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Are Tracking Pucks coming to Oculus? Why is Vive so ahead of the game?

JimmyMcVideo
Explorer
Having some easy-to-use, easy-to-integrate trackers like the Vive tracker seems highly critical to advancing this medium, in my opinion. 
Is Oculus working on its own tracking puck like this?!  https://www.vive.com/us/vive-tracker/

Virtual reality is currently only halfway to amazing, in my opinion. Sure it LOOKS real and immersive. But does it FEEL that way (touch wise)?  The ability to utilize (hopefully multiple) trackers to match visuals with real world objects seems like it should be an absolute priority in this world.   
78 REPLIES 78

maxpare79
Trustee
I don't think so and if they did I don't think we are going to see anymore hardware changes for this gen...And I can't see these puck taking off...People complained about controller fragmentation with gamepad/Touch and VIVE wands...Now you will also have fragmentation of how many parts of your body are tracked, accessories and so on...and it's 99$ per puck...It's cool for commercial use but I don't see it happening in-home
I am a spacesim/flightsim/racesim enthusiast first 🙂 I9 9900k@5.0, 32gb RAM/ 2080ti Former DK2, Gear VR,CV1 and Rift S owner

Anonymous
Not applicable
Why on earth would they want to..? They cost $99 EACH and aren't targeted at home consumers, they're targeted towards larger organisations such as VR Arcades and sports teams etc.

No developer in their right mind will support this accessory because it's going to be a niche of a niche market.

And Valve and HTC aren't ahead of anything, they've both been playing catch up since both headsets launched. ATW, Supersampling, comfortable strap and built-in headphones were available for the Rift since day one and Valve haven't caught up with their own ASW equivalent yet and HTC are working on new motion controllers because they know that the Touch controllers with finger tracking are so much better than the Vive wands and are releasing the Deluxe strap (for ANOTHER $99!) which should have launched with the Vive in the first place.

Mr_Creepy
Rising Star
I really look forward to having full body tracking someday, fighting games especially will be amazing.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Mr.Creepy said:

I really look forward to having full body tracking someday, fighting games especially will be amazing.


I wanna fight you in VR one day. Cause you do it with so much natural strengths 😉

I'm looking forward to some Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter type VR games, where legs are tracked too!

Mr_Creepy
Rising Star

Zenbane said:


Mr.Creepy said:

I really look forward to having full body tracking someday, fighting games especially will be amazing.


I wanna fight you in VR one day. Cause you do it with so much natural strengths 😉

I'm looking forward to some Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter type VR games, where legs are tracked too!

I would make you a believer Zenbane, you'd be just a stepping stone on my path to greatness! :lol:

Yeah, and I got plenty more lame ass lines where that came from!

CrashFu
Consultant
You say "Vive are ahead of the game",  I say "People are getting frustrated because the hardware they spent $800 on is so lacking. So third party developers take advantage of that by making these expensive add-ons and 'Vive' takes credit for it, while everyone conveniently ignores the fact that when you include all these "crucial add-ons" the Vive system ends up costing DOUBLE what the Rift does, at a time when the majority of tech consumers already think $600 is too much to pay for a VR system".

Or to put it another way, "The Vive is a joke."

But in a way, you're right;  Oculus SHOULD make devices that you can attach to random objects to track them in VR.   DIY peripherals, remembering where you set your beer, keeping track of the family cat so you don't trip over it... the possible applications are almost limitless.

Best of all, while the Vive Pucks have to be big, bulky and expensive because of the Vive's inefficient lighthouse tracking system,  a tracking device for use with the Rift's constellation sensor system literally just has to be able to make IR LEDs blink in a particular sequence.  That means they could be very tiny, like the size of a fit-bit or even just a small velcro-backed strip, and they could be sold for a fraction of what the Vive pucks cost.
It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.

Mr_Creepy
Rising Star

snowdog said:

No developer in their right mind will support this accessory because it's going to be a niche of a niche


I disagree, you wont see any games requiring it, but you will see games where it will be usable. There is also a haptic feedback vest (Hardlight VR) coming, which is also a small niche of a niche, and still there are VR games that support it.

CrashFu
Consultant
Developers will support weird peripherals and hardware accessories in addition to offering more accessible play options,  because those weird extra game modes make for a cool bullet-point on "the back of the box" so to speak,  but nobody is going to make a game or app that specifically REQUIRES obscure add-ons like this...

Except maybe those pretentious game-dev-wannabe college kid types.  You know the ones I mean. Always bragging about how the vive-exclusive game they're working on is "so innovative" but they either just post a few gifs of someone waggling a sword with particle effects on twitter and are never heard from again,  or the game they release just turns out to be some shallow and uninspired physics toybox or shooting gallery type thing.
It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.

Anonymous
Not applicable
So to get that full body tracking that works the best way possible you need to buy a Vive and 3 Tracking Pucks. That's going to cost you a total of $799 for the Vive and $297 for the Tracking Pucks. $1096 in total.

And if HTC/Valve ever release their Touch controller clones finger tracked controllers you'll need to spend another (let's be generous and call it $99 for the pair despite the current Vive controllers costing $130-odd EACH) $99 for the controllers and another $99 for the Deluxe strap. So to get a Rift-like experience you'll need to spend $997 instead of $599.  😮

As for these other add-ons you're looking at around $250 or so for a wireless doobrie and another $220 or so for the foveated rendering thingummybob.

Nobody in their right mind is going to spend $1096 detailed in that first paragraph because you'll have at best a handful of games that support full body tracking during the next few years.

And anyone spending the sort of money in the second paragraph would be better off selling their Vive and buying a Rift because for less money you'll be getting a superior headset and (what's probably going to be) superior controllers plus native compatibility with the Oculus Store and a shitload of high quality games for nowt.

As for the third paragraph above, personally I'm not too keen on sticking a rechargable battery anywhere near my brain box and it's WAAAAAAAY too expensive, and the foveated rendering thingummybob will be great...but it's only a matter of time before someone else comes up with a version for the Rift which may even end up being cheaper.