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Oculus reducing focus on true high-end PCVR gaming?

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
Interview with Jason Rubin (I've put some text in bold):

"Hamilton: Are you still developing new games, beyond the ones we’re seeing here today, for Oculus Rift first?

Rubin: Oculus Rift first? I’m not sure. If the right project… I mean yes there are some in production, but what we look at is if the right project comes that we think can only be done on PC, and needs to be done to prove something out, we would fund it. Because again innovation is what we rely on the PC for delivering.

We are not graphically married…we are not pursuing graphics as like a goal. So if someone just comes and says we don’t want to build it for Quest because we want to have cutting edge graphics and we don’t want to worry about porting it down the Quest, that’s probably not a title we would make. If it can come to Quest, we want it to come to Quest. So for the most part the titles that we’re looking for now will run on both (that we’re funding)."

Source: https://uploadvr.com/jason-rubin-oculus-quest-index-rift-go/ 

From now on we only get low-poly low-res-texture phoneVR games funded by Oculus on the Rift(-S)? 

It really worries me. Of course there're Defector, Stormland, Lone Echo 2 and Asgard's Wrath - but these games have been planned for long. Will these truly high-end PCVR games, which are far beyond the Quest's ultra-low hardware capabilities, be the last Rift-only PCVR games from Oculus? 

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

167 REPLIES 167

RedRizla
Honored Visionary
@MowTin - PS 5 & PS -VR 2 is the next headset I'll be purchasing. I'll wait for a price drop before purchasing the Valve index and will have plenty of time to read all the reviews. I just hope my Rift CV1 doesn't crap out on me in the meantime because I'll have to go with Google cardboard if it does.
I like the idea of streaming to the Oculus Quest though from a Pc, so hopefully Oculus give this serious consideration and make something themselves instead of people relying on 3rd party apps to achieve this.

kevinw729
Honored Visionary
Seeing people throwing around terms like "abandon" and "drop" - seems too harsh. 

What seems more to be the reality from the remaining management is that they have been given a direction for focus on, and the mobileVR (standalone) approach is seen as core to achieving that direction. Their focus is on that, and have had to make compromises to achieve this - the Lenovo agreement and a move away from exclusives is part of that move.

Fundamentally, this was known around OC5 - but any attempt to discuss this trod on too many nerves. And the reality of an OculusVR CV2 for 2020 looks very remote (though I will not rule out a Lenovo CV2 compromise!) 

The king is dead (PC) - long live the king (Standalone)  B)
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

MowTin
Expert Trustee

RedRizla said:

@MowTin - PS 5 & PS -VR 2 is the next headset I'll be purchasing. I'll wait for a price drop before purchasing the Valve index and will have plenty of time to read all the reviews. I just hope my Rift CV1 doesn't crap out on me in the meantime because I'll have to go with Google cardboard if it does.
I like the idea of streaming to the Oculus Quest though from a Pc, so hopefully Oculus give this serious consideration and make something themselves instead of people relying on 3rd party apps to achieve this.


But there is one wildcard. It's game streaming services like Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud. 

The future could be standalone streaming devices that look like the Quest but use a streaming service to deliver high quality graphics. 

If Facebook wants to be the future of VR, I'm surprised they haven't invested in cloud gaming. Someone is going to build the Oasis in the cloud.
i7 9700k 3090 rtx   CV1, Rift-S, Index, G2

BeastyBaiter
Superstar
Cloud gaming has always been plagued by latency. I'm not saying it will never work, but I can guarantee it won't work with the current internet infrastructure in the world. Google's attempt at it is doomed just as everyone before due to that latency problem. This is doubly true for VR, a 25ms lag is going to make the whole world puke their guts out and 25ms is the lowest ping I've ever seen connecting to anything that wasn't physically in the same building as me. I live in northern Virginia, which has the absolute best internet on the continent of North America. 70% of the world's internet traffic travels within 5 miles of my apartment and my ping is still too damned high for streaming VR.

Back on topic, yes, Oculus has shifted away from PCVR and I don't expect they will come back. You have to remember that Oculus is Facebook. Facebook makes its money off being free to users, selling ads and selling user data to advertisers. They want everyone on the planet with a facebook device in their pocket or strapped to their face so they can sell ads and spy on you. My biggest fear with the CV1 was waking up one day with popup ads while playing games. I grabbed the Rift S because it's the most mobile of the PCVR headsets, and that popup ad concern is still there.

Don't expect any more high end devices from Oculus, they want the mass market. The only reason we got the CV1 out of them is because Facebook bought Oculus after the CV1 was already developed.

