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Regrets of a midgame adopter

vicvicvic135
Explorer
Last night, I was surprised to see that the Oculus+ touch dropped from 600 USD to 400 USD. I got the Oculus from Best Buy less than 4 weeks ago and felt pretty happy about being an early adopter. At this moment, I feel regretful that I didn't wait just a while longer. Best Buy has a 15 day return policy and the Oculus support group said that they were unable to help me since I purchased from another retailer.

I do wish our community expands but this situation is making it hard for me to make a case to recommend this product to my friends. With underdeveloped games, a technology with potential for improvement, and constant price drops, I feel as if it would be wise for anybody to wait a couple years before buying an Oculus (or similar VR hardware).

Does anybody feel the same?

Edit July 12: After some discussion on this thread, it seems like I should be classified as a "midgame" adopter.
22 REPLIES 22

Sharpfish
Heroic Explorer
I have no lament at being an early adopter, at least of VIVE because I sold it within a short space of time and made some excellent profit on it. If you didn't sell rift in a short time while they were low stock, that means you loved it and used it a lot. Hence you got your money's worth.. just like with a CPU or GPU that get reduced/replaced by better stuff each year. 

BTW I don't class you as an early adopter anyway, you bought it 4 weeks ago? Christ some of us have pumped thousands into VR for the past 4/5 years or more, and you already got your rift+touch for less than it was for many at launch.

Don't let sour grapes get the better of you, if you don't recommend it to your friends it means your purchase at the higher price is even LESS worthy cos less players = less online fun and less software being made.

I can only assume this spate of complaining about tech reducing in price is coming mainly from millennials who've never had a hard day in their life? 

p.s if you 'wait a couple of years' nothing good will come of it because by that time gen 2 will come out and be just as pricey as the launch stuff, sure CV1 will be dirt cheap by then but nobody will want it? How about you stop crying and start playing? sheesh!

edit - you have mixed messages going on in your post hence my additional words, OK yes in general I'd advise all but the  VR hungry to wait for GEN 2. Absolutely, because rift/vive/psvr are NOT quite there yet to cover all the bases. However you are NOT one of those because you have bought it already and your post sounds more like you are annoyed cos you could have gotten it cheaper if you'd waited 4 weeks (understandable but you must find self resolve and tell yourself you bought it at that price because you wanted it/thought it was worth it then). 

Finally if you really do feel it's not worth it, or your time, etc do what I did with my vive and psvr (sell them on ebay fast!). DK2 I didn't care cos I knew I was getting into very early/janky tech and it was very cheap. Vive was expensive, esp compared to what you paid for rift if you bought in the past 4 weeks, and believe me you got a lot more for your cash with rift at 600 than vive at 800.
EX DK2/VIVE/PSVR/CV1/Q2/PSVR2 | Currently Quest Pro (PCVR) | VR developer
RTX 3080 FE / 12900k / Windows 11 Pro

SadGamerDad
Heroic Explorer

I'm torn by your post, on one hand, I can see why you're salty since you just paid 200 more less than a month ago. You say you're an early adopter, so shouldn't you expect to pay the early adopter tax knowing that prices will drop (not if). I'm also torn that you won't recommend it when the price of $400 right now is a perfect time to get more people into VR to grow the community which is a good thing. To me I just perceive this as your way to feel like you're getting back at "Oculus/The Man" by choosing to do this.  My advice is to embrace the VR community and spread the word to others to get into a new Rift therefore that cheaper price will be there for others come 2018 if not sooner.


MoeCapp
Protege
I started on DK2 and have been enjoying VR for years, but just in the last few months have felt that enough software was getting there to justify it for the non-enthusiast, and now with the Rift price drop I feel I could actually recommend it to somebody who didn't already know what they were getting into.

But still, second generation hardware is probably going to be vastly improved for multiple reasons, and the longer one waits to get started, the more content will be ready. I don't think anyone need be in a huge hurry to jump on the VR train, unless they already know exactly why they want it right now.

vicvicvic135
Explorer
Well of course I cant categorize myself as the same "early" adopters that purchased this years ago. I still consider this quite early as there aren't many non indie games on this and the technology is quite immature. I'm only a casual gamer so I've only put a few hours into the Oculus in the past month. In that case, I believe that it would be best for my friends and I to wait for gen 2, where we would pay a price similar to what it is now but have a better hardware.
I'm also not understanding how you could sell this for more as soon as I got it. A used item would never go for as much as the new one especially since they won't get the bundled games.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
@vicvicvic135 - The Oculus Rift was released in May 2016, and you bought yours June 2017?

