[HN Gopher] Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD
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Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD
Author : aero-glide2
Score : 140 points
Date : 2022-07-26 17:12 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.oculus.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.oculus.com)
| baggy_trough wrote:
| I wouldn't use one for free right now. There just isn't a
| compelling experience there yet.
| joshlemer wrote:
| There's honestly just hardly even any games on it at all. And
| all of the games are really expensive. I like how on the
| Nintendo Switch there are big budget games but also thousands
| of games for like $2
| [deleted]
| balls187 wrote:
| Have you tried wireless streaming VR games from a PC?
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| There's not much of note on steam either. It's pretty much
| the same games in the top 10 every month.
| ParanoidShroom wrote:
| I guess that will change if they get ads in games right. The
| problem is real, a lot of games are really not worth the
| money
| andybak wrote:
| "Hardly any games" seems like an exaggeration. Are you
| including AppLab and SideQuest or just counting the main
| store? Even so...
|
| Also bear in mind that Meta have been _extremely_ aggressive
| in restricting access to the main store. Unless you 're a big
| name dev, can show strong sales on other VR platforms or you
| have good contacts with someone inside Meta then it's very
| hard to get in.
| blitz_skull wrote:
| Lol if you have to spell out how "positive" and "undeniable" your
| product is, there's a very solid chance it's neither.
| trixie_ wrote:
| It's a strange move given Facebook changed their name to promote
| VR and the Quest is their flagship device. Also surprised that
| after mass producing this device for almost 2 years their
| manufacturing and supply chain costs aren't dialed in enough to
| maintain the current price. The message here is that VR is
| 'failing'. I hope it's not, but that's the message with this
| backwards move.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| I can't shake the feeling this is more the canary in the coal
| mine that by this time next year you'll be paying more for PS5,
| Xbox, Switch iPhones etc even if the tech inside is exactly
| what's on sale today.
| weberer wrote:
| Obviously, since inflation right now is hovering around 10%.
| satsuma wrote:
| new games are starting to retail at $70 usd compared to $60
| previously... that was the canary and this is the lightheaded
| feeling of carbon monoxide poisoning
| lscdlscd wrote:
| Games have been 60 since around 2005. People were paying
| $90 in 2022 USD for the original Halo, which makes $70
| easier to stomach
| tester89 wrote:
| To be fair, games have cost that much since like 2008.
| Inflation in most developed countries has been much higher
| 16 % ofter that decade and a half. In the US the CPI has
| risen by 36 % over that period, so the real price of games
| is still lower than it was.
| ilaksh wrote:
| It doesn't mean VR is failing. It's because the entire global
| economy is in a massive downturn hurting profits of all
| companies and Meta decided they should not subsidize the
| headset cost anymore.
| arbitrary_name wrote:
| People keep saying this but i really don't see it: we have
| only one quarter of reduced GDP growth, unemployment is near
| record lows, corporate profits are strong or merely stung by
| supply chain issues.
|
| Where is this giant recession?
|
| Equity prices are not representative of economic performance,
| and needed to be corrected anyway...
| azinman2 wrote:
| We don't know how much their BOM increased. They likely were
| either losing money or not much margin, and with the market
| going downward they probably couldn't afford to offset it as
| much anymore.
| noncoml wrote:
| Imagine where Uber would be today if they wanted to stop
| losing money so early in the game.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Early? They've been selling in the market for over 6 years
| now.
| noncoml wrote:
| Yeah early as in early in market domination.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| And they're still losing money with no path towards
| profitability or market domination?
| rcoveson wrote:
| They could switch from UTF-8 to UTF-16 to decrease their BOM
| by 33%.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I suspect the quest 3 is more expensive to produce than the 2
| so they're raising prices now so that they can price the 3 the
| same as the 2 on launch. They may also want people to wait for
| the 3 because they feel it'll do a better job of showcasing vr
| potential.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I heard the Quest 3 or Quest Pro will be almost twice as much
| as Quest 2.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Isn't this cutting off your nose to spite your face?
| dougmwne wrote:
| I think not really. Quest 2 is not feature complete because
| it lacks core social features like color passthrough
| cameras, eye tracking and facial expression tracking. I'm
| guessing Meta thinks those features are so critical to
| their Metaverse experience that they are willing to forgo
| sales in the short term.
| rblatz wrote:
| I just read a thread from 2021 on reddit yesterday where
| an Oculus employee said that they wouldn't be adding
| color passthrough cameras, and that the current cameras
| worked on ir and likely would for a while. I'll see if I
| can dig it up, but it seems like color passthrough isn't
| going to be on the menu for the 3.
| was_a_dev wrote:
| Usually, but Meta already has a timeline for VR into the
| end of the decade.
|
| They want users to continually be on their latest
| experience to achieve an eventual platform monopoly
| [deleted]
| namelessoracle wrote:
| They were taking massive losses on Quest 2. So this is a sign
| that the VR division is needing to tighten some belts on the
| losses, or that manufacturers have raised prices that this is
| required for them to maintain same Loss ratios and there wasn't
| stomach to take even further hits.
|
| Given the stated focus of the company (to the point of renaming
| to highlight VR focus) I would imagine it's the supply side of
| the equation.
|
| Also another callout is that I believe Quest 2's have been
| getting passive upgrades, with newer models having more base
| storage and other small enhancements.
|
| Another callout is that its common wisdom that advertising is
| first to be cut during recession, so this might be pre-emptive
| belt tightening sense their projections show its not palatable
| anymore to take the same level of loss.
| terafo wrote:
| And there was an issue with massive recall of Quest 2
| headsets last year, it surely did hit their bottom line.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| "Current price" Seemed to be purely invented to move units. The
| hardware margins had to be very large negative numbers. They
| were losing $2.5B/Quarter for the last two years. To put it in
| context, the specs of a base Quest 2 are actually somewhat
| similar to Microsoft's $1000 Surface Pro X or a Galaxy S20 but
| adding the motion controllers and the specific ground-up custom
| OS.
| zlsa wrote:
| > specific ground-up custom OS
|
| There are no doubt huge changes made, but Quest 2 runs
| Android underneath.
| terafo wrote:
| They were building a custom OS for VR/AR, but development
| of it was slashed earlier this year.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Sorry yeah absolutely, I intended to frame it as they have
| effectively thrown out pretty much all of the Android UI/UX
| along with building an app store from scratch.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| To be fair, this isn't like Amazon's "fire OS" where they
| just added a launcher app and randomly broke some APIs on
| accident. It's a pretty substantial addition to/departure
| from stock Android
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| I feel like an old grumpy man saying this, but I hate the idea of
| wearing a device on my face to literally hijack one of the
| precious senses one has. I'm sure over time I'll look back and
| laugh at myself for thinking that way.
| aleksiy123 wrote:
| screens and headphones are already hijacking your senses?
| bredren wrote:
| I'm not sure you'll laugh at yourself, so much as new
| information on what is possible might change your mind.
|
| The hijacking of senses was a major concern for the Apple
| design group at the earliest stages of their headset design.
|
| Reporting from The Information goes into some depth on Apple's
| headset external screen display (to show the current expression
| of the wearer) and what sounds like a uniquely high quality
| pass through of the environment so you can see and interact
| with people in the room.
|
| It apparently also deals with occlusion problems that are
| unsolved in the pass-through experiences of in-market headsets.
|
| It sounds all quite magic, and apparently the work is going in
| to create that sense. TI's reporting says accomplishing these
| goals is why the device has fallen behind.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| it's really fun but I don't see the use case of staying in it
| all day
| striking wrote:
| And you don't hijack your other senses? Listening to music,
| smelling perfumes, etc. are all kind of doing that. Obviously
| this is a novel and heavyweight way of messing with your vision
| and proprioception, but I'm sure you've watched a movie before.
|
| Besides, it's really tiring after just a couple hours, I don't
| think there's any risk of getting "stuck in VR".
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Not just one. Typically, today's VR systems substitute inputs
| for both vision and hearing, which is enough to disconnect most
| people from what is going on around them. Headphones by
| themselves or looking at a screen that you can easily look away
| from aren't remotely the same.
| mhh__ wrote:
| As opposed to staring at a screen desperately trying to mimic
| what a VR headset can do much better anyway?
| nomel wrote:
| "So, to look left, you grab this thing, move your hand left.
| To look up you move it forward! It's not 3d, but don't worry,
| you'll get used to figuring out how far away things are
| eventually."
|
| "Grandpa, this is stupid".
| vlunkr wrote:
| I've been railing against VR for years, because I'm really
| picky about video games, but I was converted. It's really worth
| a try. It's not a replacement for current video games, nor do I
| see myself wearing one for hours at a time to hang out in some
| corporate dystopia (which seems to be what Meta wants), but
| there are some really cool and unique experiences. I think VR
| game design is still pretty immature, but in a way I find that
| refreshing. most of these games are simple enough that any
| casual player can pick them up, which hasn't really been the
| case since the Wii came out ages ago.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Eh, I can take it off, so the idea does not bother me. But that
| first time I put a Quest 2 on my head (was the first VR headset
| I've ever even tried), I was giggling just for the demos alone.
| It's marvelous, even with the awful resolution. There is
| clearly so much potential there. More resolution, less mass, I
| look forward to it.
| rgovostes wrote:
| Do you ever wear headphones?