Anonymous
Not applicable


Cloud gaming has always been plagued by latency. I'm not saying it will never work, but I can guarantee it won't work with the current internet infrastructure in the world. Google's attempt at it is doomed just as everyone before due to that latency problem. This is doubly true for VR, a 25ms lag is going to make the whole world puke their guts out and 25ms is the lowest ping I've ever seen connecting to anything that wasn't physically in the same building as me. I live in northern Virginia, which has the absolute best internet on the continent of North America. 70% of the world's internet traffic travels within 5 miles of my apartment and my ping is still too damned high for streaming VR.

Back on topic, yes, Oculus has shifted away from PCVR and I don't expect they will come back. You have to remember that Oculus is Facebook. Facebook makes its money off being free to users, selling ads and selling user data to advertisers. They want everyone on the planet with a facebook device in their pocket or strapped to their face so they can sell ads and spy on you. My biggest fear with the CV1 was waking up one day with popup ads while playing games. I grabbed the Rift S because it's the most mobile of the PCVR headsets, and that popup ad concern is still there.

Don't expect any more high end devices from Oculus, they want the mass market. The only reason we got the CV1 out of them is because Facebook bought Oculus after the CV1 was already developed.



Like I've said in my post above Oculus and Facebook NEED PC VR for their standalone lines to move forward. Yes, they want the mass market, and that's going to be gained by offering cheap headsets for those consumers, but to GET those cheap headsets they need to showcase and manufacture new technology at a higher price because said new technology is going to be expensive to manufacture at the beginning. This is why they're adopting the Tick Tock model for their PC VR headsets.

If they didn't start to use this tech in headsets that enthusiasts will buy, they won't be able to get the manufacturing costs down, and if they can't get their manufacturing costs down they can't add this new tech in their standalone headsets at a reasonable price. We might not even see the likes of eye tracking and foveated rendering in their Quest and Go lines for another 6 years as it is, but without that tech being manufactured in their Rift line you could be looking at 10 years before we start seeing it in their standalone lines. 😮

Some people are also under the impression that with the Quest being out that Oculus and Facebook are going to dump the Go line which is complete nonsense. They need a cheap media headset for non-gamers so that they can watch sports events, films, porn and be able to pick up and play mobile-style games that will suit playing for 10 or 15 minutes. These three headset lines are aimed at completely different demographics, and the Go line is going to be their REAL moneymaker in a few years once they can firstly get that price under $100 and secondly get that price down even FURTHER to under $50.

The Go line is going to be a HUGE contribution to Zuckerberg's 1bn VR headsets figure but that certainly doesn't negate the importance of those other two lines. They're all important and they'll all be a part of Facebook's VR plan for the foreseeable future.

MowTin
Expert Trustee

snowdog said:


Like I've said in my post above Oculus and Facebook NEED PC VR for their standalone lines to move forward. 
Just because you believe that's true doesn't mean Facebook agrees. Companies do stupid short-sighted things all the time. If they're building games for the Quest, how are they going to grow PCVR? Games are more important than hardware. It takes years to get a good AAA game made. 

If they're giving up on making PCVR games then how can you say they haven't given up on PCVR? 
i7 9700k 3090 rtx   CV1, Rift-S, Index, G2

pyroth309
Visionary
To be honest, I've been on edge with Oculus since Brendan Iribe quit and all of the rumors that leaked about CV2 being canceled. As soon as I saw the specs of the Quest I suspected that that was going to be their focus going forward and I grabbed one because I do have use of a mobile headset. I held out hope that there would be a big enough team for both Rift and Quest but when I saw the Rift-S and how cheap it looked, that pretty much confirmed it for me that Quest was the focus.

It's kind of a weird thing for me because on one hand it's unfortunate for me as a CV1 owner and PC gamer, but I can't blame them at the same time. They will never get the numbers Facebook demands in PCVR. It's going to be quite awhile before a mobile headset is good enough to be my main VR headset so I'll be using whatever headset is pushing boundaries on PC without getting into the thousands of dollars in the meantime. 

Hicks613
Heroic Explorer
Innovation is dead at Oculus.

They're going to focus on mobile since Jason Rubin has already stated they're not going to be funding Rift titles that can't be on Quest also.  If everything is equal (tracking, optics, resolution etc).....and they're not married to graphics?

You can guarantee that you can look forward to mediocrity.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
This is the biggest take-away from that interview,
There are amazing things we could do for $2000 right now. I will tell you that. We would blow you away for $2000. You would leave the show and write a awesome article about what we could do for $2000. For ten grand, we would change your life — and exactly a thousand people would buy it. And so like there’s this interplay between the price point and what we can deliver rationally into an audience big enough to give developers an ecosystem. That we’re very cognizant of.

