Or more importantly, I was hoping to read why I should still care when Valve's offering is planned to come out this year and is supposedly the bee's knees.
Yeah I don't think they would abandon the series but the way valve works it seems to me they never really cared about pairing it up unless it's something they have to do (like source). Meaning it wouldn't be any type of forced pairing.
* They have an input solution and will reveal it in the next couple of weeks
* The have improved the tracking and will now officially recommend standing experiences.
All in all, a Q1 release date is somewhat sad but in the big picture it won't matter.
One other takeway from this release, is that we will _probably_ be expecting technical specifications and details come E3. At least, it's alluded to.
The fact that the Vive very openly was advertising a stand-and-walk-around experience may have helped convince Oculus that the risk of litigation was outweighed by the need to not be giving a sense of inferior hardware.
But...the early investor of Oculus is also the CEO, and he apparently has the weakest stomach for VR of anyone at the company. The hard line seems to have been set entirely by him.
Doom and Quake both made many people nauseous. So do rollercoasters, 3D movies, and Telsa Roadsters. There's no reason to eliminate experiences that most people can thoroughly enjoy. Fortunately, the fun camp seems to have won finally.
"A developer edition is set to launch this spring, with the consumer version becoming available "later in 2015", which we guess means the same November release window as the other Steam kit."
http://www.wareable.com/vr/htc-vive-vr-headset-release-date-...
This is also why I see Sony having great success with its Morpheus headset. The PS4 is cheap as-is ($399) and if you already own one, its a no-brainer to go with their product. I'd be really surprised if Oculus ever goes mainstream. It still looks like an uber-nerds hobbyist toy like a, say, 3D printer, which technophiles have been telling us for years would be mainstream by now and in "every kitchen."
Carmack isn't stupid. He didn't sell to Zuck because he thought he'd be moving 10's of millions of product every year. He sold to Zuck because he knew that the shipping date doesn't really change things for Oculus. Its still a very rough road to mainstream acceptance and economic competitiveness. I can afford $299 for the headset, but I'm not interested in buying a super gaming box to make it work. Nor am I interested in being a beta tester for a technology known to be a bit wonky, cause motion sickness, have questionable 3rd party support, and Facebook ownership/integration/driver and API's TOS.
This is what on top of what Valve is doing, which may just steal Carmack's thunder as they have everything they need to make this work: the store, no relationship with unrelated businesses like social networking, large customer base, community goodwill, game publisher relationships, a decade plus in the game selling world, etc. If both the Valve set and the Oculus set go for $299, I can't think of any reason to even consider the Oculus.
In terms of specs I'd buy a GPU with at least a 3TF performance, and even that it's probably going to be "mediocre" for the next 2 years. 2TF should work, too, but might not last you too long, especially for new games. Obviously, the higher the performance the better, so if you can afford to pay thousands of dollars for a gaming rig knock yourself out. It will last longer.
You might also want to keep some accessories in mind, such as the Virtualix Omni or those full body controllers, which could cost you an extra thousand dollars.
I don't think a lot of people interested in this technology realize how much hardware they will need to buy to make this work. You're looking, at minimum, a $400-500 graphic card. Assuming you have the CPU heft to handle everything else. If not then there's another $400-500 for the chasis, mb, high-end cpu, high-watt ps, fast 8-16gb of RAM, etc. And that's for a fairly mid to low-end VR box. That could be $1000 out of pocket right there on top of whatever the Oculus costs.
It's also worth considering whether new games that come out will take VR into account in terms of graphical complexity. If it's clear VR is a viable marketing strat for a game or it gets to a point where big games are expected to support it, it could mean a developer will compromise scene complexity for it. I'm okay with that.
For example, just last night I played a game of Supreme Commander. That was one of the first games I know of that supported dual monitors, and it does it well. But I digress- the point is that I had it maxed out on two 1080p monitors and it was running at 60fps the whole time.
So yes, you will need a big beefy expensive graphics card to play the newest AAA games maxed out at 60fps. But you could always just turn the settings down, or play older games. I'm also willing to bet that when the VR market takes off later this year/early next year, that the indie scene will heartily embrace it. And typically most of those games run fine on "normal" hardware.
I'm not buying a VR headset in 2016 to play a game from 2007.
Bottom line is that a real VR product ships in less than 12 months.
My experience was very smooth and playable for hours. On a Mac. With laptop graphics. I'd definitely build a machine around a 980 next, but the tech is perfectly accessible.
If anything your sub-par experience is proof that I'm correct. Without excellent hardware, the experience is terrible. Just because "it kinda worked" doesn't mean its going to sell or impress anyone.
I also never said the experience was terrible or "kinda worked." Quite the opposite, in fact, I rather enjoyed it even at a lower quality because I understand the limitations of things. Outside of Lave I stayed right at 70fps and could turn my head from left to right without even a millisecond of delay. It was actually the most fun I've ever had in PC gaming. But you're right, because I didn't have everything turned up to maximum, I should rethink my enjoyment.
But I don't have a PS4. What I do have is a solid, modern computer since I need one for all sorts of work and play situations. I can either spend $400-500 on a PS4 and any typical addons or I can spend $400-500 on a powerful graphics card for my computer. And with graphics cards, performance goes up and price comes down every year.
The other angle I'd need to consider is what you can do with the whole package (computer + Rift or PS4 + Morpheus). Morpheus will work on the PS4 and I'll be able to buy PS4 content to use with the Morpheus. The Rift will work on any capable computer and I can either buy games/content from Steam or from other sellers or I can go to Oculus Share and download all sorts of experiments and demos and games from all sorts of developers. I can even fire up the free version of UE and start building environments to walk around in via the Rift immediately. The power to create and share content shouldn't be underrated, especially at this early stage.
I think that in 5-10 years time, if this hasn't gone the way of 3D TV (something cool and easy to find but ultimately not that big a deal), the costs will be low enough and content will be abundant enough that it won't matter whether you use a black box under the TV or a silver box under your desk. But during this early time in the market, access to demos and creative tools will be a big deal.
When someone develops a VR teleconferencing app with depth cameras and live streaming, the betas and first release won't be on some Sony or Microsoft game console. They'll be on Windows, OSX, and Linux. When you want to use a sweet HOTAS for your VR flight simulator or enable VR support in the config of some new game, you won't be able to do that on a Playstation or Xbox.
All that stuff is more than enough to get me to lean toward a $500 GPU upgrade over a $400 console purchase. I think until VR stuff isn't early adopter/enthusiast territory by definition, the more packaged solutions will be lacking. Once it's commonplace, it'll be more a question of ergonomics like PC/console gaming is now.