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| I do, but I'm not entirely deaf when I wear them. I can hear
| my surroundings easily if I wanted to. Is there a mode in
| those VR headsets where one can see what's in front of them
| without taking them off? I'm ignorant about the tech of VR.
| nomel wrote:
| > where one can see what's in front of them without taking
| them off
|
| For quest, you double tap anywhere on the headset (it
| detects the physical tap) to enable passthrough mode. The
| game goes away, but you can see. Some games let you see
| through, but that's limited to games where having something
| float in front of you in your real room makes sense, rather
| than being somewhere else.
| rg111 wrote:
| That becomes AR then, I guess?
| agloeregrets wrote:
| I've seen the mix of VR and Ar called XR, or Extended
| Reality. That is what Quest Pro is.
| ehsanu1 wrote:
| There is "passthrough", where cameras on the Oculus are
| relayed to the screens within, and it seems to be capable
| of mixing that with the virtual world too:
| https://developer.oculus.com/blog/mixed-reality-with-
| passthr...
|
| Also, there's a lot of innovation happening in display tech
| for AR too which will be even better, since you'll just see
| the real world more or less directly.
| rngname22 wrote:
| It's called passthrough-AR, it's a feature on some VR
| devices, current limitations are that its sometimes
| monoscopic not stereoscopic or has fucky depth perception
| (and some devices have black and white passthrough), but as
| technology advances there is no reason all VR devices won't
| have near full fidelity passthrough. AR and VR devices
| eventually merge and become one device.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Quest has black and white passthrough. Next-gen's model
| (Project Cambria) has full color pass-through cameras that
| supposedly feel realistic enough. Current passthrough is
| good enough that I can walk through my house headset-on.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Someone correct me if I'm misremembering, but with my
| nephews Quest it shows you your surroundings and has you
| draw a perimeter to designate a safe play space, and if you
| step out of it you see your surroundings.
| rjh29 wrote:
| You can also double-tap the headset to show your
| surroundings at any time.
| [deleted]
| ilaksh wrote:
| The next version of Quest 2 will probably have color
| passthrough video and be much less uncomfortable and heavy.
|
| Right now I can only tolerate it to enable playing table tennis
| but it is too uncomfortable for working.
|
| Next Quest might change that.
|
| The direction they are going in the next five years or so is
| truly comfortable goggles or even normal glasses that do
| augmented reality with high field of view.
|
| So it will not restrict your vision of the normal world any
| more than you request.
|
| There are also improvements coming in terms of eye tracking and
| realistic avatars as well as better room scanning and pose
| detection. This will mean that quite realistic virtual places
| start to become comfortable and easy to access.
|
| Try to imagine that instead of going to a physical coffeeshop,
| workplace or friend's home, you will have the option of just
| putting on the glasses and get a representation that truly is
| close to the real thing. Eye contact and facial expression
| tracking and projection will be a big part of it.
|
| You could even map this virtual coffee shop or what to a
| specific room in your house, or just one wall.
|
| Or don't have a virtual place at all and just have a giant
| virtual monitor. Or four of them. Put it on a wall so it does
| not restrict your view of anything.
|
| The bulky headsets are just a starting point.
| bena wrote:
| The very real cost of wearing a 1lb. weight in front of your
| face cannot be ignored either.
| [deleted]
| 908087 wrote:
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I'm shocked that there aren't more multiplayer VR experiences.
| Yes, sure, there's Pavlov and VR Chat. But unless you have a
| friend who's into VR Chat, it's remarkably difficult to find a
| game that can immerse two different people at the same time.
|
| It felt a bit ironic that mini golf was one of the most fun
| multiplayer party games.
|
| My wife was like "You should bring over your quest 2!" to our new
| house -- she already has an Index and some other high end
| headset. I asked "But why?" and we couldn't think of a good
| reason.
|
| Maybe the epitome of VR is always going to be a bunch of friends
| sitting around watching one person play it, but it felt like
| there could be something more. Something like a Star Trek bridge
| experience or... something.
| wyldfire wrote:
| That one "Keep talking and nobody explodes" game was pretty fun
| just as a regular planar projection game. I can see it being
| more fun in VR (and I think they have a VR edition)
|
| [1] https://keeptalkinggame.com/
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| Pokerstars is pretty good as a social experience. Eleven table
| tennis can be fun too.
| danparsonson wrote:
| May I humbly recommend Phasmophobia - I haven't played it in VR
| (I don't have the gear) but it's primarily built for that
| setup, and even played without it is extremely compelling.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| Gorilla tag is a great game, has over a million players.
| Movement is entirely by moving your arms and is really
| intuitive + immersive. Lots of games and many concurrent users
| xd1936 wrote:
| Spending hours in Echo VR[1] playing Zero-G Frisbee was partly
| what got me through the pandemic. My friends and sister would
| hang out in the lobby and just talk while throwing the frisbee
| around, or play competitive games together, and it felt like
| really radical and transformational gaming experience. I can't
| recommend it enough. It's even free-to-play.
|
| 1. https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2215004568539258
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Absolutely it should be. An VRMMORPG will definitely be the way
| of the future for these consoles
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Tangentially, there's Acron [1], which is an interesting mixed-
| mode multiplayer game, where the one VR player is the defender,
| and iOS/Android players are the attackers trying to steal from
| the defender.
|
| It's a pretty fun party game, (though beginners get confused
| easily). I hope the concept gets expanded.
|
| [1] https://www.resolutiongames.com/acron
| skazazes wrote:
| If you have any interest in flight simulators, VTOL VR is a
| fantastic multiplayer VR flight sim with large multiplayer
| lobbies. It strikes a good balance between arcade and realism
| too and is incredibly immersive. Unfortunately (maybe not?) its
| on steam VR so you will need a PC to handle the rendering but
| can stream it to a quest using link
| kart23 wrote:
| there's a decent amount if you're into sim-type games. vtol vr
| looks awesome, elite dangerous can get you that star trek-like
| experience, plus various racing games.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| My friends and I got a lot of fun nights out of taking turns in
| beat saber, especially after mods. Not saying you're wrong,
| just a fun anecdote.
| abledon wrote:
| This one looks like its going to take the cake:
|
| Blade and Sorcery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_ZDQnOCTVI
|
| If they open it up a bit as a base platform for creators to
| make their own mods/rpgs, wow.
| daviding wrote:
| > Something like a Star Trek bridge experience or... something.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Bridge_Crew
|
| It's not great, but it exists and is a multi-player VR game.
| Fun with three other friends and I think it's cross platform
| (although do check).
| dmix wrote:
| Looks like a fun thing you do once and never play again
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwBk3LnIcRo
| tezzer wrote:
| I play Walkabout Mini Golf weekly with a group of far-flung
| friends. The courses are interesting, the physics feel right,
| and the audio is good enough it feels like we're standing
| around a course having drinks and goofing off. It saved my
| pandemic, and has been a great way to keep in touch with folks
| on a regular basis.
|
| [1] https://www.mightycoconut.com/minigolf
| fredsmith219 wrote:
| That is exactly what I do. It's a great experience.
| jedberg wrote:
| My brother and I do the same. We live 500 miles away from
| each other, but in mini-golf it feels like we're just hanging
| out.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> It felt a bit ironic that mini golf was one of the most fun
| multiplayer party games.
|
| Echo VR.
| andybak wrote:
| As someone who has little interest in multiplayer, I've always
| had the opposite impression - there's _too many_ multiplayer VR
| titles.
| intrasight wrote:
| It's early days. The same was true of the web in the early
| days.
| criddell wrote:
| The first VR headset I tried was over 30 years ago (I played
| Dactyl Nightmare). It was just before the release of NCSA
| Mosaic.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > I'm shocked that there aren't more multiplayer VR
| experiences.
|
| Interesting, I had the opposite experience. While browsing the
| Quest's store I kept feeling railroaded into multiplayer
| experiences. Huh.
|
| One _huge_ issue, however, is with local "multiplayer". If
| you've ever tried to observe someone playing Beat Saber on the
| Quest 2 you'll know what kind of letdown it is: the video
| stream is delayed, which completely destroys the ability to
| enjoy watching someone else play. It's impossible to get
| "pumped up" when someone is doing well. They reaaaally need to
| release some sort of dongle set to get low-latency observer
| streaming to the TV.
|
| Additionally, watching someone else's VR POV on a standard flat
| TV can be pretty nauseating. It would be great if there was
| also a way to add motion stability to the TV feed.
| [deleted]
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| I have a Vive and have played a decent number of hours in VR,
| and overall like it quite a lot. It's really amazing how
| readily our brain will "adopt" two floating hands as your own
| body. I'm bullish on the future of VR gaming.
|
| But I do think there's a big hurdle, and that's our inner ear.
| Teleport-based controls are jank but it seems really difficult
| to prevent motion sickness when using any kind of movement that
| translates the camera in 3d space.
