[HN Gopher] Meta announces its Quest 3 VR headset
___________________________________________________________________
Meta announces its Quest 3 VR headset
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 247 points
Date : 2023-06-01 14:19 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| dougmwne wrote:
| I'm not sure how major of an upgrade this will be. From a gaming
| perspective, 2x the GPU will help. The Quest 2 graphics are
| pretty basic but they get the job done. The MR seems like it's a
| solution searching for a problem.
|
| I'm waiting for a headset that I can use during travel in place
| of an external monitor, but I don't think this is it yet.
| curiousllama wrote:
| External monitors is more of the Quest Pro schtick. If you look
| at the marketing materials, Quest 2/3 is all games while Quest
| Pro is all work stuff.
|
| I'm actually excited for the MR use cases - I love playing
| board games online+phone with friends. Would be super cool if I
| could see them/the board in a more real way.
| explorer83 wrote:
| I can't help but hate that OLED has been replaced by LCD. I
| actually sold my Quest 2 and kept the 1 just because of this
| despite the 2 being better in virtually every other metric. I
| guess I'll have to wait and see how the 3 LCD compares. Note: I
| primarily use the Quest for streaming from my PC and low graphic
| games so I could live with the other tradeoffs. I would paid more
| for an OLED version of the 2 or 3 so I would eat the cost.
| DueDilligence wrote:
| [dead]
| MikusR wrote:
| "But that's not all! In an upcoming software update, we're
| updating the Quest 2 and Quest Pro GPU and CPU. Quest 2 and Pro
| will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19%
| GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro."
| shrubble wrote:
| Am I the only one who thought of the GrubHub ad music
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-T3qKl6y-c) when watching the
| linked video?
| MikusR wrote:
| "But that's not all! In an upcoming software update, we're
| updating the Quest 2 and Quest Pro GPU and CPU. Quest 2 and Pro
| will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19%
| GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro."
| kapsteur wrote:
| Meta seem desperate, for announcing this device, 4 days before
| Apple will reveal their product
| curiousllama wrote:
| Apparently, Meta sold as many Quest 2s as Microsoft sold Xbox
| Series X/S consoles (~20 million).
|
| The metaverse is nonsense, and the Quest Pro flopped. But
| apparently the main Quest devices are pretty compelling toys.
|
| I wonder if this is a high point, or if they'll maintain the
| momentum. Also interested to see if they can ever really build
| out + monetize their game library .
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_co...
| bombcar wrote:
| It's so strange to me - so many devices sold yet I don't hear
| much about them at all. I hear about Xboxes somewhat, but maybe
| that's because I got one mainly as a Blu-ray player.
| fastball wrote:
| I hear about Beatsaber way more than I hear about anything
| Xbox exclusive.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| The metaverse stuff (both the stuff directly attributable to
| meta and the way the NFT people grabbed onto the term) made
| it all mildly embarrassing to the masses and killed the
| pretty significant uptake they had.
|
| Quest 2 had an extremely strong first few months. I'd be
| interested in seeing how spread out the sales have been
| [deleted]
| georgeecollins wrote:
| The thing about the Quest is two things matter for VR: - Ease
| of setup. Quest has always been great about this. - Content /
| library. Again, Quest has typically had the most content and
| titles.
|
| I am excited for the Quest 3, more than anything from Apple. I
| spent hundreds of hours with the Quest 2. Most people didn't
| spend that much time with it, but there is an audience for this
| and I am one of them.
| Diederich wrote:
| Yeah the Quest 2 was amazing, my first VR headset. I got my
| wife one, and she enjoyed messing around with it so much I
| ended up getting one, and we often play games together in VR.
|
| Mostly though we use it for various workout apps.
| yangikan wrote:
| What are your favorite workout apps?
| Diederich wrote:
| My wife uses Supernatural almost exclusively, and I use
| Beat Saber.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Honestly Beat Saber burns calories like nobody's business.
|
| Boxing games are great too. I literally need to pause and
| rest when I'm playing Thrill of the Fight, but it never
| feels like a "workout," just like I'm doing a thing and
| it's physically hard.
|
| Heard good things about Fit XR, but I think it's a
| subscription, which sucks.
| arecurrence wrote:
| Thrill of the Fight has the highest average calorie burn
| in VR right now.
| kapperchino wrote:
| Thrill of the fight is brutal lol, I just take all the
| time during rounds and still get exhausted by the end.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Thrill of the fight requires lots of space though. Beat
| Saber and Fit XR (and most other rythym games) can be
| done in place.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I thought about getting a boxing game for VR, but I worry
| about injuring my elbow by punching forward and hitting
| nothing and having all the momentum get absorbed by the
| limit of my elbow joint.
|
| Do you just avoid punching directly forward, or do you
| pull your punches, or what?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It is basically shadow boxing, which requires its own
| techniques to avoid injury, because ya, no bouncing off
| of something to stop or even return your energy:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowboxing
| xk_id wrote:
| Can't really understand why thrill of the fight (which
| has the best engine of the boxing games) only lets you
| play against realistic, male characters. It would be tons
| more fun if you could play against fantasy characters and
| even politically incorrect ones. Everyone i talked to
| seemed to agree. Once another studio fills this niche,
| and provided that their engine is just as good, i think
| TotF will be sidelined.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Besides what the other person said, I subscribed to
| Supernatural for a while, and I thought it was doing good
| things for me, but it just seems like too much money
| monthly for what they provide. But it could be right for
| some.
| Diederich wrote:
| My wife uses Supernatural almost every day, and while
| it's a bummer to be subscription, she really enjoys the
| new content that keeps coming in.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| FitXR is only $10/month, and it has been my go to for a
| few years now. It was even cheaper when they just sold
| the app without a subscription, I have the option to
| revert to that as well if I stop buying the subscription
| (an option not available anymore).
| wccrawford wrote:
| It's my third headset, and yeah, it's amazing. My HTC Vive
| and Oculus Rift both just sit in a box somewhere. I just took
| the Vive lighthouses off my walls last week because it's
| obvious I'm not going to use it again.
|
| If the Quest 3 can do every thing the 2 can do with better
| optics and controls, I'm 100% sold on it. They didn't mention
| linking it to the computer, but I have to assume that'll
| still be a thing.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Quest 2 + virtual desktop to wirelessly stream from the PC is
| perfection.
|
| My son uses the quest 2 daily to play Blade & Sorcery.
|
| Not being locked down by cables is basically a requirement to
| me now.. I was in from the very first DK1 but once I got a
| Quest2 the cable free reigns supreme, even though I'm giving up
| a little bit of tracking compromise (cameras on device vs the
| steam/vive room tracking).
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Still no word on the GTA: San Andreas port despite it being
| announced 2 years ago by Zuckerberg himself :'(
|
| I was hoping for some news during this gaming showcase.
| cjwilliams wrote:
| I think an underappreciated hurdle is how silly headsets look. I
| don't want to embody/identify as someone with a computer strapped
| over my eyes like a blindfold. It's a bad, even dystopian image.
| Personally, I think a helmet would be much more appealing form
| factor, and you have the digital astronaut/crusader allusions.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| You never take your quest out in public. Being "stylish" would
| be a waste since no one is going to see it outside of your
| home.
| seydor wrote:
| > In July 2022, Meta raised the price of the entry-level Quest 2
| from $299 to $399, citing a rise in the costs to manufacture and
| ship the device. It said on Thursday it will lower the price of
| that headset back down to $299 beginning June 4.
|
| That's interesting, are prices coming down now?
| n1b0m wrote:
| Isn't it just because a new model is going to be released?
| irrational wrote:
| How do they expect VR/Metaverse to ever take off with such
| expensive hardware? It is understandable that laptops, desktops,
| phones cost a lot since the demand is high and people will pay a
| premium. But, there is little to no demand for VR headsets. Maybe
| if somehow they ever made the metaverse a must have thing, they
| could charge $500 for a headset, but right now? They should be
| digging into their deep coffers and giving the things away.
| a-priori wrote:
| I assume they're trying to take the same approach most game
| consoles take (Nintendo is an exception here from what I
| understand) where they sell the hardware at a loss, and make
| their profit on licensing on game publishers. Here that'd be
| monetizing the "metaverse" to make their money. It's the razor
| and blades business model.
|
| It's a whole other thing whether this will actually work out
| for them, because it depends on there being a captive market
| for the profitable half of the business model (the "metaverse"
| content).
| sublinear wrote:
| > Nintendo is an exception here from what I understand
|
| Tangential, but they're an exception because the only games
| worth a damn on their consoles are always just a few first-
| party releases and they keep it that way intentionally.
| Nintendo is a bully with few friends.
| loeg wrote:
| > It is understandable that laptops, desktops, phones cost a
| lot since the demand is high and people will pay a premium.
|
| This is sort of historical revisionism. PCs and laptops were
| historically expensive, limited use devices and they've become
| relatively more inexpensive over time due to a huge increase in
| supply.
| leoedin wrote:
| Yeah, the reality is literally the opposite. Low volume
| products have to cost a lot since fixed costs dominate. High
| volume consumer products have razor thin margins. They cost a
| lot because the processes to build them cost a lot, not
| because someone's making fat profit on each one. (Perhaps
| with the exception of Apple, who have enough of a software
| moat that they don't need to cut their margins so thin).
| ttul wrote:
| Losing close to $4B per year, it's safe to say they are already
| giving away the hardware.
| irrational wrote:
| Not at $500 a pop. The question is, do they want to sell
| hardware or do they want to sell the metaverse?
