meta have a damn about commercial users as commercial users don't drive sales. Meta makes money on the Quest by selling you games on the Quest store. Commercial customers don't buy any games. The Quest 2 for business is 2x more expensive for commercial users.

What are your favorite games? I’ve enjoyed super hot and beat saber. Those two have been the most compelling so far. Do you recommend some others?

The "I Expect You to Die" games are really good, there's a third one coming out soon (if I had to guess as a launch title for the 3).

Pistol Whip is an evolution of Beat Saber-esque rhythm games. Very fun, probably my most-played title.

The Last Clockwinder is a brilliant puzzle/action game that would probably be impossible to implement outside of VR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUVjNLc_X2M

I'm not GP, but here are the ones I've played the most:

- Walkabout mini golf (20h). Great for unwinding and the ball physics are nearly perfect.

- I Expect You To Die, 1 & 2 (15h). If you like puzzle games, these are fantastic. Super addicting the first time you play, but little replay value.

- Demeo. Like D&D-lite (10h). Can play co-op with other Quest users or with Steam on PC.

- Half Life 2 VR mod and Half-Life: Alyx (10h). I loved HL2 when it first came out so there's a massive nostalgia bonus, but Alyx is widely acclaimed.

- Pistol Whip (2h, but getting into it). This is a spiritual successor to beat saber.

As a metal music listener with fond memories of Guitar Hero, I’ve enjoyed Ragnarock a ton.

You play as the drummer on a viking boat, hitting the notes (similar to GH) to the tune of power metal. Nice workout, especially if you really get into it and start exaggerating your movements.

The trailer gives a better impression than I can.

Personal favorite: Cosmodread. It’s a procedurally generated spaceship horror game where you must gather resources and not get killed by monsters to escape.

I have no killer game, but I enjoyed many games. The most notables for me were I expected you to die series, A Fisherman's tale series, the last clockwinder, Synth Riders, Superhot

My first thought was - wait this sounds exactly like Quest Pro but a $1000 cheapwr

Same here.

I tried a Quest Pro for 30 days, but returned for various reasons - too heavy, poor battery time, rigid support, no top strap, no prescription lenses (at the time), etc. I was expecting Quest 3 to come at a much more reasonable price tag, and incorporate similar specs.

Jury still out, but it seems to be the case. Looking forward to testing it.

How can you return a working product that you used for 30 days?

US culture. You can just return stuff for any reason within the return policy of the store. Leads to some people "renting" expensive equipment by buying it then returning it a couple days later after it's been used.

It's also a way for big merchants to crush smaller merchants, especially with music gear. Guitar Center will accept returns where the product can no longer be sold new and eat the cost while a local merchant can't, and loses business as a result.

Plus the quite common experience now of buying "new" only to find that the unit is scuffed and missing parts etc.

It's another one of those things that seems like a win for the consumer but is really just anticompetitive and borderline fraudulent.

It even has a depth sensor that the pro is missing to gave better AR. The only thing that’s missing is face and eye tracking. No one cares about face tracking but foveated rendering is now supported for PCVR and it improved some standalone games too

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