|
| I tried to play Subnautica in VR, and literally only made it
| about 10 seconds before I had to pull the headset off and sit
| on the cool tile floor for a bit.
|
| I figured - well, maybe I shouldn't be surprised a sea game
| gives me motion sickness. And it's not even built for VR
| anyway.
|
| So I tried - I can't remember the name, but it's a game where
| you fly around building a base in space. Sounded like an
| awesome idea.
|
| I forced myself to play for about 5-10 minutes despite feeling
| ill almost immediately, and regretted it immensely when I did
| finally bail out.
|
| It seems like this happens to a decent number of people? And
| why teleport movement is so common?
|
| FWIW I don't get _particularly_ bad motion sickness in other,
| traditional settings. Being a passenger in a car on a windy
| road will definitely mess me up, but I don 't get seasickness,
| for instance, and also don't mind roller coasters at all.
| shagie wrote:
| > So I tried - I can't remember the name, but it's a game
| where you fly around building a base in space. Sounded like
| an awesome idea.
|
| Probably Space Engineers.
|
| > I forced myself to play for about 5-10 minutes despite
| feeling ill almost immediately, and regretted it immensely
| when I did finally bail out.
|
| I don't think that that is uncommon. I recently experienced a
| bit of that while playing Mechwarrior 5 without VR and not
| being too mindful of torso / walk centering while in first
| person and it got to me after a few missions.
|
| The combination of a first person view _without_ having the
| corresponding actual motion is what got to me.
|
| As to its commonality and differences...
|
| A comparative study of cybersickness during exposure to
| virtual reality and "classic" motion sickness: are they
| different? https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00338.2018
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| Was the space game Adr1ft? One of my favorite VR experiences,
| and the only one where I was willing to take motion sickness
| medication to finish the game.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| My experience is the same. I thought it would be no problem
| considering my extensive history with FPS gaming, but my
| early attempts at joystick navigation within VR were pretty
| stomach-churning. I'm hoping I can grow accustomed to it, but
| I doubt we could ever ask this of the more casual crowd. The
| masses will need to be fed simpler VR-centric games rather
| than the many hoped-for FPS conversions and sequels.
| tiahura wrote:
| This.
|
| For the good of humanity, I plead with Meta, Valve, Neuralink
| and whoever it was that just beat Neualink, to join forces to
| defeat the scourge of mankind - motion sickness!
|
| Please!
| cardanome wrote:
| You can develop a bit of a tolerance to it over time.
|
| Personally, I used to get instantly motion sick and now I can
| stomach games where I walk around freely, at least for half a
| hour or so. Actual flying or swimming wont ever be in the
| cards though, I fear.
|
| So yeah, if you develop a game, you absolute need to offer
| teleport style controls or some people will not be able to
| play it. I guess this is also a hurdle with just adopting
| existing games/genre to VR as they often rely on fast dynamic
| movement which would make people puke in VR.
| amerkhalid wrote:
| Same here, I can definitely handle games in which objects
| move towards you like Beat Saber or Thrill of Fight.
|
| However, if I am moving through environment, I end up
| becoming motion sick very quickly. In some games like The
| Climb, I am actually okay with it. Because anytime I fall and
| forget to close my eyes, I will end up becoming motion sick.
| It sort of make me try harder to not make a mistake.
|
| On other hand, I am tired of games that are rated comfortable
| but have too much motion. Like Until You Fall, love it but
| cannot play for too long no matter what settings I use.
|
| Also another issue is far too many VR videos have camera
| pans, zooms, and other motions that make me sick. I have
| stopped watching VR videos because of this. Videos should
| have comfort ratings too.
|
| Really wonder if people who get motion sick is minority or
| people who are making VR experiences are minority but they
| somehow don't experience any motion sickness. Hence, they are
| into VR.
| joemi wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is what you were getting at with your
| last paragraph or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if
| people who get motion sickness from VR are less likely to
| want to be VR devs. And that would likely influence the
| type of content being made.
|
| That's my case at least. I was so thrilled that VR was
| finally becoming somewhat practical now and I wanted to get
| into VR dev. I got an Oculus Go when they came out as a
| cheap test, and discovered that I get sick when my
| viewpoint moves in VR. That pretty much killed my desire to
| invest more time or money into VR development.
| munk-a wrote:
| Subnautica is beautiful and immersive... and it's also a game
| that (in non-VR mode) makes my SO sick in mere moments.
| Maneuvering in 2D space using WASD is definitely a learned
| skill that many millennials take to easily after growing up
| on GoldenEye and the like - maneuvering in 3D space is a
| whole different ball game and feels intensely unnatural. As
| another good example Space Engineers and Hardspace:
| Shipbreaker are quite fun games but can really quickly
| disorientate me - in the later the stage is small enough that
| I can usually use landmarking to reorient myself - in the
| former it's just chaos whenever you're exploring low gravity.
| rjh29 wrote:
| There are some techniques. Vignetting the borders of the
| screen when moving/turning seems to help for some people.
|
| I've noticed newer games increasingly have free movement as
| an option, or no teleport at all, so I think for a lot of
| people it is possible to get used to it if you play enough.
| Some percentage will never get used to it though, which
| sucks.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| The VR enthusiast/dev community has gotten caught in a
| death spiral when it comes to simulation sickness.. They
| encourage each other to "get your VR legs" and
| play/demand/make nausea-inducing games, and it just chases
| away all the normal human beings who don't want to spend
| months gently training their bodies to become immune to it
|
| (FYI, the way it works is you play until you start to feel
| a hint of nausea, and stop for an hour or more. If you try
| to fight through it, you'll just condition yourself to feel
| sick when you even look at/think about a VR headset)
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I fought through boneworks, which is stick based movement
| and heavy physics climbing and falling and, worst of all,
| jumping. I got sick a bunch. I did get over it. But by
| the time I did it was just more and more apparent that it
| was a screen in front of my face. You can't both feel
| like you're there and have no nausea while jumping on a
| button press.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| I wonder if becoming used to disagreement between the eye
| and inner ear in other situations transfers to easier
| adaptation to VR.
|
| When I was little, I'd often attempt to read while in
| moving vehicles, which quickly and reliably brought on
| severe motion sickness. I can longer remember the last
| time that's happened. Cured by repeated exposure? Simply
| growing up? Maybe because of both at once, involving
| neuroplasticity somehow.
|
| I've only experienced VR through brief tech demos, so I
| guess I'll get the datum when the time comes.
|
| PS: A search for online anecdotes finds contradictory
| accounts from people reporting _acquiring_ motion
| sickness in such situations as adults
| rightbyte wrote:
| I got this feeling my parents were bad drivers and did
| not let go off the gas in cornering. Me and my brother
| felt ill on all trips. But we both feel fine traveling by
| car today. Dunno why really, though.
| cstejerean wrote:
| For me it's the opposite. When I was younger I had no
| problems reading in a moving vehicle. I can no longer do
| that without getting motion sick. Not sure what changed.
|
| Anecdotally it feels potentially related to caffeine
| intake or something else during the day. Because I
| noticed it tends to be fine in the morning and a problem
| in the afternoon. Or maybe it's related to spending 8
| hours a day staring at a screen for work.
| adastra22 wrote:
| When it comes to nausea, it's once and done for me. Wtf
| would I ever put myself through that again, for a game?
| I'd rather go outside, thanks.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| I want to love VR, but I can't help but agree. I can't
| think of a time a walk through the neighborhood woods has
| made me nauseous :)
| belval wrote:
| I get where you are coming from but:
|
| > I'd rather go outside, thanks
|
| It's not like VR isn't actually awesome once you get
| everything to work reasonably well. I can't just "go
| outside" and storm the beach of Normandy, or "go outside"
| and throw fireball/duel with swords in medieval settings.
| The appeal of VR is that it's something else entirely,
| it's not a video game replacement, I can't play Pavlov
| for more than 1-2 hours but when I do play it, after a
| while I forget that I'm in a game. I am under MG40 fire
| with my squad in Normandy and I hear the bullets fly
| right next to me I get the rush that I only get in
| paintball.
|
| And I say all of that as someone who used their Quest 2
| for about 45 minutes the day they received it and spent
| the next 24 hours feeling dizzy.
| adastra22 wrote:
| That doesn't sound appealing to me. To each their own, I
| guess!
| game-of-throws wrote:
| From what I know, inner ear stimulation (to manipulate
| perception of balance) is non-invasive, relatively simple,
| and well understood. But I haven't seen anyone try combining
| it with VR yet.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_vestibular_stimulatio.
| ..
| Gigachad wrote:
| This would probably result in you actually falling over.
| psyc wrote:
| I play mini golf, regular golf, and poker with my brother in
| law, who's 2000 miles away.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Probably because relatively few people have access two VR
| headsets at the moment.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Eleven Table Tennis, Golf+, Demeo
| lekevicius wrote:
| I've always felt they did Xbox / PlayStation strategy, selling
| headset below cost and earning on game store fees.
|
| Perhaps the math is not working out?
| msbarnett wrote:
| > Perhaps the math is not working out?
|
| Bad sign for a company betting it all on "the metaverse".
| Damogran6 wrote:
| Literally everything is $20+ on their store, with very little
| demo-like content. The software isn't worth $20+...
| colinmhayes wrote:
| They're losing 3 billion a quarter on their vr business.
| Earnings this week, I suspect that number will be even higher.
| They're doing the Uber strategy right now, pay customers to use
| your product hoping to lock them in.
| caslon wrote:
| It should be noted that they got rid of their cheapest Quest 2;
| the 64GB, which was initially at the $299 price point.
| vlunkr wrote:
| That's a significant increase. Can any game historians here tell
| us if a price hike this large has ever happened before? It's not
| a good look for something that seemed to be gaining a lot of
| traction.
| sidibe wrote:
| It seems to be a very popular product that they were selling at
| a loss. I think I'd still get one for $400, it is much more
| useful and fun than most much more expensive AR/VR products
| right now
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Price at Launch:
|
| PS1 -> PS2 -> PS3
|
| $299 -> $299 -> $499-$599
| vlunkr wrote:
| Those are each distinct consoles.