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Pretty wild that someone has the audacity to claim that $500
| is expensive in this case. It's basically a high end tablet
| with a lot of low-volume custom parts. I wouldn't be
| surprised if they'd need to charge $1000 with no loss in
| sales to break even on just the headset's hardware+firmware
| (never mind the "metaverse" stuff they're dumping money into)
| Zemtomo wrote:
| Even if it is not a success in any business context of
| meta, they still sold millions of it.
|
| Economy of scale is definitely a thing here.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| hmm, I didn't realize they'd sold around 20 million of
| these things
|
| You aren't going to get iPhone/Samsung Galaxy-level scale
| effects out of that kind of volume, but it's enough that
| they might be able to break even within 50% over public
| BOM estimates
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| Reality Labs is losing a lot more than $4B
| loeg wrote:
| I believe it's losing $4B per quarter, not per year. And it's
| getting worse:
|
| > We continue to expect Reality Labs operating losses to
| increase year-over-year in 2023.
|
| https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-
| details/...
| dottjt wrote:
| Having eagerly bought the Quest 2 as a first-time VR enthusiast,
| I don't think I'll be buying the Quest 3, or any other headset
| for a while.
|
| The problem is the software. There just isn't enough high quality
| software of it being released.
|
| It kind of reminds me of the Xbox. It's like, this capable
| platform. But it just has no games that I'm interested in, as
| opposed to the Playstation or Nintendo.
| system16 wrote:
| Weird trailer. None of those games looked all that appealing, and
| more time was spent showing a person wearing the headset and
| making exaggerated gestures than the actual software or
| experience.
|
| I'm not sure who this was for but it did nothing to make me
| interested in their headset and just confirmed what I already
| assumed about it.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| > I'm not sure who this was for
|
| Probably rushed to get something out before Apple. But given
| their Super Bowl ad two years ago, even with all the time in
| the world to prepare I wouldn't expect much.
| Teslazar wrote:
| I've never liked the English language trailers they use. The
| Japanese ones are pretty cool and worth checking out. Here are
| a couple examples:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Lp3rRjtfk
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv0nAHRtBDw
| danpalmer wrote:
| I'm surprised that more isn't done to sell these. I'm a tech
| enthusiast with disposable income, but the last headset I tried
| was an old Oculus one about a decade ago. I could see the promise
| of the tech but need convincing that it's come far enough for me
| to buy one.
|
| And yet... trying these out just doesn't seem to be a thing
| anywhere. I can walk into any tech store and see a non-working
| unit in a glass case, or if I'm lucky pick up a slightly sticky
| broken controller, but I can't try one out for 5 minutes to see
| if I like it.
|
| I'd bet that Apple's headset will be announced with a store
| experience to go along with it. I'm sure it'll be by appointment
| only to begin with as they'll have many more people wanting to
| try it than who will want to buy, but I'm sure there will be a
| way to experience them before buying. The Apple Watch was
| effectively a new product category where people needed a new
| level of persuasion, and Apple had fitting appointments that were
| very well done, and Apple Stores have always been known for being
| primarily focused on using the products, even letting you try
| AirPods, so I can't imagine these will be stuck in a glass case.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| With most technology these days you know what you are getting,
| you don't have to go play with the new iPhone in the store to
| see how good it is, you just know. But with VR it's different
| in that it's still pretty new (in the context of everyday
| consumers) so being able to try it out before you buy is
| crucial.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Exactly, at the beginning of a tech cycle the public need
| convincing that it's even a product category they need.
| Currently I'm not seeing much from Meta or others to sell to
| the masses, only to those who are already convinced they need
| a headset.
| porbelm wrote:
| Yeah, like toy and electronics stores had console demo
| stations out so the kids could line up and try different
| games.
| jlmorton wrote:
| Well, they've sold 20 million Quest headsets [1]. This compares
| with ~38 million PS5s, and ~18.5 million Xbox Series X/S.
|
| That's multiple generations of headsets, but given they iterate
| quicker than consoles, that still seems a somewhat fair
| comparison.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-
| selling_game_cons...
| danpalmer wrote:
| That's a fair point, but I still feel like the sales pitch is
| lackluster. I only know 1 person with one of these (or who
| talks about it), despite being surrounded by high earning
| tech workers.
|
| On the other hand when I think back to the Apple Watch
| launch, despite early models not selling that well compared
| to other Apple devices I remember plenty of friends having
| them.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| There aren't just that many exciting games for the
| platform. There are a hand full of impressive titles, but
| they tend to be short and eventually get boring.
|
| There are just so much more constraints to get an immersive
| experience right.
| philjohn wrote:
| Which is why I tend to use my Quest 2, and now Quest Pro
| using Oculus Link for Sim Racing - it's a game changer,
| and very sticky.
|
| For untethered, I tend to stick to fitness apps, which is
| a surprisingly fun way of staying in shape, and beats the
| boredom of the gym.
| chaostheory wrote:
| My guess as to why there aren't more in-store demo units is
| because of the need for space and staff onsite for a smooth
| demo. Unlike Apple, meta only has one storefront. The issue
| of cleanliness also calls for the need for onsite staff
|
| The best they could do is subsidize the cost which they
| have done multiple times in the past. The lowest price for
| a Quest 2 that I've seen is $229
| nomel wrote:
| > The issue of cleanliness also calls for the need for
| onsite staff
|
| I'm not sure why this is being downvoted.
|
| As anyone who actually tried to demo a quest 2/pro knows,
| this was absolutely true, and still is true [1].
|
| During covid, there were no in-store demos that I could
| find for the Pro or Quest 2, in my city of millions. One
| large chain advertised demos, but it was by appointment,
| and not one within 100 miles actually went through with
| it.
|
| Now, with COVID restrictions gone, the locations are far
| between, and require assisted demos, because you can't
| really leave a VR headset tethered to a counter and not
| have something break.
|
| The only reliable way to try was to buy it and return it.
| See all of the subreddits for how widespread this
| behavior was.
|
| I think the real issue is that HL: Alyx is an extreme
| outlier in quality, in VR gaming, which isn't good.
| thiht wrote:
| That number seems astonishingly high. I'd be curious to see
| info on the demographics who buy these headsets (compared to
| PS5 for example).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| People with kids, I'd guess. I bought a Quest 2 a couple
| years ago as a toy, as much for myself as for the kids, but
| they've dominated usage of it. Which is fine, because I
| didn't find anything that was a huge draw for me. But they
| fight over the damn thing every day, and use it almost as
| much as they use the Xbox.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| It's strange because somehow, all the kids I know don't
| even know what the Quest is, but can rattle off all the
| upcoming titles for PS5 and XBox and Switch.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I could see that. I don't think any of the neighbor kids
| knew anything about VR until they came over to visit and
| got to see our Quest. But they get hooked, and it's
| becoming a regular thing for them to ask to come over and
| play on the VR while our kids play on the Xbox instead. I
| guess it's a failure of marketing.
| chaostheory wrote:
| That's because meta's marketing campaigns are both
| terrible and targeted towards adults. Children are the
| largest demographic who just get it. They don't need to
| be coaxed into trying the Quest 2 and its isolating form
| factor doesn't intimidate children as it does most
| adults. They're also the most consistently active user
| group. It reminds me of who the NES was most popular with
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Man, that's interesting.. maybe Graybeard Palmer Luckey
| will finally get the recognition he deserves once those
| kids are all powerful adults ~30 years from now
| ezconnect wrote:
| Are they allowed to play on it for as long as they like
| or did you set a time limit?
| slantaclaus wrote:
| Why must people continue to use the term "headsets"? You
| sound like you're 80 years old
| andybak wrote:
| Sorry. What do you call them?
| nomel wrote:
| These aren't HMDs, if that's what you're thinking. They're
| fully integrated systems.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| What else? Goggles perhaps? That sounds more grandpa to me
| than headset.
| haste410 wrote:
| What else would you call it? The official announcement of
| it calls it a headset.
| jjfoooo4 wrote:
| It's more impressive than many people think, but in context:
|
| - The PS5 sales have been notoriously hampered by supply
| constraints
|
| - The XBox numbers are considered to be a major
| disappointment [1]
|
| - The Quest continues to be crushed by the Nintendo Switch,
| which counted selling 18m unites in a year to be a
| disappointing result of supply constraints [2]
|
| [1] https://kotaku.com/xbox-series-x-s-sales-microsoft-next-
| gen-...
|
| [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/09/nintendo-full-year-
| earnings-...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Everyone who wants a PS5 can buy one now though. The
| constraints are long over.
| ezconnect wrote:
| Used PS5s are also common now.
| katbyte wrote:
| That's a pretty recent development as of this year
| oarsinsync wrote:
| Meanwhile the PS4 shipped over 110m units.
| jlundberg wrote:
| The problem for Quest is not units sold, but retention.
| mathgeek wrote:
| The industry metric that's most applicable is tie ratio (or
| attachment rate, which is related but specific to
| individual software titles).
