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Too many signs that Oculus is dead...

yazze
Honored Guest
Like you have been waiting and waiting for any concrete news about the development and future releases of Oculus rift HMDs.

But following the different reports and news, and analyzing the market a bit, I realize that there are strong chances that the Oculus as a PC tethered HMD might well be dead.

- First of all, and most obvious of the signs: there's been none since the Crescent Bay was released 10 months ago (according to report it was ready 2 months before release in September 2014). Neither there's been any announcement about a DK3 in before the consumer version.

Not only does it make no sense to leave a community pushing a market in the dark for that long, but it's also really bad for that community itself: there's fewer and fewer DK2 experiments and demos being released, and interest in VR or at least the Oculus is steadily slowing down all around me and forums/boards I follow, when VR needs the exact opposite.

And for a CV1 release, something that is -just- an extension of the Crescent Bay or even a DK3 that wasn't thoroughly tested by a beta community of developers, doesn't make sense. Nor releasing a public consumer version that has so many problems and challenges, not only in display image, latency or form-factor but also the fact that it has no hand-motion sensor.

The first thing my "casual" friends try to do when putting the headset is to use their hands, which shows how necessary and obvious this function is for immersion in a consumer product. And what the Leap Motion + HMD is achieving as an experiment is what a DK3 should've been, especially, as I said, for it to be experimented and tested.


- The second strong indicator, is the Mobile VR. An Oculus HMD has a big form-factor, is tethered, requires a computer while adding the costing of the screen component and being a compatibility hassle. Mobile VR targets what everybody already has, a smartphone which is already equipped with screen, gyro/accelerosensors and optimized processors, is untethered AND has a store-ready ecosystem.

If you look at Weareality (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wea ... mitless-vr), they're already providing a visual experience that is far greater that that of the oculus, just because of the 150° FOV, the transportable and untethered form-factor and most-importantly, the price.

Such enterprise are so easy to pull out (I mean anybody anywhere in the world can suddenly come-up and market something that is an order of magnitude higher than the basic HMD set just because of a small innovation). In fact that maybe why Oculus has been putting more effort in helping Samsung update its Gear VR than releasing a new iteration of their own...


- So my guess is that the Oculus as a big, tethered and machine-dependant HMD is DEAD. Rather I think we'll see a new Mobile version similar to that of the Gear VR, but if possible with wireless capabilities for both head-motion feedbacks and also image streaming from computer. Especially since Intel is bringing forth wireless image streaming with WiDi in its Skylake platform, as well as next Qualcomm processors...
72 REPLIES 72

Anonymous
Not applicable
"wheatgrinder" wrote:
There are two types of people;
those that can extrapolate from incomplete data



There are three kinds of people in this world... those that can count and those that can't :lol:

Malkmus1979
Explorer
Looks like I was wayyyyyyyy off! These posts only took two days to get funny, not 6 weeks! HA!

nightbane30
Honored Guest
I'm laughing so hard right now. A day after this is posted, Oculus announces CV1 and its release schedule. Too funny.
Ordered: December 26, 2014 Ready: December 29, 2014 Processed:December 29, 2014 SHIPPED:December 31, 2014 ARRIVED: January 6, 2015

kojack
MVP
MVP
"nightbane30" wrote:
I'm laughing so hard right now. A day after this is posted, Oculus announces CV1 and its release schedule. Too funny.

No, he might be right and Oculus is still dead even though it's moving forward, which means... IT'S A ZOMBIE!
Author: Oculus Monitor,  Auto Oculus Touch,  Forum Dark Mode, Phantom Touch Remover,  X-Plane Fixer
Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich
Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2

Malkmus1979
Explorer
"nightbane30" wrote:
I'm laughing so hard right now. A day after this is posted, Oculus announces CV1 and its release schedule. Too funny.


To be honest, I think the naysayers will mostly shift the goalposts now and say that because it's releasing after the Vive they were still right.

But I think the influx of announcements fro Oculus will make that very difficult. This is why i kept saying to hold off on the doom and gloom predictions until at least after E3. But apparently it only takes two months of nothing new for people to lose all rationality.

VizionVR
Rising Star
It's a g-g-g-g-ghost! :lol:
Not a Rift fanboi. Not a Vive fanboi. I'm a VR fanboi. Get it straight.

yazze
Honored Guest
Don't thank me...

VizionVR
Rising Star
"yazze" wrote:
Don't thank me...

OK
Not a Rift fanboi. Not a Vive fanboi. I'm a VR fanboi. Get it straight.

raidx
Protege
"yazze" wrote:
Don't thank me...


Yeah of course... they announced it because you started this post... You are soo special

nosys70
Expert Protege
well , oculus could perfectly pursue a strategy for a product that goes nowhere (marketing wise).
It is not because they made an annoucement that they win some hidden battle.
Yes it is possible that oculus his dead, they just don't know it yet...
Or worse, oculus could be dead... for us. Yes they will still sell to US Army , or some specialized business, but it would disappear as a PC product, and oculus will just rely on selling consultancy and license to samsung, sony etc...
1Q2016 is far and it is totally possible that 80% of the market loose interest in VR or switched to another brand by this time.
for me the annoucement of oculus look more like a desperate move. They announce now a product that will deliver only in 9 month. so the product specs are frozen (since how long ? dk2 is already pretty old, are they selling us crescent bay ? in that case why wait 9 months more ?) and at time of release, it could be totally obsolete.
(especially if first review say: ok then we waited so long to finally get a slightly better DK2 ?).
and where is the developper kit (DK3 ?) for this model ? do they expect developpers to start developping 1Q2016 ?
So the CV1 will start with no content ? or is it so totally the same as DK2 that we will just need to flip a switch a recompile DK2 project for CV1, or even backward compatible ?
what about the "new" features ?
After the 3D hype, samsung is still selling TV with 3D feature, i doubt a lot of people still buy these TV because the 3D feature.
They just buy a TV. the 3D comes for free (most of the time they don't even bother to purchase the glasses). Today people buy a TV for 4K feature, even if there is no content ready yet.
But you do not buy a VR helmet to watch TV, while thinking, it's cool i can use it as VR goggle too ...
and 1Q2016, you would probably not buy a VR helmet with 1080 screen or even 1440 with 100deg FOV and fuzzy picture, because you already tried that in early 2015 and you know it sucks...
the next month will tell, especially when they will reveal the specs of CV1. then perhaps we will laugh....or cry

and what about if mid 2016 they annouce a new helmet with high end specs, dual screen, 120deg FOV etc... ?
I think they better should release crystal cove as DK3, and say the CV1 is for end 2016