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| I still have a quest 1.
|
| I use it daily for fitness. I really love it, it's changed my
| life, and the exercise I get from it really makes me feel good,
| particularly someone that spends most of my weeks inside and
| working at a computer.
|
| I've not enjoyed any other form of exercise but I really love
| this when combined with some of the fitness options such as
| FitXR.
|
| It's a real shame this has gone up so much, wow it's a large
| increase, not even a small one, however this was the price of the
| Quest 1, the Quest 2 featured a price drop due to some cutbacks
| they made with the hardware, but it's still disappointing to see
| them do this, particularly with it being such a large raise in
| price.
|
| I'm hoping my headset holds out until the Q3 or perhaps other
| options start coming on the market, perhaps from Apple. I don't
| care about VR gaming without a fitness element at the moment, as
| the games are a bit boring / not so fun for me, but for fitness
| it has been great.
| chpmrc wrote:
| If anyone is looking for a great VR multiplayer game with
| original mechanics, I _highly_ recommend Hyper Dash:
| https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3070239359662935/
| kringo wrote:
| What, why? Running out of money or cost-cutting?
| terafo wrote:
| Cost-cutting, ever since meta started loosing users they
| started cutting R&D.
| kringo wrote:
| They were throwing money at the problem, everything has to
| come down at the end lol
| m1gu3l wrote:
| As much as some of y'all want to pretend it is a flex to "not
| give meta/fb more money" it really isn't.
| permo-w wrote:
| is this a direct response to the Digital Markets Act? they're
| gonna be legally required to open up the devices in a year or
| two, so that's future potential tracking/ad revenue down by a
| double digit %, which was subsidising the cost of the devices in
| the first place
| iwebdevfromhome wrote:
| Too bad, I wish more people have the opportunity to play a game
| changing experience like Half-life Alyx. If I have to describe
| it, it's like playing Mario 64 for the first time back in the
| day.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| As someone who thought Alyx was really underwhelming, what
| makes you say that? The only thing I thought Alyx did well was
| the pick up system and the healing station. The healing had a
| cool physicality to it. But there was basically nothing else in
| the game that achieved that. Alyx would have been just as good
| on the wii imo.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I assume that Meta is done subsidizing the sales of the Quest.
| They have likely sold about 10 million units at a loss. I wonder
| if they have decided that the Quest is not yet the feature
| complete product that will run whatever they want the metaverse
| to be. Quest was basically an experiment and it seems they have
| learned what they need to.
|
| Their next headset, the Quest Pro, will have eye and face
| tracking cameras with the specific purpose to drive social
| avatars and make VR social more natural. Meta's interest was
| always social and while the Quest might be great for gaming, that
| is not the addressable market they are going for.
|
| And yeah, I realize that most people here are going to be a hard
| no on Meta owning their face data, but strategically this is what
| they are going for.
| [deleted]
| namelessoracle wrote:
| Alternatively, they are projecting reduction in advertising
| revenue due to recession and feel they cant take the hit the
| same way anymore but would have continued if everything else
| remained the same.
| permo-w wrote:
| or due to the Digital Markets Act
| nomel wrote:
| And, perhaps they're trying to soften the blow for the
| increased price of their newer headsets, which rumors say is
| in early stages of production.
| tootie wrote:
| We bought one in the pandemic frenzy and played with it a ton.
| Family of four and we all found something fun. We fought over
| turns playing it for a few months, but now it spends most of
| its time on the cradle. It's still mostly a gimmick with barely
| a handful of interesting experiences. The Quest 2 is
| inexpensive, self-contained, has decent power and battery life
| with good hand tracking. There's not a lot of major technical
| barriers left to overcome. There just aren't enough clever
| ideas to make it worth strapping to my head.
| [deleted]
| andybak wrote:
| I would like to declare a new internet law:
|
| "VR will have become mainstream when someone posts a VR-related
| link to HN and the resultant discussion is about the article
| itself rather than VR in general"
| kranke155 wrote:
| VR will never become mainstream. I've been working in VR since
| 2015 and I don't use it daily. I don't know a single person who
| uses it daily.
|
| Maybe if you're mildly autistic or remarkably introspective it
| works for you. For most people it's a fundamentally alienating
| experience, like taking LSD but with none of the joy.
|
| VR is fundamentally an industrial technology, good for training
| and other purposes. For entertainment or home use it's
| purposeless. Ask anyone (non techy) who has one. They don't use
| it.
|
| The focus on VR is how I know Zuckerberg has no idea what he's
| doing. VR is never going to work, not in its current
| incarnation. It just demonstrated that he has no idea how
| normal people work, and that he's decided (for some reason) to
| completely ignore whatever data they have, which would show him
| that people just don't use it.
| paintman252 wrote:
| AR will absolutely become mainstream
| ilaksh wrote:
| I do table tennis in VR almost every day. There's also a very
| good Golf simulation.
| mhh__ wrote:
| VR is extremely purposeful in my simracing rig
| extortionist wrote:
| I have one and use it probably a few times a week. It's
| become a necessity for flight sims for me, I no longer play
| them outside VR.
|
| Flight sims aren't terribly mainstream, sure, but I wouldn't
| be surprised if there's enough of a crowd between flight and
| racing sims who are willing to spend small fortunes on
| peripherals to keep VR going at some scale.
|
| For gaming generally, there's a lot of friction that'll have
| to be removed before mainstream success is a possibility, I
| think--reducing the weight of headsets, reducing the cost,
| solving motion sickness, improving the game selection,
| improving situational awareness with the real world, reducing
| the setup effort, etc.
|
| A lot of current games aren't worth the effort of dealing
| with all that, at least not once the novelty of VR wears off.
| sidibe wrote:
| I was pretty skeptical but for a few months I use VR every
| day for a quick midday workout to wake me up (thrill of the
| fight and pistol whip). Can't believe how much it can get
| your heart rate up with just head and hands monitored. I
| definitely think if they start monitoring your feet it'll be
| used for a lot of exercise
| fleddr wrote:
| I once took our team from work to a VR center, as none had
| tried VR before. Circumstances were top notch: Valve, super
| high-end PC, large rooms, wide selection of games, all
| possible accessories.
|
| We all had fun and that's it. Nobody ever talked about it
| again nor did anybody purchase a VR device themselves. It was
| more like a one-time ride in a theme park. Mind you, these
| are tech people with a good income. If here the hit rate was
| zero, that's quite telling.
|
| I think VR will at one point have a true mass appeal, and
| when it does, it will change everything. Personally, I hope
| that moment is far away. This "let's add even more options to
| never leave the house" trend is backfiring.
| andybak wrote:
| > This "let's add even more options to never leave the
| house" trend is backfiring.
|
| People who don't want to leave the house already have
| plenty of options.
|
| People that love the outdoors or being sociable probably
| aren't going to swayed either.
|
| I don't think VR will change much in either direction for
| most people. Personally I like a mix of things. I value
| staying indoors and experiencing media that is rewarding. I
| like getting out in nature when the climate permits. And
| I'm not a total hermit. I don't think VR change things for
| me or others. Digital crack already exists.
| andybak wrote:
| See my other comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32241770
|
| I think you're overstating things but I agree to some extent.
| It's a niche product but there's more niches than just
| "industrial". There's still a lot of interest from the arts
| and creative sectors for example.
| kranke155 wrote:
| I agree. The only true sustained usage I've seen it is
| industrial training which is why I mentioned it. But yes
| there are other uses for it.
|
| It's mind boggling to me why or how Zuckerberg decided to
| invest so much on it. I wonder if it's just a screen for
| the stock price not to collapse as he loses DAUs, and
| certainly young people, to TikTok and other apps. Because
| otherwise it doesn't make a lick of sense to me.
| andybak wrote:
| I'm torn between "thanks for investing billions in a
| medium I love" vs "I hope the whole field doesn't get
| dragged when disillusionment sets in among Meta stock
| holders"
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Supposedly the fitness hook is rather successful.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| If it's like most other fitness products, it sells well but
| gets abandoned in the closet before very long.
| nomel wrote:
| > VR will never become mainstream.