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Here in Barcelona there is a display area at the local FNAC in
| the city center where you could try them out. The display area
| is still there (including huge marketing wallpaper) but the
| attendants are gone so perhaps it didn't work out. There was
| always a queue while they were doing it though.
|
| I think part of the problem was it was during the end of the
| pandemic and perhaps people were feeling bad about sharing a
| headset, though they were rubbing it down with alcohol in
| between.
|
| But considering the area is still there: Perhaps they are not
| doing demos all day. I'm not there very often.
| nonstopdev wrote:
| Anytime I look, the game library is sub par. I am a pretty
| regular console gamer and own different platforms. I would love
| to have one but anytime I look at to games, the list is years
| old and looks like like a dead ecosystem.
|
| Also, if you want to play games on Steam, you need a PC capable
| of running them so if I am dumping a few thousand into a PC as
| well, would rather get the higher rated Steam headset for a few
| hundred more than the Meta.
|
| Lastly, I don't trust Facebook at all. I think the recent
| update was the first you didn't need an account but some people
| I talk to like me are sketched out of a device staring at your
| face and expressions and wasn't rated too high for privacy.
| MadcapJake wrote:
| I think there's significant fear that the first time experience
| can be a little jarring and will just scare people away. That
| said, given the right support from a retailer, this could be a
| huge boon.
| ilaksh wrote:
| For one thing it's not being released until September. Also,
| they did so a lot of hands on demos of Meta Quest Pro when it
| came out some time ago.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Games sell game controllers, not the other way around.
|
| When a sufficiently good experience is available for VR, which
| isn't usable without VR, then VR headsets will sell.
|
| I've tried all the VR apps and games, and they all underwhelm.
| chaostheory wrote:
| What have you tried?
| RajT88 wrote:
| You need to play Demeo.
|
| They have a Non-VR version now so people without headsets can
| get in on the fun, but it's just not the same.
| Kiro wrote:
| What makes Demeo great? I'm considering getting it.
| RajT88 wrote:
| If you have ever played D&D with miniatures, it's like
| that, only the miniatures are glowy and sparkling and
| animated, and the board is very detailed. You pick the
| pieces up with your VR controllers and move them around.
|
| Except you can zoom in to stick your face super close-up
| to the action to see it going down.
|
| When you zoom out, you are, indeed, in someone's
| basement. When it's not your turn you can enjoy all the
| geeky easter eggs sitting around the basement.
|
| It sounds cool like this, but I can assure you it's
| cooler than that. I first played it non-VR and enjoyed
| the game, and then played a game the second time in VR
| and literally said aloud, "Holy Shit!".
| melvinmelih wrote:
| I'm still waiting for a good immersive VR game that I can
| just play while sitting on a couch... all those games that
| require me to move my entire body all the time get exhausting
| really fast.
| neomoto wrote:
| Try Trover Saves The Universe from Rick & Morty's authors
| philjohn wrote:
| More games have sit down modes now. Walking Dead Saints and
| Sinners, as well as I Expect you to Die (fun puzzler) are
| two examples off the top of my head.
| poisonarena wrote:
| Into the Radius is that game I think.. It is like Stalker
| Shadows of Chernobyl in VR .. I just think lots of people
| don't know about it. But its the game
| danpalmer wrote:
| I see your point but I think both need to happen. My guess is
| that the best VR games will only show their real appeal when
| played, because people don't have a great frame of reference
| otherwise.
|
| I can look at a PS5 game and decide to buy a PS5, because I
| know what controller based consoles are like, I know the
| types of games, I know what I like. I can't do any of that
| with a VR game because I don't know what sort of headset I
| like, how it feels, what's important in a VR game that isn't
| in others and vice-versa.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| aka, there is no killer app in VR.
| arecurrence wrote:
| Some games give me that experience:
|
| 1. Thrill of the Fight. Boxing standing up throwing fists and
| blocking with precision just doesn't exist with controllers.
|
| 2. Blaston believe it or not. I really enjoyed hiding behind
| barriers dodging shots and leaping out to grab power ups.
|
| 3. The table tennis game. Swinging my arm like a real paddle
| was so realistic and the shots are just not reproducible with
| such precision.
|
| 4. Golf with the cut down iron shaft. Again, the fidelity of
| the shots just isn't possible otherwise. You can get the same
| thing at some sports bars but it costs way more :)
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Try "In Death: Unchained". You'll be blown away. By far the
| best game on the Quest IMHO. It's exactly the kind of game
| I wish for as a kid.
| andybak wrote:
| I second this. I never tire of this game.
| judah wrote:
| Thrill of the Fight is such an amazing game.
|
| It's fun but it's also an intense workout, especially if
| you crank up the difficulty level. I've purchased fitness
| games for the Quest, and while I enjoy them, they don't
| give the same intensity of workout that Thrill of the Fight
| does.
|
| I hope they'll make a v2 of this excellent game.
| golemiprague wrote:
| [dead]
| jnsie wrote:
| Thrill of the Fight is _brutal_. Never thought I would
| sweat so much in a VR headset. It 's a great game and an
| intense workout.
| arecurrence wrote:
| They are making a v2! You can follow progress and add
| suggestions on their subreddit. I'm hoping that the apple
| headset is a target device for them as I think it would
| be an excellent pairing.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| There is a killer app for VR which isn't usable without VR,
| it's just NSFW.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| To be honest the way this is being eschewed is stupid. It's
| holding back the tech. Oculus bans it from its store,
| Sidequest had it for a while but caved in due to stupid
| pressure from payment providers and their deal with oculus.
|
| Yet it's a perfectly valid usecase and one where VR adds
| value. Despite current tech not making perfect use of what
| VR offers (no 6DOF for example). There are also motion-
| synced peripherals available to add an extra factor to it.
| It's a booming industry.
|
| Meta are shooting themselves in the foot by ignoring it.
| There's a big urban myth that VHS won over betamax because
| Betamax limited the types of movies available for its
| system. While I believe the story is BS, it was a component
| of betamax's failure and there is undeniably a huge market
| for it.
| fbrchps wrote:
| I largely agree with you, however Superhot is the closest
| thing I've experienced to the "can't do it outside VR" games.
| I did previously play the browser version of the same game,
| and it was fantastic still, but there's something different
| about moving around in space like that.
|
| HL:Alyx got close to the "only in VR" sort of mechanics, but
| change 2-3 big set pieces, and it could very much be done on
| a 2D screen.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I tried Alyx and it was just not fun. Not for the game or
| anything, but I was really just uncomfortable being in a
| virtual reality environment where I was hunting/being-
| hunted by aliens. That's really not my idea of a good time
| - more like a nightmare.
|
| VR needs some less intense and some more fun, low-stress
| gaming experiences to draw in the casuals like me.
| chaostheory wrote:
| > VR needs some less intense and some more fun, low-
| stress gaming experiences to draw in the casuals like me.
|
| You're in luck because those types of titles form the
| majority of VR titles today. The more common complaint is
| the lack of AAA content like Alyx which is due to the
| lack of users
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I think it's amazing. I played through about 5 times now.
| And a lot of the user-generated content too.
|
| But I feel like there's a lot more for people like you.
| Moss, Beat Saber, Red Matter etc.
| namuol wrote:
| IMO this is true for all "games", not just VR.
|
| The industry is surprisingly conservative in terms of
| content/genre outside of indie studios. It's basically
| Hollywood.
| l33tman wrote:
| Well, it doesn't only have to be "only in VR" mechanics, it
| also has to be a really really fun game compared to almost
| all the other games you could at the moment purchase and
| play on your normal PC with a normal monitor and no extra
| $1000 investment in hardware..
|
| I've tested VR sporadically ever since the first Oculus
| Rift came out, and I just get a headache after 15 minutes
| and that kind of has ruined it for me forever I guess as I
| now associate VR with motion sickness, bad ergonomics etc.
| That's very personal of course, I know there are others who
| can run around in VR fine for a whole day without these
| reactions.
