cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

High end oculus vr.. don't hold your breath

bigmike20vt
Visionary
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=3&hl=de&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=...

Pretty bleak reading imo excuse long link Google shortener not working on it
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR 🙂
401 REPLIES 401

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

CrashFu said:

This belief that technology will only ever become affordable if rich people buy it when it isn't? 
.....



Thanks for sharing your view - obviously I disagree, but understand your passion.

Just for some clarification, Prosumers are not all rich, its just they pay a premium to be first, its a common misconception that they are rich-elites, generally by animosity to their position to be able to get the next level of engagement. Also the Sony PSVR is seen as a high-end system, as is the OculusVR platform - it is with GO and Quest (and their association previously with Samsung GearVR), they pivot to mid-range away from High-end, (and please I am willing to believe that they may surprise us with a CV2 down the road as a lost leader means to regain image loyalty). 

Regarding the comment, "...If it weren't for the high-end market, cutting-edge technology would go from prototype to entry-level affordable..." That seems plain wrong on so many levels. Market reaction, market interest, market availability are the key elements driving investing in tooling investment for commercial entry - to be expensive initially means a risk has to be taken and most wont do this until they see something like a Prosumer upswing. Remember since 1995 "expensive" commercial VR systems have existed that only commercial and Prosumers have purchased - it took the efforts of Sony, and then Valve/Oculus to produce cost-reduce hardware, and even after the $699 release of Rift for Facebook to subsidise to the promised-ballpark $399 price point, (subsidise-Prosumer!)

If Facebook VR is not prepared to fund the High-end (Half-Dome) system for 2020, seen as a successor to the CV1 - we all can understand that, but from the reaction on the forums there still seems to be an interest for a CV2... just not at an "entry level affordability", IMHO. 

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

ShocksVR
Superstar
@bigmike20vt
I wasn't here for the early days, but weren't the DK1 and DK2 "affordable?" (Dk1 was $300, and DK2 was $350).
And when the CV1 price was released wasn't there a huge shitstorm from the community about "not being around the $350 ballpark" figure?

It seems Oculus has a longer history of $300-$400 headsets, rather than the one time $600+ CV1.
i7-7700k, Zotac RTX 3080 AMP Holo (10G), QuestPro, Quest 2
Previous: Oculus GO, Oculus RIFT - 3 sensor Room-scale, Oculus Rift S

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

ShocksOculus said:
....
I wasn't here for the early days, but weren't the DK1 and DK2 "affordable?" (Dk1 was $300, and DK2 was $350).
And when the CV1 price was released wasn't there a huge shitstorm from the community about "not being around the $350 ballpark" figure?

It seems Oculus has a longer history of $300-$400 headsets, rather than the one time $600+ CV1.



Yeah, the hardware was placed at a expensive peripheral price point, but the power of the system to run it on, and the level of technical skill to achieve the best results placed this in the "PC-Master-Race", "Prosumer" bracket of adoption. The promise from the previous management was to offer "not good enough VR but the best, no matter the complexity", so we have always seen this latest insurgence in VR interest coming from those prepared to go the extra mile. Why additional systems such as the Virtuix omni-directional treadmill was seen as a obvious home system for those prepared to buy the best, only for that expected buyer base never to material. OculusVR has been trying to find the "sweet spot" since the grandiose hype claims of the expected 10m+ purchasers in the first few months, (proposed numbers that defined the Facebook acquisition).
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

bigmike20vt
Visionary


@bigmike20vt
I wasn't here for the early days, but weren't the DK1 and DK2 "affordable?" (Dk1 was $300, and DK2 was $350).
And when the CV1 price was released wasn't there a huge shitstorm from the community about "not being around the $350 ballpark" figure?

It seems Oculus has a longer history of $300-$400 headsets, rather than the one time $600+ CV1.


You are forgetting the cost of the machine to run it on ;). DK1 and DK2 were apparently sold at cost but I don't think it is feasible to expect that for ever
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR 🙂

kevinw729
Honored Visionary
In speaking with the team at Samsung responsible for the GearVR and the new standalone system - it was obvious that OculusVR was always focused on high-end with the CV1 - though Oculus Texas stayed separate and focused on low-end, and it is that that has now seen the redefining of the strategy. That is not to say that OculusVR or FacebookVR will not return to a glory product like the CV2?

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

Surely there's room for flexibility and changes of direction that a company takes, given that so much must have been learnt from the last 3 years of manufacturing and selling consumer hardware and funding software?

There will always be high end, if not from Oculus, then from somebody else, but if Oculus doesn't produce a mainstream headset with sufficient quality and capability that prospective mainstream will want it... then will somebody else? I don't see that happening at the moment, and if nobody else does... what would that spell for VR?

Isn't it possible that emergent technology like VR needs to begin high-end for it to make sense to early adaptors, but doesn't have to stay that way? indeed mustn't stay that way in order to survive and become sustainable?