|
| But XR will. It's clearly the future of general purpose
| display tech.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Thanks for the seemingly well informed opinion. I, too, would
| like to see VR labeled more as a "tool" rather than "the
| future(!) of {education|recreation|work|etc}"
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| I've been big on VR since the Oculus kickstarter days, and
| I have to admit that I don't play it every day.. but that's
| just because there aren't any polished high-end multiplayer
| games for it yet*. All my friends are on WoW, Fortnite, and
| League of Legends, and old pancake games with friends are
| more fun than VR indie games with randos
|
| You should check out Half Life: Alyx to get a glimpse of
| what VR could be someday. It's a super-polished, super-fun
| game, and even just standing around in it doing nothing is
| mindblowing compared to any non-VR game
|
| * There are some good multiplayer action games, but so far
| as I know they all require you to "get your VR legs" which
| is a non-starter for me
| dieselgate wrote:
| I appreciate the suggestion, had never heard of Alyx
| before seeing this thread. I'm admittedly quite reticent
| to use VR in my personal time but mostly because I don't
| play many video games (and have never "happened upon" any
| VR exposure thus far) - small amounts of time gaming is
| often something on the N64. The technology is immensely
| impressive, though, and hope the games gain polish over
| time!
| permo-w wrote:
| people almost certainly said this exact thing about computers
| and the internet. that does not necessarily mean that VR will
| go the way they did, but it does show that just because it
| seems this way now does not mean it will be this way forever.
|
| facebook and Zuckerberg may be unethical monopolistic robber
| barons, but unlike some of the other big players in the
| industry, they're not incompetent, and they never have been
|
| I would guess that they believe the VR industry is awaiting a
| critical mass of adoption where, like computers, then the
| internet, then social media, it will suddenly go from being a
| techy niche to a viable alternative platform for society.
| presumably they're gambling that the negative anecdata you're
| reporting will reduce as the UX improves, and I personally
| think they're probably right
| jedberg wrote:
| > I don't know a single person who uses it daily.
|
| I know a bunch of people who use it daily. They are all using
| Immersed[0] for work (disclosure, I'm an investor, but I
| invested because of the love their early customers had for
| the platform). Basically, you get a bunch of virtual monitors
| in VR.
|
| It's way cheaper and much more portable than dragging five
| massive screens around, and the isolation is the point -- you
| can focus better when you have the headset on and headphones
| in.
|
| But you're right, that is a niche, and not the social product
| Meta is hoping for.
|
| [0] https://immersed.com
| arrakeen wrote:
| to someone who is prone to headaches with poor eyesight and
| long eyelashes (smudges the lenses), the idea of working in
| VR all day is at best delusional and at worst
| discriminatory
| ourcat wrote:
| I assume this is to cover any losses from them soon making it
| possible to use the Quest without a Facebook account? ie: The
| data they will not be able to sell.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| Is VR broken out on the Meta balance sheets in a way that we can
| track profit/loss/expenditures that are associated to VR
| specifically? Anyone at Meta with a vague idea of how much of the
| company is working on VR specifically?
|
| It seems odd, like the "vision" is "VR Everything", but the
| reality is more "We bought Quest and don't know what else to do".
| Does anyone have any insight on how it feels inside the org?
| pavlov wrote:
| Yes, Meta reports the AR/VR unit separately as Reality Labs. It
| lost $3 billion in Q1 this year, and about $10 billion in 2021.
|
| The number of employees working in this pillar exceeds 10,000,
| I believe. For the past years Meta has been building the entire
| stack: chips, novel controllers like wrist neural interaction,
| a new operating system... But the ambition level has been
| somewhat reduced recently. The new OS project (XROS) was
| scrapped last winter, for example.
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| Not surprising unfortunately. When it first came out with its
| lower price I was pretty sure they were taking some losses in
| order to lower the barrier of entry to VR. VR has become way more
| established in the last few years, to the point that having a
| headset is no longer a conversation piece, so they can raise the
| entry barrier a little bit now that a lot of people already got
| through.
| m00dy wrote:
| I am playing Population One on Quest2 and it is an amazing
| experience. So much worthy than 400usd.
| asciimov wrote:
| Well that's one way to kill platform adoption momentum.
|
| My biggest problem with VR is I've never been able to use it.
| I've been to One Microsoft store about 3 years ago that had some
| VR setup, but they refused to let me try it out.
|
| I don't understand why Meta doesn't have these to try out in
| stores. I'm not gonna buy something I can't see, touch, and try
| first.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| You can return it if you don't like it, what's the problem?
| asciimov wrote:
| I prefer to have an idea what I am getting into before I drop
| money on a big ticket item.
| [deleted]
| par wrote:
| I also have never tried it, and i actually work for meta.
| alkonaut wrote:
| So they no longer feel they need to subsidize it because there
| are no competitors in the segment and they sold enough to
| maintain the ecosystem?
| belval wrote:
| As someone who owns a Quest 2 yet never actually bought a Quest 2
| game (I use it for PCVR with AirLink) I think this makes sense.
| While I don't have numbers, a Quest 2 is roughly equivalent to a
| very expensive phone (beefy CPU + lots of RAM + high-res screen)
| that comes with two controllers. Even at 400USD they are probably
| still far from breaking even.
| noncoml wrote:
| I don't understand.. I thought Silicone Valley's playbook was to
| give everything away for free until you people are hooked up or
| you drive everyone else out of the market, and then raise the
| prices as much as you want given you are a monopoly.
|
| How is this going to help them capture the market?
| desireco42 wrote:
| This is how inflation looks like, instead of being cheaper, it is
| getting more expensive.
|
| I am early adopter, had Oculus for a long time... Very few things
| to do with it unfortunatelly.
| babyshake wrote:
| I'm wondering how much of this is inflation vs. supply chain
| constraints. I can't think of the last time I saw an
| electronics product like this with a substantial price increase
| so long after it has been released. The only comparable
| examples all involves supply crunches.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| $400 for a headset and EAC to VRChat.
|
| the metaverse isn't exactly achieving much success.
| jjcon wrote:
| Worth noting that this really only equates to a $50 increase on
| the base model compared to release since it was originally
| released as a 64GB set and now only 128GB is sold.
| epicide wrote:
| The 128GB model was selling for $300 before this hike.
|
| Source: looking at a Best Buy listing right now for it (no
| sales or anything like that mentioned).
| unicornmama wrote:
| All they need is a few more decades and billions of cash to burn
| to turn this into a viable mass-market conusmer product.
|
| Most new technologies fail. Except for some reason techies won't
| let VR just die.
| nanna wrote:
| Am I the only one who struggles to take the name 'Meta'
| seriously, and still calls Zuckerberg's empire Facebook? Its a
| name that straddles pretentiousness and inanity ('That is sooo
| meta.') too acutely, and I resent them adopting a name of a
| broader movement of engineering for themselves. Or rather
| stealing it from https://meta.is/ .
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| It's a flagrant attempt at reputation laundering. As far as I'm
| concerned, "Meta" is Facebook, "Alphabet" is Google, and
| "Xfinity" is Comcast.
| [deleted]
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Not at all.
|
| Slightly tangential, but I still see news headlines use
| "Facebook" where it technically should be "Meta". I assume this
| is because only techies know what Meta is; everybody knows what
| Facebook is.
| akavi wrote:
| It's been 7 years since Google rebranded and everyone still
| calls it Google.
| elwell wrote:
| Google (company) didn't rebrand. They are now part of
| Alphabet (conglomerate).
|
| Facebook (company) is now called Meta (company) and
| continues work on Facebook (product).
| akavi wrote:
| And I make both those distinctions exactly never in my
| personal life.
| dieselgate wrote:
| You're not the only one although I think it's cool (albeit
| contrary to personal preferences) to see comments on this
| thread from people who have positive VR experiences
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'll probably call it facebook forever. But I don't know if
| it's because the new name is Meta. I call Alphabet Google.
| dom96 wrote:
| Does Google even want you to call them Alphabet though?
| Facebook's rebrand is far more intentional than Google's
| cheeze wrote:
| Yeah - it's pretty poor branding IMO
|
| It's not Meta. It's Facebook. Meta feels like... an SNL skit or
| something.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| That has pretty much been the consensus opinion since the name
| change, so no, you are not the only one.
|
| The only people who I see consistently calling Zuckerberg's
| empire "Meta" are financial types that care about name of the
| company granting shares and on the stock ticker, and reporters
| who have to do copy editing.
| zhoujianfu wrote:
| Noooo!! Why?!!!?! Arrrrrgh!!
| throwaway092832 wrote:
| Not worth it, as somehow who owns the quest 2.
|
| The runtime performance is garbage with frequent hitches in frame
| rate. The in-game resolution is poor with many games having
| extremely low texture quality and "jaggies" which could be solved
| with some sort of anti-aliasing.
|
| There are also barely any games worth to play in VR, the
| ecosystem just isn't there yet to warrant a VR purchase,
| especially at this price.
|
| VR experience is greatly improved if you can render it on your PC
| and stream it to a VR headset so you can get consistent frame
| rate and 120hz.