|
| Anyway... the game has to be outrageously good for me at
| least to use a VR version instead of just sitting on my
| chair staring on the screen with a cup of tea next to me.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| Weird to say the barrier to entry is "an extra $1000"
| when the headline is exactly half that, which is similar
| to the cost of a console or decent GPU.
|
| Edit: and the Quest 2 will be reduced to $300 in a couple
| days from now
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It was $300 before Facebook raised its price. Completely
| worth it.
|
| I will buy the Quest 3 as soon as it is released, but
| just for my stack of fitness games that are in my daily
| routine.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| You can get back into it. I get motion sick too with some
| stupid games (like X-Plane that has this really annoying
| opposite movement when it's loading, GRR). But just do it
| slowly and don't keep going the moment you get even a
| hint of sickness. Soon you'll be running aroudn with no
| issue.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I think vehicle sims are the best case for these things. They
| really do play better in vr.
|
| Yet even so, of course you can still use a monitor, and of
| course that's good enough.
|
| It's hard to imagine what a vr exclusive that couldn't be
| enjoyable on a monitor or TV might actually look like.
| [deleted]
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| For me Beat Saber is that game. With mods and community-made
| songs/beatmaps which can be quite intense and it's how I get
| in some cardio on a regular schedule (~1h30m on a two-days-
| on-one-day-off cycle).
|
| Currently I do this with a Quest 2 attached to a Vive Deluxe
| Audio headstrap with 3D printed adapters and a counterweight
| on the back to take pressure off my face (a setup dubbed
| "frankenquest"). It works well enough but there's a _lot_ of
| room for improvement.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Tried Beat Saber once in a VR lab type thing, it's really
| hit and miss.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| With some practice, you get fewer misses. :-D
| moffkalast wrote:
| Feels more like Half Life Alyx would be the killer app
| for VR instead, but I'm not sure what the replayability
| is. Maybe with a VR gmod based on it or something?
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| HL:A showed what a AAA FPS is in VR.
|
| I wouldn't call it a killer app simply because these
| days, FPS is all about multiplayer, and a FPS multiplayer
| in VR is just...meh? It doesn't really work.
|
| Really, any sort of action-packed combat is just not
| going to work in VR. Jumping behind cover works fine
| outside VR because the medium acknowledges the
| limitation. But in VR, trying to jump behind cover
| doesn't work when you have to worry about being next to
| the edge of your play space. VR tries to immerse you, but
| that immersion is limited when you can't touch your
| surroundings. Being crouched behind cover and peeking
| over it to shoot feels unnatural and immersion-breaking
| when you can't lean against the wall you're hiding
| behind.
|
| Even as a VR supporter and owner of a Valve Index (And
| the HTC Vive before that), I don't know what the killer
| app for VR would be. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd even
| EXPECT there to be a true single "killer app" for VR, but
| rather, a collection of apps that work incredibly well in
| VR, or don't work without VR. Beat Saber comes up a lot,
| and it's fun, but I wouldn't call it the "killer app".
| It's just an example of something that only works in VR.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Beat Saber is the most successful successor to DDR. DDR
| worked without VR obviously, but requires an expensive
| and easy to break input device. Also, downstairs
| neighbors are less likely to complain when you are
| playing BeatSaber vs DDR.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Super Hot manages to pull off immersive combat in VR like
| to other game, it's absolutely fantastic - but it only
| works for this particular type of game mechanic.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| SUPER
|
| HOT
|
| SUPER
|
| HOT
|
| SUPER
|
| HOT
|
| Yeah, SUPER HOT VR was amazing. It really makes you feel
| like you're in a kick-ass slow-mo action scene.
| philote wrote:
| I played Alyx some and it was neat, but I didn't get
| terribly far into it as it wasn't very compelling for me.
| Maybe because I've never played the other Half Life
| games?
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Absolutely. To truly appreciate Alyx, you need to know a
| few things about the Half-Life universe.
| crashingintoyou wrote:
| > For me Beat Saber is that game. With mods and community-
| made songs/beatmaps which can be quite intense
|
| Some people seemed hesitant to trust Meta due to it's
| Facebook account requirement (now removed), but for me
| their behaviour with Beat Saber is one reason that I'm
| kinda hesitant to trust them going forward.
|
| e.g. Beat Saber has an update appear and all your mods stop
| functioning for a bit until verified to work with the new
| release. (From what I recall on the Quest version trying to
| mod results in some warning messages that stuff like this
| might result in your account getting banned, though I've
| never heard of them actually doing this to Beat Saber
| players). i.e. it's annoying and cumbersome to do, needs to
| be repeated for each update, and you're threatened with
| having your account banned (though I suspect that they'll
| continue to not follow through with those threats).
|
| They'd also previously promised they were gonna add custom
| level support on Quest (e.g.
| https://twitter.com/BeatSaber/status/1182645623683727360)
| but despite tweaking stuff like this multiple times in 2019
| that support never materialized.
|
| Net result is that I'm mostly a Synth Riders player and
| tend to advise people purchasing a headset to avoid Beat
| Saber when looking for rhythm games.
|
| (Synth Riders, Audio Trip, Boombox all allow custom songs
| out of the box and Pistol Whip finally has that scheduled
| for release this month - https://twitter.com/PistolWhipVR/s
| tatus/1664037754550771717)
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| This is why even though I'm using a Quest 2, I don't
| bother with the Quest-native Beat Saber and instead play
| the Windows/Steam version through PC link. Well that, and
| the Quest version will chug on some maps that are a bit
| too much for the Quest 2's midrange smartphone SoC to
| handle, while my PC tower doesn't even break a sweat.
|
| On Windows there's several utilities to keep your Beat
| Saber version and mods frozen. The utility I use,
| BSManager[0], also symlinks your beatmaps folder so it's
| shared between versions, making it easy to switch between
| arbitrary versions at will.
|
| With that setup I play one version for extended periods
| and only upgrade when custom maps start using frills from
| newer versions. I'm currently playing on 1.27.0 even
| though the current version of Beat Saber is up to 1.30.0.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/Zagrios/bs-manager
| Analemma_ wrote:
| One issue is that Beat Saber is a waste of money if you
| don't get the custom songs/mods/etc. This is easy if you're
| playing on a PC, it's a one-click thing which has wink-wink
| tacit endorsement from the devs. It can be done on Oculus
| devices too, but it involves a convoluted jailbreak that
| regular users won't bother with, and without that Beat
| Saber runs out of appeal pretty quick.
| andybak wrote:
| I only played stock for a long time
|
| You're exaggerating.
| phh wrote:
| > which has wink-wink tacit endorsement from the devs.
|
| Is that true? A kinda competitor to Beat Saber is Synth
| Riders, and it's not wink-wink, there is official support
| for custom songs (and mods I think? I'm not sure). And
| when I get back to Beat Saber (because I like both Beat
| Saber and Synth Riders' game play), I feel like I'm
| owning an iPhone: a beautiful object but I can't actually
| do what I want with it
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Yeah I agree. The first-party maps have been getting
| better since Beat Games started hiring from the community
| mapmaker talent pool, but prior to that the stock maps
| felt kinda clunky and lacked flow.
|
| Also while the variety in stock maps is better than its
| ever been, it still doesn't hold a candle to the
| thousands of community maps.
| Kiro wrote:
| I think the included songs are the best and I have bought
| many packs.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| > For me Beat Saber is that game.
|
| Yeah, Star Wars Squadrons was what sold me a VR headset. No
| regrets.
| ReDeiPirati wrote:
| I didn't hear good things about that game... is it that
| good in VR?
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I think some people set their expectations like it's a
| $60 + battlepasses live service game instead of a $40
| game that got a complete release and had no plans for
| future content.
|
| If you're looking for a long-lived multiplayer game,
| probably not. If you're just excited to sit in an X-Wing
| cockpit and blow up some TIE fighters then it's really
| great in VR.
| vel0city wrote:
| If you ever wanted to feel like you're flying in an
| X-Wing, it's pretty incredible. I play for a couple hours
| at a time with a basic joystick, a Lenovo Explorer
| headset, and an Nvidia 1070. I'd like a bit stronger of a
| graphics card but it's still very clear and sharp. All
| the control screens in the cockpit are quite large and
| easy to understand, not a lot of tiny numbers to squint
| at.
| kmkemp wrote:
| I think the experience just isn't mainstream enough. I
| think there are a lot of people that would drop $200-$300
| to get a beat sabre experience if they were aware of the
| option. Is there any reason it should be less compelling
| than the "Wii as exercise" craze, for example?