I think we need to have a talk about what the word "early" means. 'Cause you were definitely latelatelate365

vicvicvic135
Explorer

Zenbane said:

@vicvicvic135 - The Oculus Rift was released in May 2016, and you bought yours June 2017?

I think we need to have a talk about what the word "early" means. 'Cause you were definitely latelatelate365


It's true, perhaps I shouldn't call myself "early" but I consider purchasing it now as relatively early. I think VR gaming technology is barely consumer ready with the lack of games and inconveniences of the hardware (such as wires and a clunky headset).

flexy123
Superstar
>>
hard for me to make a case to recommend this product to my friends.
>>

Let me read this again. Because my eyes seem to play jokes on me.
You are saying you won't recommend the Rift...because of the price drop? This is why you don't want to recommend the Rift? Is this correct?

It is clear to me that you didn't "dive" deep into VR yet, clear from you mentioning the alleged lack of games or "underdeveloped games". Except this isn't the case any more...and I have reason to believe you haven't even seen a fraction what is out today for VR (not just games) - or maybe you're just looking at the wrong spots, like in the Steam indy section or something. I don't think I need to write a list of "well developed" AAA-grade titles that are available now, there is plenty of this here in the forum or on reddit where people recommend games.

While your points with "wires and a clunky headset" are "sort of" valid, so they're not entirely. It's like me saying PC gaming is **** because I can't take my monitor off the desk or something, or VR is **** because the cable is not long enough, or it's not wireless, or my space is limited and I might knock over my monitor...etc..etc...basically a number of more-or-less far-fetched reasons that you seem to use because you really *want* to dislike the Rift/VR for whatever reason. If this is the case, maybe it's really better you sell it since you can't or don't want to see the positive aspects but only the negatives.

PS. there will ALWAYS be "potential for improvement". Even with a hypothetical VR headset 3 gens ahead there will be something else around the corner which will improve things. There will always be something better, newer. You shouldn't go "into VR" and then look only at "the potential" , even if doing it of course is totally legit. (I do this all the time too 🙂 But there is not just "potential", there is things you can do *right now* as well. Say, for meeting people in VR I could go to AltSpace or Vrchat..I can do that NOW and have fun with the experience...regardless whether the experience in, say, 5 years or so will be much more improved.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP



Zenbane said:

@vicvicvic135 - The Oculus Rift was released in May 2016, and you bought yours June 2017?

I think we need to have a talk about what the word "early" means. 'Cause you were definitely latelatelate365


It's true, perhaps I shouldn't call myself "early" but I consider purchasing it now as relatively early. I think VR gaming technology is barely consumer ready with the lack of games and inconveniences of the hardware (such as wires and a clunky headset).


The first car, the first airplane, the invention of electricity...

Current Gen 1 HMD's are the birth of something new. Whatever you just said discounts that in favor of trying to topic-shift.

I see zero lack of games and zero inconveniences. What have you tried in VR specifically? Better yet, what do you actually own? I have well over 30 VR Titles between Oculus Home and Steam. The only thing I seem to be lacking is time to enjoy it all.

vicvicvic135
Explorer
I acknowledge the points you're all making. Everything will improve and get cheaper. But such rapid price drop means that it will get even cheaper in the near future or a better version will come out soon. I recall the Oculus Rift falling in price just a few months earlier as well. For example, I could buy a PS4 without expecting a huge price drop or the PS5 coming out in the next few months.
I know there are a lot of games for the Oculus but they usually feels quite glitchy. Most of them are Indie games as well. As a follow up to my previous example, the PS4 has way more quality and triple A games available. 

Perhaps you are all right though, I may be having some sour grapes just because I purchased the Oculus Rift a month ago only to see the price drop drastically immediately. In any case, I am still unsure whether such a platform was the right one for a casual gamer such as I.