|
| I play beat saber which the quest 2 cannot reliably render
| without performance drops. You can fix this if you render it on a
| PC though.
|
| Now that the market rate went up, I will probably sell it to a
| pay pig. My graphics card is still up 200% over what I paid for
| it 4 years ago.
|
| EDIT: You need to place the headset in some faraday box, as it
| will still stay on even when turned off sometimes. It maps your
| entire house to know exactly where the safe play zones are. It's
| incredibly creepy, but also convenient, since you don't need to
| redraw the play area.
| jandrese wrote:
| I have a Quest 2 and I've not noticed framerate hitches with
| Beat Saber.
|
| But I do a fair bit of wireless streaming off of PC (but not
| Beat Saber), and one of the things that surprises me is that it
| seems like battery life is worse when streaming from PC than
| when the Quest 2 is doing its own rendering. In any case the
| battery life does leave a bit to be desired. I expect the Quest
| 3 to be not much faster, but to have a significantly more
| efficient processor so it lasts more than an hour or two.
|
| My final note is that if you're going to stream wireless is the
| way to go. I was worried it would have noticeable latency or
| hitching but the experience has been basically perfect. You do
| need a fast modern 5Ghz WiFi router and the PC on Ethernet
| however. Dealing with cables that have fragile USB connectors
| on the end while you are blindly swinging your arms around is
| not worth it.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Eh, I still use a Rift I bought off a friend, which requires
| a USB3 and HDMI for itself plus 3x USB3 for the base
| stations. While this is a tragically more complicated setup
| than I'd like, and getting all three base stations to behave
| was painful, I can't say that the cables themselves have
| really given me any trouble.
| yonaguska wrote:
| As much as I wanted to get into VR, Meta taking over the Quest
| has thankfully saved me countless sunken dollars and hours.
| roody15 wrote:
| Lol exactly. Really wanted to play Half Life / Alex but not
| about to give Meta any money ... absolutely not going to use a
| facebook account to use a VR device.
| Jalad wrote:
| To be fair, if you want to play Alyx you can also use the
| Valve Index. So no Meta involved
| shahar2k wrote:
| or an HP reverb G2, or HTC vive or one of dozens of other
| non meta vr sets...
|
| that said a cheap quest 2 second hand with virtual desktop
| makes for probably the best wireless experience / dollar
| you can have
| Schinken_ wrote:
| To add to that: Even though the Pico brand is now owned
| by Bytedance (TikTok) I really enjoy their Pico Neo 3
| (it's a hardware equivalent to the Quest 2, actually due
| to active cooling it has a bit more performance
| headroom).
|
| The wireless streaming works great. There is no account
| setup whatsoever. Null, nada, nichts. You can just boot
| up the HMD and you're good to go.
| giobox wrote:
| At typically more than 2x the cost. I've played Alyx on
| both, the Index is absolutely not a 2x better experience.
|
| I'm no fan of their corporate parent either, but the value
| proposition on Quest 2 for general purpose PC VR gaming
| (especially prior to this price increase) was remarkable
| given size of subsidy Meta were prepared to make on price.
| jsheard wrote:
| It's a bit baffling that the Index is still as expensive
| as it is, it's three years old and has never gone on sale
| even once nevermind had a permanent price cut. In a
| vacuum it's worth what people are willing to pay, but
| Valve are a software company selling hardware to promote
| their ecosystem, which they're ceding to the much more
| affordable Oculus ecosystem by keeping the premium price.
|
| It's still a nice headset but it's showing it's age, the
| Quest 2 has higher resolution screens and the ability to
| stream PC VR wirelessly is a killer feature which the
| Index doesn't support.
| indiv0 wrote:
| No only that, but it's perpetually out of stock in most
| regions as well.
| MikusR wrote:
| It was 3x the cost now only 2.5x.
| pathartl wrote:
| Alyx is probably one of the greatest gaming experiences I've
| had... but I was also able to borrow a Vive from a friend to
| play it. I'm a Half-Life nut so I would have bought a headset
| anyway, but I'm glad I haven't bought a Quest.
| duffyjp wrote:
| How much do you have to move around to play Alyx? I have an
| old Oculus Rift gathering dust, but my gaming PC is in a
| super cramped room.
| pathartl wrote:
| It has two modes. To play comfortably you need probably a
| 6x6x10ft area.
| YellowTech wrote:
| You can use a Oculus Account (not connected to facebook)
| and then use Virtual Desktop to stream the game from
| SteamVR over Wifi. If you have a Wifi 6 router it's the
| best PC VR experience you can have (wireless, no base
| stations, really high resolution, very low latency) and
| besides the Quest 2 and Virtual Desktop you are not giving
| any money to Meta. If you are worried about battery life, I
| already player with a battery bank in small backpack
| without any problems! Absolutely awesome.
| rblatz wrote:
| You don't even need Virtual Desktop, the Quest 2 supports
| wireless VR natively.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I've ranted about this several time on hn but Alyx was a
| huge disappointment to me. I did it on an index. The
| fakeness and heavy hand holding of the combat pulled out
| any sense of immersion for me.
| echelon wrote:
| The immersiveness is fantastic, but movement feels like
| trying to use a 1970's pong controller while something is
| strapped to your head.
|
| I want standard joystick-based movement. I suppose too many
| get motion sickness, or that joysticks are ergonomically
| awkward to place onto motion controllers while maintaining
| the "pointing" and "picking up" metaphors.
|
| VR's "aim and teleport" mechanic is the worst, though. It
| ruins the entire experience for me. I just want to walk in
| a direction - easy with a game controller. But instead you
| have to aim, judge distance, and click. It's so weird and
| feels gross.
| Spoom wrote:
| As others have said, true movement and turning is an
| option in a good number of games. Having tried it myself,
| I won't do it again. I had a headache that lasted several
| hours as a result. Honestly, I was surprised how much it
| affected me, given that I've never had any form of motion
| sickness before or since. My brain _did not like_ the
| perception of movement disconnected from sensing that
| movement.
|
| Now, when omnidirectional treadmills become a thing so I
| can literally walk / run places in games, I'm onboard.
| papito wrote:
| Alyx "smooth motion" is in settings - _game_ settings,
| not Oculus or anything, and yes, you have to be careful.
| Sometimes I can barely maintain my footing if something
| happens too fast.
| SpikeMeister wrote:
| There's smooth movement and smooth turning options for
| most games, including Alyx.
| mepian wrote:
| The game asks you whether you want standard joystick-
| based movement when you start it.
| [deleted]
| pathartl wrote:
| I get terrible motion sickness so I opted for
| teleportation. I still get sick in a playthrough. The
| part where you free the vort in the square was the first
| time I started really feeling sick, but that's because
| you have to take an elevator.
|
| After like 3 playthroughs I've gotten the teleporting
| movement down and it's pretty much second nature. Outside
| of the game I found myself holding out my hand and
| flicking to try to pick things up IRL
| break_the_bank wrote:
| They dropped the requirement to have a Facebook account for
| Meta Quest 2 a few weeks ago.
| Schinken_ wrote:
| Yes, from a Facebook Account to a Meta Account...
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| Don't worry, they renamed the tables and everything!
| amluto wrote:
| By requiring a Meta account as I recall. Not much of an
| improvement.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| Presumably this would mean if you're banned on Facebook,
| that wouldn't lock you out of your device. That was one
| of the bigger sticking points at least.
| reaperducer wrote:
| If Meta is anything like Google (and it is), we're not
| far off from getting locked out of Facebook bricking your
| VR gear.
|
| HN is lousy with stories about people getting tagged by
| faulty "AI" in one Google program and getting blitzed out
| of all the others.
|
| The risk is too high that Meta will follow suit one day
| soon.
| munk-a wrote:
| Personally, I never want Meta to leverage my game usage
| on Facebook or any of their other platforms. I like Steam
| being an independent platform that has no motivation to
| share my information with socials - I really don't want
| random relatives asking me about my gaming habits.
|
| The fact that it was made by Facebook was worrying - the
| fact that it required a Facebook account made it a non-
| starter.
|
| For the same reason, while I do enjoy the occasional
| twitch stream - some of my favorite streamers have moved
| to FB... thus I have stopped watching them because I
| don't like making it easy for socials to track and
| broadcast my every waking moment.
| 14 wrote:
| My kid one time had some sort of name calling swearing
| match on the PS4 which was tied into my email and my
| credit card and all my games. I found out because all of
| a sudden I had a 30 day suspension on the account and
| could not play any of my downloaded games properly. Not a
| big fan of digital games and threat of being locked out
| temporarily or possible permanently for one wrong move.
| _jal wrote:
| "Let me hold your wallet".
|
| "No way!"
|
| "OK, then just let me hold everything that's in it."
| [deleted]
| SCUSKU wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. Two or so years ago I was thinking about
| getting into VR, but once I saw the Quest required Facebook
| login, I said no thanks.
| FractalHQ wrote:
| I bought two recently for my parents and they don't use them. I
| tried to use them but there are no real VR games to play. All
| of the games are arcade-style mini games with 20 year-old
| graphics. They get boring after a couple minutes. Huge
| disappointment!