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| The Wii was heavily marketed as a family entertainment
| system. A 'Family Computer', if you will. It's even in
| the name. People were buying it because it's something
| your grandmother could play alongside your five year old
| son. VR is still marketed as ages 13 and up, gives some
| people nausea and can only be used by one person at a
| time. There's also extra hygiene concerns that make them
| awkward to use at parties as you have the extra step of
| wiping the headset down between users. The controllers
| are also pretty intimidating for new users because you
| can't see them. I was showing PSVR2 to my dad and told
| him "Push R2 to select" before realising that if you
| didn't know where the R2 button was already, you had no
| hope of finding it because you're physically incapable of
| seeing the controller.
|
| It's a long way from the ultra-casual Wii experience.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| VR just seems too intense. I legitimately don't want to
| immerse myself in a new world. I'm perfectly fine sitting
| in front of the TV for an hour and mashing buttons from a
| distance and walking away after I'm done.
| riversflow wrote:
| > you have the extra step of wiping the headset down
| between users
|
| You wipe it down? Is that normal?
| Clubber wrote:
| For germaphobes. If you have people at a party, the
| higher likelihood one will be.
|
| I'm old; I ate dirt, swam in lakes and drank from a
| garden hose! My immune system is superman.
| riversflow wrote:
| Huh. Wild. I'm unaware that I have ever even associated
| with anyone even close to that level of germaphobe.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| People that are that level of germaphobe tend to avoid
| people that are obviously the opposite way. It's easier
| than explaining and getting them to do it your way
| (because there's no meeting in the middle in these
| scenarios, it's either clean enough, or it's not)
| nirvdrum wrote:
| In case you didn't know, the PSVR2 has a button on the
| front right side that switches the display to that of a
| camera coming out the front face of the unit so you can
| see around. It's a huge improvement over the previous
| generation. However, the resolution isn't great. While
| you certainly can see the controller, you wouldn't be
| able to read the "R2" imprint on it.
| vrc wrote:
| Fun fact about wiping the headset down --- there's a
| study at Yale to determine whether the Oculus mask can be
| sufficiently sanitized for safe use in pediatric cancer
| wings (a high bar) because of it's form factor and
| immersive experience. Turns out it absolutely cannot.
| Sanitizing that mask is practically impossible.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| Yeah I highly doubt you could sanitize to medical needs
| levels but the casual user should be fine.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Is this with or without a silicon cover on the foam face
| guard? Silicon has worked really well for me from a
| cleanliness perspective.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I think the issue is that Beat Saber has been the answer
| for the last four years and if you are not into rhythm
| games then... It's kind of a hard sell.
| amelius wrote:
| You can buy a unit and return it if you don't like it.
|
| In fact, that's a good way of actually telling Meta that you
| are not happy with it. Not buying doesn't tell them much.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| That's what I did. It's cool but to own it I'll wait one or
| two generations. Maybe I'm picky as a PC gamer but it was
| kind of a blurry, ghosting, unfocused experience no matter
| what I did.
| [deleted]
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| It used to be easier before Covid. I was able to try both the
| Quest and Vive in a Best Buy in 2019.
| segh wrote:
| Agree. I have a Quest 2, and two friends have since purchased
| them after trying mine out. If potential customers could just
| demo the damn thing, many of them would convert into sales.
| There is very much a "wow factor" after trying it out, even if
| many users do eventually get bored.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I agree but I understand why it's not happening. It takes money
| and experts to set up and maintain headsets in dedicated test
| areas, resetting them, maintaining hygiene since these touch
| your hair so hair products seep into the strap and people's
| faces sweat into the goggle frames, etc.
|
| Apple will be able to do that easily in its own stores. But
| it's a lot harder for Meta to get Best Buy and other retailers
| to do it -- not only will they have to pay them a lot of money,
| but they just won't be able to ensure the quality.
| sempron64 wrote:
| I wonder if the apple vr headset is just a way to get people
| to visit their stores and buy something else
| [deleted]
| chasd00 wrote:
| the stores are always so crowded i'd much rather try out
| the headset somewhere else.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Absolutely, this is definitely hard, especially for Meta as
| they don't have an existing network of stores. But it still
| seems like a big miss that they've seemingly not even tried
| to make this a thing.
|
| Maybe they should have partnered retailers, maybe they should
| have pop-up demo spaces, maybe they should be giving these
| things away to places like libraries or other public venues.
| They could also define what a good sales experience looks
| like, provide disposable or reusable pieces for contact, and
| so on. There is all sorts they could be doing!
| et-al wrote:
| Before the pandemic, Microsoft had retail stores were you
| could demo the Oculus Rift.
|
| However with physical retail generally on the decline, who
| would be the partner now? Best Buy isn't doing that great.
| pavon wrote:
| What is funny is that Meta did go through all the expense of
| setting this up with Best Buy for the Meta Quest Pro, and
| nobody even realized it was an option because they advertised
| it so poorly[1].
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/10/meta-quest-pro-
| hands-...
| crazygringo wrote:
| Ha, thanks -- that article is a perfect example of how bad
| the experience was at Best Buy, basically exactly what you
| would expect:
|
| > _I had to search the aisles until I found a lonely Quest
| display in an unloved back corner of the store..._
|
| > _There was no special room or specific area set aside for
| the Quest demo at the store. Instead, the demo staffer
| awkwardly guided me to a small section of bare carpet..._
|
| > _To make matters worse, about 15 minutes into my demo...
| interrupted by an abrupt "powering down" message when the
| headset ran out of charge. The demo staffer apologized,
| saying the unit "was at zero percent when I got it" and
| hadn't been plugged in for very long before our demo._
|
| > _The staffer running my demo told me that the Quest Pro
| is "more for business"... Unfortunately, without a linked
| computer or any linked 2D apps in the headset, I was only
| able to try out the (very unresponsive) stock web browser.
| And without a Bluetooth mouse or keyboard, scrolling and
| typing was not a natural experience._
| phkahler wrote:
| Quest 2 has been fun for me, but only because a handful of
| game. My kid played beatsaber for a while. I played paintball -
| a mini game inside recroom. And I still play a team sport
| called Echo VR which is shutting down in August.
|
| We've tried a few others but nothing else really stood out. If
| there is a compelling sequel to Echo I hope I don't need to
| upgrade hardware and will just quit.
| SheinhardtWigCo wrote:
| > And yet... trying these out just doesn't seem to be a thing
| anywhere.
|
| If the experience of using them was actually marketable, it
| would be more of a thing.
| Stevvo wrote:
| Hygiene is a problem. These things are not really comfortable,
| so put one on and you will inevitably start sweating into the
| facial interface. Safety is another issue; casually putting a
| headset on a member of the public led to a lot of injuries when
| it was tried in the past.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| They come with a silcone "condom" for the facial cushion now
| which is easily washed :) Unlike real condoms these are
| reusable.
|
| It wasn't the most glorious solution for their allergy
| problem IMO. But it does have auxiliary benefits.
| Scalene2 wrote:
| This is an edge that Apple may have.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| If it's glasses instead of a helmet - that's already going to
| remove a lot of friction to put it on and test it
| jon-wood wrote:
| I have no idea how you'd do this at scale, but you're not
| wrong. I bought a Quest 1 around when they were released after
| trying a friend's headset, I'd been on the fence before that,
| but afterwards I was totally sold.
| [deleted]
| Ologn wrote:
| In December 2016 I tried a demo of an HTC Vive at a Microsoft
| Store (remember those?), and a few days later did a demo of an
| Oculus Rift at a Best Buy. The demo at the Microsoft Store was
| well set up - they had an associate handling the demo, an area
| set aside to do the demo, a speaker, and a display to show
| observers what was being shown in the VR set. The Best Buy demo
| was not as put together but was still OK.
|
| Not sure why they seemed to be demoing it more then than now.
| xyproto wrote:
| If they had a store where everyone could try out headsets they
| would probably have to invent some sort of one-time forhead
| cover.
| prpl wrote:
| Have you been in an arcade recently? These already exist
| [deleted]
| jclardy wrote:
| I have a Quest 2 and use it occasionally, I have basically
| relegated it to only gaming. The displays are just too low
| resolution to try productivity, not to mention passthrough being
| barely usable to find something on your desk. So this seems like
| it should improve on the issues I had with the first gen with
| higher resolution displays, color passthrough, and improved
| performance.
|
| I am a bit confused on the placement of this device in comparison
| to the Quest Pro now though, does this have better resolution?
| Processor? Passthrough?
|
| Definitely an interesting month for the VR/AR world with Apple's
| announcement coming next week.
| zer0zzz wrote:
| I don't think you can compare the quest2 to the displays and
| optics this thing probably has. I have a quest pro and the
| display and optics are like night and day compared to the 2.
| The problem I see is the application stack is terrible on the
| quest platform.
| benxh wrote:
| How does one go about becoming a distributor of Quest products in
| countries which arent served at all by Meta? Considering I can
| leverage existing infrastructure and network connections to bring
| it to market?