This isn't about Ruben or Oculus or Facebook. This is about the global consumer market. If consumers demanded high-end PCVR on a scale that provided a true ROI, then we would likely all be reading this thread inside our Rift CV2 with VR Gloves and Eye-Tracking.

Unfortunately, the same global consumer market that turned Mobile Gaming in to a business that is more profitable than both PC Gaming and Consoled Gamine combined is the same consumer market that is driving profitability in VR. And that profitably rests firmly in the Mobile and Stand-Alone markets.

And this does not just apply to VR Hardware. Look at the Software sales. The simple arcade-style game, Beat Saber, sold more than the mother of all AAA RPG's, SkyrimVR, and sold more than the award-winning (and arguably best VR Experience to-date), Lone Echo. Even at the VR Software level, the cookie-cutter experiences are topping the charts.

For the first 2.5 years of mainstream VR we saw Oculus rely on Facebook's wallet, and we saw HTC rely first on their $10 billion Venture Capital Alliance... and then later rely on Google's buyout money. Yet profitability was never reached for either business model. The global market has spoken: They do not want high-end VR.

And make no mistake: We are NOT getting "the best" from any VR Competitors. HTC, Microsoft, HP, Google, Samsung, and even Valve... none of them are putting out their biggest and most awesome PCVR innovations. They are all giving us the bare minimum PCVR kits that their profit margins can dare risk.

Ruben's interview says only one thing: Oculus and Facebook will continue to invest their efforts in the market(s) that yield the highest profitability.

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

MowTin said:


RuneSR2 said:


Agreed, explains why there were several launch titles for Quest and none for Rift-S, and the outsourcing of Rift-S to Lenovo. Reading the interview Rubin constantly talks about Quest - it seems clear to me that Oculus is focusing on low-end VR solutions now - and Zuckerberg has continuously focused on a main goal of getting 1 billion people to use VR. So it all makes sense, and so does my pre-ordering of the Index.
But it feels sad - Oculus has been the main locomotive pushing PCVR forward, and now it feels like they're letting go.


The future of VR is Sony and PSVR 2. Now nobody can deny that Oculus has abandoned high-end PCVR. 

Until then we have Valve's promised 3 games. 

Anyway, I barely play the games that were funded by Oculus. They were good and well polished but short experiences. I play Project Cars 2, IL-2, Eite Dagerous, Skyrim VR, Fallout 4 VR, Doom VFR, all on Steam VR. 

Stormlands and Asgard's Wrath are the only reasons I'm not just returning the Rift-S and waiting for the Index. 




I was thinking much the same - that the savior of PCVR is PSVR, although it may sound odd. But Sony has sold about 5 mill HMDs, and then we have about 5 mill Oculus + HTC + WMR HMDs. That's about the critical mass of 10 mill sold HMDs that Zuckerberg mentioned was needed to provide a self-sustaining platform and making it worthwhile for devs to make VR games. Now, Zuckerberg is focused on all those HMDs being from Oculus, but for devs developing VR games it now makes sense, but only if they support all PCVR platforms and especially PSVR. And with PS5 things may really start to take off, if the hardware as expected is close to current high-end PC hardware - but that's pure speculation until we see final PS5 hardware.

Right now these are some of the highest rated games in the Oculus Store:

Airtone - 96 % (79 ratings)
Trover Saves the Universe - 96 % (42 ratings)
Robo Recall - 94 % (6076 ratings)
Lone Echo - 94% (2742 ratings)
Beat Saber - 94 % (2604 ratings)
Brass Tactics - 94 % (352 ratings)
Moss - 94 % (284 ratings)
The Thrill of the Fight - 94 % (108 ratings)
Racket: Nx - 94 % (71 ratings)
Superhot VR - 92 % (1982 ratings)

I've marked Oculus' exclusive titles in bold. And games like Trover and Moss arrived first on PSVR, not sure about SuperHot, but I think it was made first on consoles too. In short, maybe PCVR is growing less dependent on games exclusive to one platform, right now only 30% of games on the above top 10 are Oculus exclusive games. With that said, Beat Saber and Racket: Nx aren't real VR games to me, sure they are fun sport games, but I don't feel transported to a different reality - like in Lone Echo or Robo Recall.
And Defector + Asgard's Wrath + Stormland + Lone Echo 2 may indeed be massive contributions lasting way into 2020, and then Valve is probably launching something massive too. So I don't think PCVR enthusiast will be left out in the cold, possibly the opposite will happen - but I'd still love to read that Oculus would keep maintaining a firm focus on PCVR, and I don't think Rubin is saying that - at all. Maybe this discussion will be more relevant in 2021, but we like to think ahead in here 🙂 Also PCVR HMDs grew close to 3 times in the Steam Hardware Survey the last year, who knows what will happen 2 years from now - which may have an impact on Oculus.  

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"