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Is this why so little has been happening with the Oculus user experience?

Sax-a-boom
Rising Star
Here's an article where Road To VR talk to Nate Mitchell about the lack of Rooms and Parties on Oculus. Apparently they've been working on an all encompassing.....METAVERSE! 

https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-nate-mitchell-on-the-fate-of-rooms-and-parties-on-rift/

And yeah metaverse is a nebulous term that can describe pretty much anything in VR, so who knows what the hell he's talking about. He said we can 'trust him' though, so that's nice! I'll just sit here scratching my clinkers, rocking back and forth in my chair for who knows how many more months, just smiling...and trusting 🙂
33 REPLIES 33

falken76
Expert Consultant


I don't know if Nate was biting his tongue a bit but the messages weren't very clear. One minute he's talking about news about moving the pc platform forward coming later in the year (sounds OC4ish), next it's really great things for the pc community 'very very soon'. Are these the same things? Is this the same time frame?

I was also a bit confused by this "… we have a vision for the Oculus platform really being the epicenter for the VR community". Not the Rift community, the VR community. Are they planning a more open platform where all with eyeballs and money to spend will be welcome into the Oasis?





I just hope they don't abandon the PC users for the HUGE mobile market.  If they do, I'm done with this VR shit, I hate mobile devices, I only use them for phone and text, with the occassional reading of an email, everything is to tie me over until I get back to an actual production machine like a desktop, I can't write reports or anything like that on a damn phone. I can't use solidworks on them, they're toys.  Without a modern day GPU pushing VR, it's all baby toys.

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

falken76 said:
....
I just hope they don't abandon the PC users for the HUGE mobile market.  If they do, I'm done with this VR shit, I hate mobile devices,
....


It sadly looks that this may inevitably be the case now with the the core FB focus of the reshuffled management.

When it was just Samsung and Oculus Texas (Carmack) focused on mobileVR through the GearVR - then it looked to be an additional arm to the core PC business. But when OVR split the corporation between mobileVR, standalone and PC, it seems inevitable that one will have to be held back (as too the statement that they would not invest in new tech for CV1 for the foreseeable future.").

The failure of the market assurances by the previous management to materialise, I am sure the PC side of the FB acquisition of OVR, seems less palatable (in the short term) especially the issues of dealing with the PC VR users, and some of their... "quirks" and feeling of entitlement.

With more news on Standalone - the focus will inevitably move towards a "less-than-CV1" performance. It will be difficult to get this across to the mainstream media if this new platform is being constantly compared with their other product .It will take a very strong PR team to achieve this, and the question has to be, does OVR have that in place for OC4? And do they have enough team members in place (and the interest) to equally support all three strands?
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

falken76
Expert Consultant

kevinw729 said:


falken76 said:
....
I just hope they don't abandon the PC users for the HUGE mobile market.  If they do, I'm done with this VR shit, I hate mobile devices,
....


It sadly looks that this may inevitably be the case now with the the core FB focus of the reshuffled management.

When it was just Samsung and Oculus Texas (Carmack) focused on mobileVR through the GearVR - then it looked to be an additional arm to the core PC business. But when OVR split the corporation between mobileVR, standalone and PC, it seems inevitable that one will have to be held back (as too the statement that they would not invest in new tech for CV1 for the foreseeable future.").

The failure of the market assurances by the previous management to materialise, I am sure the PC side of the FB acquisition of OVR, seems less palatable (in the short term) especially the issues of dealing with the PC VR users, and some of their... "quirks" and feeling of entitlement.

With more news on Standalone - the focus will inevitably move towards a "less-than-CV1" performance. It will be difficult to get this across to the mainstream media if this new platform is being constantly compared with their other product .It will take a very strong PR team to achieve this, and the question has to be, does OVR have that in place for OC4? And do they have enough team members in place (and the interest) to equally support all three strands?



I'll just abandon it if it leaves PC.  Hopefully I can find some sap to buy the rift if it comes to that.

kevinw729
Honored Visionary
Hope you don't have to dude.
Think they would catch too much heat from the community if they dropped it all together - they will keep stringing on the PC VR community with occasional breadcrumbs... like Party Room+?
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Calmfixup
Heroic Explorer
I can't help but hope that you're wrong here. Wasn't that the entire reason that they re-shuffled internally? So that they could better divide into dedicated teams so as not to impede either?

It just seems unlikely to me that with the enormous amount of resources they've devoted to us (and are continuing to) that we'd be hung out to dry. 

I think that's part of the implication of a metaverse - us and the folks on mobile/standalone will all be part of the same environment or platform and be able to communicate and party more easily.

Guess we'll just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best at OC4 - though I definitely agree with @falken76
that if they abandon PCVR then I'm moving a different direction next iteration. 😞



falken76
Expert Consultant

kevinw729 said:

Hope you don't have to dude.
Think they would catch too much heat from the community if they dropped it all together - they will keep stringing on the PC VR community with occasional breadcrumbs... like Party Room+?