|
| Around 10 years ago I gave up on VR and decided to wait for the
| VR game market to grow. It was a huge bummer to learn that
| nothing has changed after all this time.
|
| I think it will take another decade or two for hardware power
| and costs to catch up to modern game engines.
|
| For me, the only VR experience worth experiencing right now is
| probably a $1000 Valve Index with Half-Life Alyx running on my
| $4000 PC.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| With an Index, don't miss out on Into the Radius, and VTOL
| VR. Or get a wheel and try Project Cars 2 or iRacing.
| rblatz wrote:
| I'm not surprised that a casual level gaming device didn't
| meet the expectations of someone with a $4,000 gaming rig.
| You aren't the target market for this device.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Eleven Table Tennis VR -- very realistic table tennis
|
| Golf+ -- fairly realistic Golf and also TopGolf setup.
|
| Demeo -- like a really casual HeroQuest that you can jump
| into at any time (multiplayer, automatic).
|
| Ancient Dungeon -- procedurally generated roguelike.
|
| The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners -- really good zombie
| game
| dmix wrote:
| You're missing out, Quest 2 was one of the best purchases I've
| made in the last year.
|
| I also don't think VR is good enough to be worth investing $1k+
| into a VR headset like Vive. $300 seemed like a very high
| return on investment for what I got. Not sure about $400 since
| I already have one but I'd _probably_ still do it.
|
| I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus
| store, so I don't feel like it's a privacy invasion.
| FractalHQ wrote:
| My Quest 2 runs glorified arcade games with 20 year-old
| graphics. What games are you playing that you enjoy for more
| than 5 minutes? Beat saber and VR-Chat bore me to death.
| arbitrary_name wrote:
| Population One is awesome, great first person shooter in
| VR.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Eleven Table Tennis
|
| There is also Golf+ plus I am way more into table tennis.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| I logged hundreds of hours in Demeo. Also enjoyed Puzzling
| Places and walkabout golf.
| BudaDude wrote:
| - Blade and Sorcery
|
| - Star Wars Vader Immortal, is so good I can only compare
| it to a Disneyland ride.
|
| - Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners
| rblatz wrote:
| Demeo and Echo Arena are great if you have friends that
| also have a Quest 2 you can play with. I'm past the age
| where I want want to risk the enjoyment of my limited
| gaming time to the random match maker gods.
| phkahler wrote:
| Assume you mean Echo VR. Fantastic game! I agree that
| playing with random people can be a downer, so I've
| "friended" several people who are competent players and
| not annoying. One likes to play private matches with 10
| known "adults" and it's amazing.
|
| It's not all about graphics, it's about gameplay,
| cooperation, competition and good sportsmanship with some
| friendly ribbing. I've got more than 2K matches in and
| still play a couple times a week until the battery dies.
| rblatz wrote:
| Ha I guess you are right, not sure when they rebranded it
| from Echo Arena to Echo VR.
| hasbot wrote:
| I bought a Quest 2 last winter, used it a lot for the first
| two weeks, and then it sat unused for nearly a month. Thanks
| to Amazon's lengthy return policy during Christmas I got a
| full refund. Like with 3D in movies, I didn't find 3D in
| games compelling. I really expected to like Beat Saber but
| the music didn't appeal to me and so many of the custom songs
| were just so poorly done.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I bought the Quest 1 for $500, and I thought it was a good
| buy even then. $400 for the Quest 2 is still a steal,
| honestly.
|
| And I have a PC that can handle VR games (and you can use the
| Quest 1 or 2 as basically a PC VR headset if you want). But
| it's just so much less hassle to use the native Quest.
|
| The main use of the Quest is still to play beatsaber tho LOL.
| parkingrift wrote:
| >I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus
| store, so I don't feel like it's a privacy invasion.
|
| You're kidding yourself with that. You gave Facebook literal
| eyes into your home through an internet connected device. If
| you don't think Facebook know who you are I have some coins
| I'd like to sell you.
| permo-w wrote:
| also last time I tried, facebook demanded ID to sign up an
| account
| onepremise wrote:
| Not to mention they can now Id you based off your retina
| scan. They can also profile your house and products you use
| in your house. Facebook is reckless with data. Just read up
| on the Cambridge Analytica scandal. They were even sharing
| facebook messenger conversations with third party data
| consumers.
| weego wrote:
| _they can now Id you based off your retina scan_
|
| There's enough wrong with FB/Meta to not need to go into
| conspiracies
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The quest 2 does not have an inward facing camera
| pointing at your iris.
| johndough wrote:
| The quest 3 might have eye tracking and face tracking.
|
| "One of the things I'm really excited about for future
| versions is getting eye tracking and face tracking in" -
| Mark Zuckerberg https://uploadvr.com/zuckerberg-
| quest-3-4-eye-face-tracking/
|
| Here is their tech demo for full eye and face tracking
| for virtual avatars:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86-tHA8F-zU
| jokowueu wrote:
| What does that have to do with the quest 2 ?
| johndough wrote:
| The comment I responded to just happened to be the one
| which made me wonder how far off the dystopian future was
| where mega corporations are scanning people's eyes, which
| is why I went and searched the internet for information
| and found that that future is actually very close. This
| made me a bit worried. Therefore I mentioned that piece
| of information here, hoping that it might reach someone
| in a position to change that future.
| PaulsWallet wrote:
| I talked to someone who used to be at Facebook's reality
| lab and they said they have very VERY strict controls on
| user data and no one just has remote access through Oculus
| cameras including devs but reputation is hard to shake when
| tied to a company like Facebook.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| That developers not having access is likely. Still there
| certainly is different data analytics running over it to
| identify what works and what ads to sell where. Also
| there mere fact that the data exists can lead to some
| (ab)use sometime in future. Even if I were to trust Mark
| Zuckerberg (which I don't, but for arguemnt's sake) this
| won't give me trust in a successor.
| parkingrift wrote:
| Oh I'm sure they do. I'm sure Facebook cares deeply about
| your data and they absolutely would not ever lose it or
| accidentally give it away.
|
| They definitely don't see the VR devices as a gateway to
| another frontier on data collection. That's why they paid
| billions for Oculus and then spent billions to sell the
| Quest devices at a loss.
|
| Ignore the fact that one of basic features of the Quest
| is to scan your room and build a play area. Just give FB
| a burner account and you're set they definitely won't be
| able to tie that data together it's not like they built
| their entire business around doing that.
| PaulsWallet wrote:
| This is such a weirdly aggressive comment. I'm not saying
| you have to trust Facebook but there are much better ways
| to shake Oculus users down for money than risk getting
| caught watching people on the toilet through their VR
| cameras.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| For me it isn't even so much about the privacy invasion or
| having to have a Facebook account, it's being locked into one
| store. PCVR doesn't have that problem.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| You can play any of your steam vr games on the quest 2.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Sure, with some hackery. I'd rather pay for something
| that doesn't require me to work around it like that. Why
| pay for this in-headset computer if I'm not using it?
| nickthegreek wrote:
| no hackery required. it works wireless as well.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| You're correct, it used to require hackery, not it
| appears it is an included beta feature.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| It was always supported natively over USB.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Facebook/Meta has some really great advertising and branding,
| but there are now good alternatives out there too even if they
| aren't as well known. I have the HP Reverb 2 which is a pretty
| interesting device in its own right.
|
| Which is to say, you can definitely still throw away your time
| and money on this fad without supporting Facebook/Meta :)
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| VR wouldn't even be a thing anymore without their efforts.
|
| PC Tower VR is a dead end where the complexity and hardware
| costs will never take it the customer base size that justifies
| developing non-indie content.
|
| I don't think Valve would have even bothered building Index
| without the Oculus threat.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _VR wouldn't even be a thing anymore without their
| efforts._
|
| As long as Facebook owns it, it may as well not be a thing to
| me. Facebook "saving" VR is a utterly pyrrhic victory. If
| facebook owns it then it wasn't worth saving.
| hparadiz wrote:
| Same. I don't trust Zuck with the ecosystem so I'll just
| sit it out. I might get an Index one day.
| upupandup wrote:
| What?! You give Meta way too much credit
| kangalioo wrote:
| What complexity and hardware costs are you referring to? You
| need to have a decent graphics card, which most PC gamers do,
| and connecting the headset is just plugging in the cables
| into the PC (HDMI and USB for ours)
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| There are a lot of us tech enthusiasts who just have one
| laptop for business/research, zero or one not-current-gen
| games consoles and maybe a sorry looking ancient desktop.
| This makes the Quest an attractive and unique new treat to
| drop a couple hundred GBP on, obviously less so now.
| terafo wrote:
| Tracking stations are a real struggle with Index. Headsets
| that don't track position of the head are uncomfortable.
| Macha wrote:
| I mean, so far the three titles I would call "non-Indie",
| those being Fallout VR, Skyrim VR and HL: Alyx, are PC VR
| exclusives.
|
| Stuff like Beat Saber and VRChat which are the most succesful
| VR games, predate the Quest, and are probaby helped that beat
| saber only needs the motion controls part of VR - were it not
| for facebook using it to sell the Quest nowadays, we would
| have had a switch port by now I feel.
|
| And VRchat doesn't even require VR, it also has a regular
| desktop client.
| ben_w wrote:
| While VRChat supports regular desktops, if it was only on
| desktops then I suspect it would be seen as a Second Life
| clone.
|
| (From what I read, Second Life only runs on VR as a janky
| 3rd party hack, not an official release. But my info may be
| out of date).