| tmpz22 wrote:
| The overwhelming positivity of the youtube comment section is
| suspect for me
| jackbrookes wrote:
| There's a small but passionate group of VR enthusiasts, more so
| than most other consumer tech categories in my experience
| epolanski wrote:
| This, VR enthusiasts like some of my colleagues are waiting
| vividly for better visors.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I have a Valve Index. Should I be looking at these as an upgrade,
| or still not yet? (I don't care about wireless that much.)
| bemmu wrote:
| Also announced here: https://www.meta.com/us/en/quest/quest-3/
| candiddevmike wrote:
| $499.99, no hardware details yet?
| bemmu wrote:
| Most curious about FOV and resolution.
| bhouston wrote:
| I believe it is a "Snapdragon XR2"-based headset. So you can
| look up the specs on that I guess.
| questime wrote:
| [flagged]
| kgwgk wrote:
| More comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36151355
| dang wrote:
| We've merged that thread hither. Thanks!
| IceWreck wrote:
| The games are nice but noone mentions the fitness apps. I use my
| quest 2 for cardio/workout and some of those apps get my heart
| rate up faster than running or other forms of exercise.
| enw wrote:
| How do you prevent the straps and padding from getting nasty
| with sweat?
| IceWreck wrote:
| You wipe them clean after use. Most 3rd party "elite" straps
| come with a special cloth to wipe them which I think is
| similar to the one you use to wipe your glasses.
| _annum wrote:
| Apple's strategy suddenly became clear to me while watching the
| Quest 3 promo video: they are delivering a platform, xrOS - an
| operating system - and not simply a high-spec VR headset.
|
| The strength of the ecosystem will encourage it to be smoothly
| integrated into daily use, as opposed to being an awkward gaming
| device you pick up when you want to mess around in VR.
|
| We'll see. Exciting times, the surprise announcement makes me
| optimistic for the quality of Apple's offering - Zuckerberg is
| worried.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| I think Zuckerberg is excited. Apple will only expand the
| market. I think it will be strictly beneficial to Quest
| regardless of what the blog/tech comparisons say.
| rchaud wrote:
| Apple expanded the market for smartphones, Blackberry
| couldn't take advantage. I see similarities here.
|
| Zuckerberg should have gone with AR to begin with, VR is too
| much of a shift for people to context switch easily.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I see similarities, but I also see one of either:
|
| 1) Apple makes a VR headset, and it's OUTSTANDING, but it
| costs $1000, and that's just too much money for the average
| iPhone user for something they aren't going to use very
| often.
|
| 2) Apple makes a VR headset, and it's about the same as the
| Quest, and it costs about the same as the Quest, and it
| doesn't get that much traction because the average iPhone
| user isn't going to use it very often regardless of price,
| and the ones who would probably already have a Quest or
| Vive or what-have-you.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Apple's VR headset will be OUTSTANDING for sure, but it
| is most likely going to cost much more like $3000. This
| is what all the rumours are hinting at.
|
| They seem to be aiming it mainly at business, makes sense
| at this price point. But Apple is notoriously bad at feel
| for the business market (federated apple IDs still don't
| allow UPNs that are different from Emails which basically
| breaks it for 90% of enterprises!). They are also not
| great at business software at all and they basically have
| no foothold. All they do for business is the mac pro that
| suits some niche markets which they update every few
| years and then they sell obsolete hardware for the
| original price in the intermediate years. And some
| general Mac/iOS hardware but other people supply most of
| the productivity software.
|
| I really wonder how they will make this thing a success.
| But yeah Apple is great at creating hype and that hype
| will hopefully kickstart the metaverse dreams a bit
| again.
| phh wrote:
| That's especially true since they won't actual compete since
| they'll be 5 times the price of the other. The Quest will be
| the demo for the Apple VR headset, and the Apple VR headset
| will give VR hype that will boost Quest. If they weren't just
| FAANG amplifying FAANG, I'd be happy to see such a win-win.
| Clubber wrote:
| I'm pretty sure Netflix is out of the club. I can see why
| no one wants to remove it from the acronym. It's probably
| ok now that Facebook is now Meta.
| kfarr wrote:
| So now it's Meta, Apple, Google and Amazon? Although
| Google is now Alphabet so that bad joke doesn't work
| either
| Clubber wrote:
| MAAA. I suppose Microsoft deserves to be in the club.
| MAMAA.
| naillo wrote:
| Wonder if this was released at this particular moment to time it
| with apples upcoming AR device.
| whoevercares wrote:
| I want to play Diablo IV there!
| nonrepeating wrote:
| Has anyone here built a business around the Quest 2? A game or
| app, or custom development? I actually love the device, but I'm
| not sure how easy the ecosystem is for developers, nor how much
| traction the device has (or could have) as a non-game app
| platform.
| ngokevin wrote:
| Yeah. It's extremely difficult to impossible without existing
| connections, being an incumbent VR app, popping off
| independently, or being an established game development studio.
| Even harder if it's a non-game as Quest 2 is treated like a
| console.
|
| You can put your marbles in, but your fate will depend on Meta
| opening the gates for you, and that's a risky proposition.
|
| They have their own sideloading channel, App Lab, but it's
| where apps go to die. Very few will rise up to the official
| store.
| karamanolev wrote:
| My intuition based on previous Facebook-based business is that
| depending on anything by Meta makes for a very risky
| proposition - it might be doing great at any one moment and be
| completely shut down or just made non-viable the next.
| smoldesu wrote:
| This is not really true? The Oculus Quest lets you sideload
| whatever apps you want. If Facebook spurns you and deletes
| all your dev account data, you can still build, deploy, test,
| sell and distribute your app or game without them.
|
| If Apple's headset looks anything like their phones, it will
| probably be the more fragile platform to depend on.
| nonrepeating wrote:
| Sideloading an app is not a sustainable way to distribute a
| commercial app. It's even more fragile than the official
| route, and it's a lot to ask of an end user, not to mention
| the sketchy feel to it.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Tell that to the hundreds of developers using sideloading
| to distribute thousands of successful apps on Quest:
| https://sidequestvr.com/
|
| Or to the thousands of Mac developers who sideload their
| app without the App Store.
|
| Or to the tens of thousands of Windows developers who
| distribute apps through freestanding MSI and EXE files...
| nonrepeating wrote:
| This is what I was afraid to hear, thanks for sharing this.
| My guess is that if you want to build on their platform,
| you'll have to kiss the ring of social networking, which is
| something I'm not too interested in.
| mt_ wrote:
| Can we use one of these without a Facebook account?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I wonder if Quest 2 sales have tanked enough that they don't mind
| Osborne'ing themselves.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Did they tank? Judging from what I've seen it looks like
| they're shipping ~5 million units a year:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/22785469/meta-oculus-que...
|
| https://www.uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc/
|
| https://www.uploadvr.com/meta-sold-20-million-quests/
| geerlingguy wrote:
| When they planned on restructuring around an entire new
| "metaverse" that would require hundreds of millions of these
| things in the wild (at minimum), a few million a year isn't
| anything amazing.
| [deleted]
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Yes, the Quest 2 was very popular for about a year after
| launch. But how many have they sold in 2023? I suspect it's a
| lot less.
| poopbutt7 wrote:
| - q1 2023: 520k
|
| - q4 2022: 1.13M
|
| - q3 2022: 471k
|
| - https://arinsider.co/2023/05/01/how-many-vr-headsets-did-
| met...
|
| -https://arinsider.co/2023/02/06/how-many-vr-headsets-did
| ---m...
|
| -https://arinsider.co/2022/10/31/how-many-vr-headsets-did-
| met...
| BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
| Nintendo should be worried...
|
| then again, they tried something like this already. but it never
| took off.
|
| virtual boy (iirc?) I was still a kid... the technology has come
| a long way, they should be already working on doing something in
| this space... again.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| They did in 2019
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/nintendos-first-vr-pr...
| rimunroe wrote:
| The VirtualBoy was famously a disaster for Nintendo. They
| slashed its price from $180 to $100 within a year of release,
| and I got one brand new from Toys R' Us later in the year for
| $30. I actually still have it, though I no longer have the
| stand or the eye shield.
| silveira wrote:
| They did a shy little experiment with Nintendo Labo VR, it has
| also a little integration with Zelda Breath of the Wild and
| Mario Odyssey. I would expect Nintendo to be the last player
| into VR because 1) the association with Virtual Boy 2)
| Nintendo's long history of only jumping into a technology after
| it is well established.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I'm surprised that more isn't done to sell these. I'm a tech
| enthusiast with disposable income, but the last headset I tried
| was an old Oculus one about a decade ago. I could see the promise
| of the tech but need convincing that it's come far enough for me
| to buy one.
|
| And yet... trying these out just doesn't seem to be a thing
| anywhere. I can walk into any tech store and see a non-working
| unit in a glass case, or if I'm lucky pick up a slightly sticky
| broken controller, but I can't try one out for 5 minutes to see
| if I like it.