Personally I'm not comfortable with views that equipment from a particular company should be high-end for fear of alienating sections of their costumers. Are existing users really that rigid? and if so, fine, there will be new users joining us who've been waiting for a more accessible yet capable PC headset, or who would otherwise have just waited even longer to get into VR if PC requirements continued to rise.... and I won't be looking down on these users either.

Changes of direction seem to me to be what successful companies do.... and consumer VR needs at least one successful company.

edmg
Trustee

CrashFu said:

This belief that technology will only ever become affordable if rich people buy it when it isn't?  Utterly absurd.  


Where would computers be today if no 'elitists' were willing to pay $1,000,000+ for them fifty years ago?

Your argument is the absurd one. And you've clearly never worked in consumer electronics. Back when I did, the high-end market was where we made the money that allowed us to develop new products; most of the revenue came from the low-end, but most of the profits came from the high-end where both price and margins were high.

jayhawk
Superstar
I thought this was a given by now. Oculus is interested in growing VR not catering to the enthusiasts. More chicken and egg scenario. Without mass adoption well never get those killer AAA titles, and without those AAA titles well never get mass adoption. Something's gotta give. Either more larger studios start producing games, or get more HMDs out there. Oculus is actually doing both. Making bigger and better games than the small studios are, while pushing for more mass adoption. I'll pick up an S day one, and although I'd love to have higher resolution, it might be a waste with my 1070.

RedRizla
Honored Visionary
The only thing that concerns me is Oculus partnering with Lenovo to create Rift -S, and then basically saying in the article that that's it for a while folks. I thought they were building a Rift 2, but the article suggests that isn't the case. That's my only concern, that they aren't even working on a Rift 2 when I thought they were.  

Did I read the article right or have I had to much red wine 😄

Anonymous
Not applicable


Surely there's room for flexibility and changes of direction that a company takes, given that so much must have been learnt from the last 3 years of manufacturing and selling consumer hardware and funding software?

There will always be high end, if not from Oculus, then from somebody else, but if Oculus doesn't produce a mainstream headset with sufficient quality and capability that prospective mainstream will want it... then will somebody else? I don't see that happening at the moment, and if nobody else does... what would that spell for VR?

Isn't it possible that emergent technology like VR needs to begin high-end for it to make sense to early adaptors, but doesn't have to stay that way? indeed mustn't stay that way in order to survive and become sustainable?

Personally I'm not comfortable with views that equipment from a particular company should be high-end for fear of alienating sections of their costumers. Are existing users really that rigid? and if so, fine, there will be new users joining us who've been waiting for a more accessible yet capable PC headset, or who would otherwise have just waited even longer to get into VR if PC requirements continued to rise.... and I won't be looking down on these users either.

Changes of direction seem to me to be what successful companies do.... and consumer VR needs at least one successful company.



This is why Oculus are following the Tick Tock model. The first Tock (the Rift) was new expensive technology and was expensive (£790 including Touch controllers thanks to Oculus not having a decent COO). If Hans Hartmann was the COO at the beginning we would have seen the Riff and Touch controllers at £599 or maybe £649 on launch day.

Next we have the Tick (the Rift S) which is an updated version of the Tock with an updated display and updated lenses but pretty much the same headset in terms of features. This is launching for less than the launch price of the Rift.

Next up after the Rift S will be the Rift 2 (I'm expecting them to do a Sony and keep the brand name, you don't have a brand as strong as the PlayStation or Rift and dump it). This is going to have new features compared to the previous Tock and the previous Tick and should retail for around $600/£600 because of the new technology under the hood being more expensive to produce.

Oculus need that Tock and its early adopters so that they don't lose money manufacturing it, and they NEED to manufacture it to get the manufacturing costs down, not only ready for the cheaper Tick that will follow a few years after it but also so that the technology will filter down to their standalone headsets when the costs are reduced even further a few years after that latest Tick has been released.

It has nothing to do with being Elitist, the aim for Oculus is to get ALL of this technology mature enough so that it can be used for standalone headsets, headsets that will start to be as common as DVD Players and TVs are right now in people's homes.

Early adopters such as us are willing to pay a little extra to get these things a few years earlier. What Oculus are NOT going to do is funnel millions of dollars of R&D into the Half Dome prototype and then IGNORE that technology until it becomes as cheap as chips to produce for their standalone headsets...but they're ALSO not going to release it too early for anywhere close to a grand either. HTC and Pimax have both made that mistake.

If enthusiasts/early adopters abandon the Rift S in favour of the Valve Index or any other headset that will be balanced out by the new people buying the Tick and the chances are (because Oculus are so far ahead of everyone else in terms of R&D) by the time that Tock comes along a lot of those people will return to buying the better headset with a new feature (such as varifocals).

Zuckerberg knows what he's doing.