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Valve partnered with HTC on the Vive. While HTC has now
| decided to pivot away from consumer/enthusiast VR headsets,
| Valve never gave up.
| parkingrift wrote:
| >VR wouldn't even be a thing anymore without their efforts.
|
| A headset with multiple cameras on it, connected to the
| internet, scanning my surroundings, and phoning home to
| Meta/Facebook. Hard for me to imagine a more dystopian future
| for VR than the one envisioned by Zuck. I'd rather VR not be
| a thing than for Meta/Facebook to dominate it.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I don't particularly care about that if I'm being honest.
|
| I really don't think there's much room creatively for non-
| indie VR games that fit on a standalone headset.
|
| I'm sure there's something, but you can already do so much
| with something like beatsaber or superhot that I don't feel
| myself yearning for all that much more.
|
| If we could use (say) AI techniques to create VR versions of
| classic movies, that would be cool and I'd pay a pretty penny
| for it, or even VR-specific works that actually explore the
| implications of the medium (I could see tomorrow's equivalent
| of black mirror's bandersnatch doing this), but I don't feel
| like my VR headset is a wasted investment at the moment.
|
| Even just for flight sims and simracing it's genuinely
| fantastic. I'm probably never going to race at Le Mans at
| night in the rain, I want to though, so my brain makes the
| rest up for me when I put the headset on.
| terafo wrote:
| 5 millions PSVR sold beg to differ.
| [deleted]
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| That's an estimated 1/3 of what Quest 2 sold [1]. And Sony
| already has a huge install base of subsidized consoles to
| sell into, whereas high end PCs required to run VR are a
| rarity.
|
| [1] https://uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc
| terafo wrote:
| I was disproving his point about VR being dead without
| Oculus. Prior to Quest 2 launch they weren't even the
| leader, 1.5 years after that launch they are basically
| only game in town(not for long, PSVR2, next gen Valve
| headset and Apple are coming soon). And VR-capable PCs
| aren't that rare, you basically need performance of 1060
| and half of Steam userbase have that.
| rjh29 wrote:
| I agree. Games are selling 10-20x more on the Quest compared
| to the PC. It's making VR accessible and cheap for everyone.
| And the market is open for someone else to release a cheap
| headset if they like rather than requiring people to spend
| thousands of dollars and have complicated setups.
| amelius wrote:
| > And the market is open for someone else to release a
| cheap headset
|
| Increasing difficult as most apps are on Meta's platform
| now.
| haroldl wrote:
| Apple is big enough to make it happen and there are
| plenty of iOS game devs out there to make it a success.
| archildress wrote:
| Sold my barely used Quest 2 a few weeks ago and had a real hard
| time getting even $235 for it.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Shocked anyone would buy a second hand headset at all tbqh.
| Covid-era or not.
| de6u99er wrote:
| I believe the main issue is content. Not only us it more
| difficult to create content for VR, it's at least twice as
| expensive. VR will IMHO have the same fate as 3D TV"s had.
| Fancy and interesting in the beginning, but too much of a
| hassle on the long run.
|
| Did I get it right?
| rjh29 wrote:
| I agree that content creation is difficult and there is a
| lack of longer experiences, but OTOH people are willing to
| pay more per hour of content for these experiences -
| comparable to movies - and there are also plenty of
| multiplayer/roguelike games for those who want more hours per
| dollar.
|
| The proof is in the pudding - the Quest has sold a lot and
| there are many games in the store already.
| intrasight wrote:
| 3D is still TV - with only a small improvement.
|
| VR isn't a small improvement on something you already have.
| It's a whole new thing. I, for one, expect it to be as
| revolutionary as the WWW - which also lacked for content in
| the early days.
| zlsa wrote:
| That's not surprising considering the brand-new price is $299,
| and refurb units are semi-regularly available for $250.
| archildress wrote:
| Yeah, it's not a super steep discount; I wound up getting
| $235 for it. Sales tax would've been about another $30 here
| so it was about $100 off sticker price with probably 10 hours
| of play.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Only got $150 for mine last week after dodging scammers on fb
| marketplace. Wished I woulda waited!
| jdlyga wrote:
| I view the Oculus Quest in the same category as 3D TV right now.
| Yes, it's REALLY COOL. But 3D TV was also really cool, especially
| watching Pixar movies which I did all the time when I had one. It
| has potential, but it's just not there beyond some initial great
| stuff.
| par wrote:
| i dont think 3d tv was ever "really cool".
| smoldesu wrote:
| I think you're making a bit of a WiiU-to-Switch comparison
| here. 3D TV's limitations were overtly prohibitive: not only
| were the units much more expensive than standard TVs, but they
| also required additional hardware/headsets. Then there's the
| problem with resolution and color accuracy, display shimmering,
| bad viewing angles... 3D TV was never meant to be anything
| besides a slick demo at your local Best Buy.
|
| VR I'm skeptical of, but most of the sticking points I can
| imagine have been fixed. For $400 you can get a fully-featured
| plug-and-play headset. That's less than most iPads! That
| headset will have controllers, inside-out tracking, 6DOF, video
| passthrough, wireless/standalone capabilities... Meta/Facebook
| certainly isn't a saint, but the Quest is amazing from a
| hardware standpoint. Even with the new price bump, these
| devices still feel oddly undervalued. I bought my Quest 1 a few
| years ago for the same price, and don't regret it at all.
| causi wrote:
| The fuck? It's a two year old electronics product. They should be
| dropping the price, not raising it.
| drumhead wrote:
| The "metaverse" is swiftly fading into the distance now.
| andybak wrote:
| Is "VR" and "metaverse" synonomous by your definition?
|
| I've always been cold on the metaverse hype whilst at the same
| time remaining a big fan of VR.
|
| However, I don't think VR is about to become mass market in the
| way some people hype it - and I don't think it _needs_ to. It
| can remain a healthy niche and things would probably work out
| better that way.
| kypro wrote:
| Lots of commenters here saying they're surprised by this move,
| but isn't the Quest 2 a loss leader for Meta? If I had to guess
| this move is probably to reduce the loss they're taking on each
| unit sold. The reason they're doing it now is probably because of
| the digital ad slow down and investor fears around Meta's
| metaverse cashburn.
| bredren wrote:
| It has to be. When I ordered a few months ago the device
| arrived the next day. I couldn't believe it.
|
| Even though the hardware is somewhat aged and the platform
| still has bugs the overall quality, delivery and onboarding
| experience was good. The accessories to flesh out the kit were
| also inexpensive. The whole thing feels underpriced, however
| average people are definitely not ready to put on a headset.
|
| This is MUCH different from the flip-phone to smartphone
| transition. Pricing has to be low because there's major
| adoption friction to overcome.
|
| I've said it before, but I loathe facebook and can not support
| Meta or its aims until it splits off a company that can not and
| will not use data built from Facebook / Instagram or any other
| entity connected to FB.
|
| The only thing that gave me solace in adding data to my shadow
| profile was that I knew the purchase was costing them much more
| than was sustainable.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| It seems strange to raise the price of something that has been on
| the market for a while, right?
|
| I do love my Quest 2.
| balls187 wrote:
| What do you love about it?
|
| I have a Quest 2, and it still seems very niche for me.
| rjh29 wrote:
| I like Beat Saber (play daily), Walkabout Golf (feels like
| minigolf, can play with friends anywhere in the world) and
| Resident Evil 4 (a classic game excellently ported into
| immersive VR).
|
| Also the price. Before the Quest I'd have needed to buy a
| gaming PC and expensive headset like the Vive or Index. And
| it's wireless and doesn't need any sensor units placed around
| you. The tracking works great and it tells you when you're
| about to leave a safe area. It can even do hand tracking so
| you don't need controllers.
| balls187 wrote:
| RE4 VR worth getting?
| jjcon wrote:
| Everyone in my family has a quest 2 - we go VR mini golfing
| and VR fishing together all the time. It is a great way to
| keep connected with friends and family that live far away.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I do the Thai Chi lessons everyday. I find the ping pong game
| is a great way to unwind, a 5 minute game is enough. I
| enjoyed the Star Wars Vader Immortal series. I use my quest
| for about 1 hour a week, so I am not a heavy user - but I do
| enjoy it. BTW, I worked in the VR field about 25 years ago
| for SAIC and Disney.
| balls187 wrote:
| I too enjoy the VR experience, and to me, it scratches a
| similar itch as going to a high-end arcade and playing
| Mechwarrior. Fun to do occasionally, but not how I spend a
| majority of my entertainment hours.
|
| > BTW, I worked in the VR field about 25 years ago for SAIC
| and Disney.
|
| Nice. I remember my first VR experience was about 30 years
| ago at the local kids science center.
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