|
| I'd bet that Apple's headset will be announced with a store
| experience to go along with it. I'm sure it'll be by appointment
| only to begin with as they'll have many more people wanting to
| try it than who will want to buy, but I'm sure there will be a
| way to experience them before buying. The Apple Watch was
| effectively a new product category where people needed a new
| level of persuasion, and Apple had fitting appointments that were
| very well done, and Apple Stores have always been known for being
| primarily focused on using the products, even letting you try
| AirPods, so I can't imagine these will be stuck in a glass case.
| anonred wrote:
| You can try Quest headsets at retail stores like Best Buy.
| danpalmer wrote:
| In the UK I've never seen a store with one to try, even
| though most seem to stock them, and I've gone out of my way
| to look for one because I'm quite keen to buy one.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| I've been solodevving a VR game on the side since half-life alyx
| came out. Honestly the pace of hardware advancement is a bit
| demoralizing as my game is effectively tuned for Quest1 graphics
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| Meta is moving the state of the art in headsets. It's great to
| see that the 15-20 billion per year isn't completely wasted.
|
| However, its still a headset and so far the vast populace hasn't
| been interested in putting a headset on for hours. Clearly Meta
| is betting this is a "at the margins" issue, that by making the
| headset slimmer, cooler, and lighter that more people will start
| using them. I'm not sure, my guess is that the form base form
| factor is an issue.
|
| Second, there is no user experience that is shockingly compelling
| yet. I have hope that generative AI can help here, but it looks
| like we are still a little ways off.
|
| I think Mark knew he had to get away from Apple as they are a
| horrific partner, and he needed a platform, but the technology is
| too far off. He's using billions to jam a round peg into a square
| hole (IMO).
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I'm not sure, my guess is that the form base form factor is
| an issue.
|
| It is for me. Having to wear a headset is a _huge_ ask, no
| matter how slim and light it is. I 'd do it for a compelling
| enough reason, but nothing in the VR space is anywhere near
| compelling enough for me (yet).
|
| But I won't buy one from Facebook, no matter how awesome it may
| be.
| seydor wrote:
| Hm he has a custom version of Android now with its own app
| store with millions of users. Wondering what one could do with
| it...
| krger wrote:
| >I think Mark knew he had to get away from Apple as they are a
| horrific partner
|
| Facebook is the company that almost single-handedly gutted the
| media industry over the past ten years with such smash hits as
| "just post all of your news stories directly on Facebook" and
| "pivot to video based on these absolutely fabricated numbers!"
| so I suppose he does indeed have some insight on what makes a
| horrific partner.
| ilaksh wrote:
| If you think there is nothing compelling then maybe you have
| never tried Demo, Eleven Labs, or anything in this device which
| hasn't been released yet.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| > so far the vast populace hasn't been interested in putting a
| headset on for hours
|
| It doesn't have to be "for hours" to sell a headset. I am happy
| to play games for 45-90 minutes at a time and I spend a lot on
| my gaming setup to do so.
| skymast wrote:
| Porn is really amazing on the Quest. I look forward to seeing
| what Apple can do with it.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| The next step - that I'm frankly surprised is taking this long
| - is "light field" video.
|
| Instead of being a fixed tripod, you can be _in_ the space. You
| can move a foot or two in every direction, and you can rotate
| your head without overlapping each eye 's perspective.
|
| This demo from a 2020 paper is incredible:
| https://augmentedperception.github.io/deepviewvideo/
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I'm sure I sound like an old man yelling at clouds but I don't
| get why there's such a push for these platforms.
|
| I got an email from Apple about their event this month, and it
| said "Code New Worlds", which in my mind seems to confirm they're
| actually going ahead with an AR/VR device. Why?
|
| Where is the market? How many of these things sell? What do
| people actually do with them?
|
| I like the idea of an AR experience for enabling better work
| environments, even as a programmer, but my sense is that these
| technologies are very far in the future still. These will be toys
| for a while yet.
|
| So what's the motivation to get into this space? What is the
| opportunity that Apple sees, for example?
|
| Part of me is optimistic that there's some incredible application
| around the corner and it'll be an exciting moment in the digital
| space. The other part of me feels like we're really grasping
| here, and it's just a toy (albeit a pretty cool one).
| rngname22 wrote:
| I mean, have you ever tried one? That seems to be missing from
| your post.
|
| Some people think stereoscopic depth in visual mediums is more
| entertaining or interesting than flat images. The same way some
| people preferred color television over black and white when it
| became available.
|
| Adding a z-axis (depth) is a higher resolution, higher
| bandwidth signal.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Absolutely, and I do love the higher bandwidth signal. It
| seems to have a seriously limited practicality at this point,
| though. I watched a movie and that was neat, even though it's
| flat it was kind of nice to have it be so... Immersive, I
| guess. Sound cancelling and vision cancelling at the same
| time is pretty cool.
|
| The games are very novel but something like tears of the
| kingdom is far more engaging and gratifying for me. Maybe
| that's because I grew up with flat games and it's where my
| brain is most comfortable.
|
| So, I don't really watch tv or movies (maybe once every two
| months at most), I don't game much unless with my kids
| (doesn't work in VR/AR), and otherwise I'm not sure what kind
| of individual activities I could get up to where it would be
| useful in its current state. Or even a moderately more
| advanced state perhaps. A big snag for me is that you can't
| really do it with people.
| rngname22 wrote:
| Watching a 2D film on a stereo 3D VR device sorta makes
| sense that it's not super interesting. Other than being
| able to resize the screen and reposition it, you're not
| getting much.
|
| The games are crappy right now, I agree.
|
| I think few die-hard VR or AR enthusiasts would argue that
| the content and use cases have a long way to go. Most games
| are either more akin to going to a paintball course or
| playing DDR than they are similar to sitting down to play a
| classic video game. Which is a fun experience but clearly
| isn't gaming.
|
| And the blockbuster 2D game ports to VR are few and far
| between, and it's not fun playing Skyrim for the 50th time
| just because now it's stereo 3D.
|
| For me, I've found that stereo video recorded on high end
| stereoscopic 180 degree camera setups is really compelling.
| For example video recorded using ZCam K2 Pro. The only
| studios really using that tech extensively currently are
| for adult video. For me the best of those experiences feels
| like the future, the next big medium. If it were possible
| to combine 6 degrees of freedom with stereo video, I am
| convinced it'd be immediately successful, but I still think
| 3 degree of freedom stereo video that's possible today is
| far superior to flat video.
|
| I can envision future Hollywood or Netflix productions
| where you feel like you're watching from an invisible drone
| floating right there in the scene, with full depth and a
| sense of real scale. It will take new artistic direction,
| things like panning the camera become nausea-inducing for
| some viewers but incredibly presence-inducing for others
| (if moved slowly enough and with a gimbal). Cuts feel
| different, too many fast cuts too quickly are much more
| difficult to visually process in stereo than on a laptop
| screen. But on the other hand, some editing effects like a
| dissolve are incredibly trippy and a new type of experience
| in VR. Seeing double vision where both scenes have depth is
| really interesting. Anyway, it's closer to watching a play
| in a theater or being at Sleep No More than watching a TV
| show.
|
| The bottleneck right now is content and production costs,
| that's about it.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| > Watching a 2D film on a stereo 3D VR device sorta makes
| sense that it's not super interesting
|
| Yeah it wasn't life changing by any means, but pretty
| nice in a way. Like if I was single, I might actually
| skip the TV and just do that? I'm not certain. I liked
| that it forced me to be focused on it. I've got the ADHD
| pretty bad apparently, so sitting and watching a movie is
| kind of like trying to put a cat in a box. My brain
| insists on doing ANYTHING ELSE and grabs into virtually
| any other activity or thought or whatever, but in a VR
| headset or a theatre somehow that isn't the case.
|
| The idea of watching movies or shows as though you were
| actually there is spectacular. I think we'll get there
| too, but I expect it's a while away from where we are. AI
| will likely play a huge role in stitching multiple camera
| angles together and filling in the gaps, and that
| technology arrived a lot sooner than I expected, so...
| Maybe the integration of production and presentation
| technologies will follow suit. Frankly, I'm old enough
| that things simply move faster than I'm used to now. I
| have to reassess my priors for how quickly things can
| happen.
|
| What you're saying about stereo video sounds totally
| compelling. And not surprising it's popular in the adult
| industry. Sort of a side note I guess, but when I see
| what's possible with AI and imagine what's around the
| corner with these technologies... Good luck to all the 20
| year olds with raging hormones and a little disposable
| income. If porn addiction is a thing now, just wait.
| Maybe we're what, 10 years away from generating personal
| porn with a personally designed digital partner?
|
| I digress though. We'll get there when we get there and
| deal with it when we do. I'm glad my boys might miss the
| worst of it in their most hormonal years.