I'm not too worried about it actually.  They have projects like this:

https://www.vrandfun.com/these-hand-tracking-gloves-by-oculus-may-compete-against-valves-knuckles-co...

Even though it needs too many cameras to be practical right now, they're still working on things that look like they'd work with the rift.

Calmfixup
Heroic Explorer

falken76 said:


kevinw729 said:

Hope you don't have to dude.
Think they would catch too much heat from the community if they dropped it all together - they will keep stringing on the PC VR community with occasional breadcrumbs... like Party Room+?



I'm not too worried about it actually.  They have projects like this:

https://www.vrandfun.com/these-hand-tracking-gloves-by-oculus-may-compete-against-valves-knuckles-co...

Even though it needs too many cameras to be practical right now, they're still working on things that look like they'd work with the rift.



Right? 

I think they're going to split their market into three categories: PCVR (high end), Standalone (mid range) and Mobile (low end).

That way they capture as much of the market as possible, and really try to dominate.

Is that the best strategy or will it be too much to bare? Time will tell.


kevinw729
Honored Visionary

Calmfixup said:

I can't help but hope that you're wrong here. Wasn't that the entire reason that they re-shuffled internally? So that they could better divide into dedicated teams so as not to impede either?
...


I totally agree, and hope that my speculation on information gleamed from what I am seeing, is proven wrong. But to recently see the UK head of PC OVR dev walking away to a new job tells me that even with the restructuring they can not stop the internal fragmentation.

I see the point of streamlining, and also clearing out some of the failed initiatives - but in that stripping process some realities have kicked in regarding the feasibility to achieve the previous claims of supporting all aspects. A factor revealed when we saw the shuttering of Oculus Studio in mid flow.

falken76 said:
...
I'm not too worried about it actually. 
...
Even though it needs too many cameras to be practical right now, they're still working on things that look like they'd work with the rift.



I can see both sides of this, but agree if they are investing in new hardware projects then PC VR has a hope (unless this is a glory project in competition with HTC)? But, trying to manage the PC VR community by confirming no new CV1 updates or features like wireless for the foreseeable future - well that does sound a little bit like neglect.

The issue is that the OVR internal team has been restructured, but also at the same time a large number of the PC team have departed of their own volition - and surprisingly (or maybe not) have joined Microsoft! The number of previous OVR faces seen on the Redmond campus is very telling.

I think beyond the troubled business plan, the poorly executed manufacturer, the great design study, questionable marketing, and the problematic roll-out / CS - the one major legacy from the departed execs has been their appalling people-management skills (after paying so much to buy their operations). Reflected now in a exodus of key staff that had once been focused on PC matters!

But I am not here to just see doom and gloom - I hope that the new brooms can restructure the operation for the three prong attack that now lies ahead!
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Sharpfish
Heroic Explorer
Facebook (oculus) have been prioritising mobile VR ever since rift took a back seat to Gear VR (that was one of my other.. other reasons for going Vive originally as I was very annoyed by their silence on PC vs Mobile inc front page ads and GearVR hype esp as it flew in the face of their previous stance on not poisoning the VR well with sub-optimal VR such as no tracked controllers, no positional tracking and high frame rates)

How I see rift at the moment (at 400/500 bones) is only take it for what it is, not for what it might be in the future (with no guarantee they won't dump PCVR and move to standalone). For me I'm thankful we have VR of the quality of the full rift package at this price, finally, after 20+ years of waiting/hoping for something. For this price it's not the end of the world if Facebook abandon PC VR.

Obviously I'd prefer they didn't, especially after seeing the quality of their stuff (vs my ex Vive) and to provide quality competition to the other VR makers at least.

If they do abandon PC VR then we'll have others to go to, though if they don't have super deep pockets it may not push (high quality - PC ) VR into mainstream as fast as Facebook's billions could.

I don't think I can hold out til 2019 for a rift 2, I'll be looking at LG's new one, and whatever comes next year, but it can't just be the HMD/tech, it has to have some decent backing (so basically Steam VR or Facebook are the only choices right now) and needs to be ergonomically sound.

Until the dust settles on gen 2 just enjoy VR for what it is now. I did my fair shair of complaining and idealising about VR and its future direction in the past, but life's too short to crusade about such things when these massive companies will do exactly what they want anyway. Lets just take the amazing tech we have now (For $400!!) and make the most of it. We couldn't have dreamed to have something of the quality of rift + touch for that price just 10 years back when all HMDs were very very bad and very expensive (and without controls or any software to speak of).

EX DK2/VIVE/PSVR/CV1/Q2/PSVR2 | Currently Quest Pro (PCVR) | VR developer
RTX 3080 FE / 12900k / Windows 11 Pro

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

Sharpfish said:.
....
I don't think I can hold out til 2019 for a rift 2, I'll be looking at LG's new one, and whatever comes next year, but it can't just be the HMD/tech, it has to have some decent backing (so basically Steam VR or Facebook are the only choices right now) and needs to be ergonomically sound.
....


Sorry @sharpfish - but the LG PC (highend) headset will not be for consumer deployment. They may change their mind after 19' but may not be worth getting your hopes up.
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959