| bombcar wrote:
| You'd think they'd have some demo units you could try, but
| every single one I've ever seen has been locked up like Fort
| Knox.
| hendersoon wrote:
| It's an entirely new category. When you're an Apple or
| Facebook, there isn't much further you can go with mobile
| phones or violating users' privacy respectively, so you need to
| explore new markets to expand.
|
| IMO AR is the truly useful application of the technology, but
| the hardware needs to be basically goggles that can stay on
| your head all day and we're nowhere near that. VR is primarily
| useful for videogames and porn. Lots of money in gaming and
| porn, but not widely applicable like a HUD visible at all
| times.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I'm with you on AR being truly useful. If that ball could be
| knocked out of the park, the implications for countless
| activities would be huge.
|
| Imagine you wanted to build a geodesic greenhouse and your
| vision could be populated with the pieces you need next,
| where they go, hardware you need, where parts were last seen,
| etc. My brain would benefit so much from being kept on track
| like that.
| Lammy wrote:
| They want to surveil what you see so they can sell it back to
| you as ads
| meroes wrote:
| I absolutely must have one to display on my bookcase
| jiggyjace wrote:
| Personal computers were considered just toys with very little
| real-world value for a long time too. And you might be limiting
| your thinking with VR/AR. Do you or anyone you know use face
| filters? That's AR. Lots of the rising generation are already
| stoked in VR/AR. Also Meta Quest 2 has sold 15 million
| headsets, that's hardly something to scoff at.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Ah, 15 million is more than I would have guessed. I'm
| admittedly out of the loop on this stuff.
|
| I had a feeling the rising generation is into this, though I
| would have been too. I suppose what I wonder is if something
| that appeases that enthusiasm and anticipation can actually
| be developed. But perhaps for kids and young adults it
| doesn't need to be amazing -- it just needs to be more
| immersive than a TV.
|
| My son has a Quest 2 and never uses it, and we got it used in
| great condition for $250 CAD. That left me feeling like these
| things are failing to thrive, but it's very anecdotal.
| cloogshicer wrote:
| I think the tech is not there yet, but imagine you could do
| everything you can do with a smartphone, but without holding a
| physical device, except maybe for input. Your entire vision is
| the screen. Virtual objects are seamlessly embedded into the
| environment. It's unobtrusive and ubiquitous.
|
| I think that is the endgame for AR. And I think it'll be the
| next major platform, replacing smartphones.
| rcarr wrote:
| It won't replace smartphones for a long, long time because it
| just isn't feasible to pack enough battery power into a pair
| of glasses to run the screens plus do all the processing work
| without making the headset super heavy and/or dorky looking.
| What will most likely happen, is you will have your phone in
| your pocket doing all the work which will then relay the
| video to the glasses which just decode and display it, first
| via cable (already products available on the market that do
| this) and then in a few years it will be wireless.
| erksa wrote:
| It's been very interesting to discuss the potential future
| of VR/AR with software pros and hardware pros. Us software
| people seemingly tends to "ignore" the real limitations of
| current battery/power-delivery/power-draw(?) technology.
|
| We've seen massive improvements over the years, but when
| talking about the size/weight of glasses it definitely
| seems like the next "frontier" for the battery challenges.
| rcarr wrote:
| Yeah, according to google a pair of raybans weighs 40
| grams and a pair of xreal air weight twice as much at
| 79g. I'm a massive fan of the latter but already that
| weight is noticeable on your face as being heavier than a
| standard pair of glasses and this is a device which has
| no battery. All the power comes from a cable connected to
| whatever device you're using. I can wear a pair all day
| but I don't think you could go too much heavier before it
| starts getting uncomfortable for prolonged use. I think
| it's going to be a massive struggle to get these down to
| a decent weight with battery. Viture's solution to this
| is a neckband containing the battery and the brains - I
| could definitely see this kind of solution becoming
| commonplace.
|
| https://xreal.com
|
| https://www.viture.com/
| ozgung wrote:
| > So what's the motivation to get into this space? What is the
| opportunity that Apple sees, for example?
|
| I think for Apple, it's just another new personal computing
| platform. Just like personal media devices, phones, tablets,
| TVs, smartwatches etc. They may not necessarily see a big
| opportunity. They simply cannot afford to ignore a new
| computing platform.
| capableweb wrote:
| > I like the idea of an AR experience for enabling better work
| environments
|
| Same here, but I don't think the ecosystem/market is ready for
| serious work, it's all too brittle and the UX isn't nearly
| there yet. So I'm waiting.
|
| > Where is the market? How many of these things sell? What do
| people actually do with them?
|
| But I do own a HP Reverb G2, mainly for playing simulation
| games like flight simulators, and racing simulators. Once you
| get used to having a spatial understanding of the environment
| because of virtual reality, it's near impossible to go back to
| using traditional monitors against. The immersion is 100x
| better and your skill increases as well, just with a VR headset
| (in the genres I play).
|
| But outside of simulation gaming, I have 0 use cases for VR,
| it's basically a fun toy at this time. But I think probably in
| the future there will be more use cases, but remains to be
| seen.
| tjungblut wrote:
| Yep, for me its also just flight and race sim. Even though I
| don't really tend to use it very often anymore. It's
| cumbersome to wire up and especially in the summer the G2
| gets very hot - plus the added heat of the PC driving this
| beast!
| iakov wrote:
| I guess the market isn't there because most of the devices
| kinda suck. They are bulky and ugly, glasses compatibility is
| not 100%, some people still get vertigo. Those devices are not
| attractive to the buyers at all IMO.
|
| I'm kinda curious about the Apple VR headset - I expect it to
| be marketed more towards creative professional audience and
| less towards gamers. The few VR games I've tried have been
| unimpressive, but maybe there is some future for this tech in
| other areas?
| fastball wrote:
| I've heard that vertigo is mostly a solved problem, you just
| need to make sure the VR system is properly calibrated for
| your face, e.g. the distance of your eyes and such. That
| makes sharing such a system much harder than sharing other
| devices, which might explain why they haven't caught on
| nearly as fast as people expected. You can buy one
| PlayStation for the whole family but need to buy every member
| their own Quest.
| [deleted]
| figassis wrote:
| My fear of buying any of these is the lock in. I expect them to
| be like my TV. I plug in my streaming service, PS, xbox or any
| other input and it transforms my world. But now I have to
| choose if I want VR for my PS games or if I want to enter
| Meta's new game collection. By I already know what games I
| like, I don't want to adopt new ones because of my VR platform
| choice. If I want it all I need to pay $400 x 3? No. They can
| keep their ecosystems.
| shultays wrote:
| Probably the first company that creates somewhat usable AR will
| secure a good share of future market
| samstave wrote:
| With how quickly AI has taken over image creation, it will
| soon be able to create AR/VR in real time...
|
| But if its able to "watch" a bunch of say, mechanics, do
| their work and learn from that - then it will be able to put
| pertinent AR info on screen for people to see.
|
| I think whomever does a good job on an AI backed AR system is
| going to own a chunk of that space for a good amount of
| profit to come.
| rcarr wrote:
| I'm super sceptical about VR for anything outside of "dock"
| games like car racing and spaceship simulators and still am. I
| have however, got a pair of Xreal "AR" glasses that are
| basically a pair of sunglasses that allow you to have a 120"
| projector monitor (or set of monitors) wherever you want and
| they are absolutely awesome and I can definitely see that kind
| of product becoming the new normal. The ergonomics, price
| ($399), flexibility to take wherever you want and productivity
| are just so much better than traditional monitors and
| televisions.
|
| It is absolutely amazing to just plug in a pair to your
| phone/tablet/computer laid down in bed and watch a film
| projected on to your ceiling. People are hooking them up to
| Steam Decks and they also say it's amazing just being able to
| play whatever game they want, wherever they want, on a massive
| screen. Going to be a game changer for anyone who spends a lot
| of time travelling or commuting on public transport but will
| definitely filter into the general office and home spaces as
| well. Will save both companies and consumers a substantial
| amount of money.
|
| These glasses have been such a game changer for me that I now
| have ordered a Steam Deck and, depending on how well I get on
| with SteamOS and Linux, may end up selling my Macbook Pro which
| would be the first time I've not had an Apple computer since
| around 2008/9 (save for a few years when I was super poor and
| couldn't afford one).
| samstave wrote:
| I think I really want a pair of these - is there any place
| one can try them out?
| rcarr wrote:
| Depends where you're based I'm guessing, I'm from the UK
| and had to order them via the Amazon US website. For what
| it's worth I've never had any issues returning anything to
| Amazon, even stuff from the US (although the few times I've
| had to do that I've bought the US stuff via the UK website
| rather than the US one so don't know if it would be
| different).
| samstave wrote:
| Ironically, one of the reasons I want this is that I have
| (4) USB-based AOC monitors. Two of them showed up with
| broken screens, and this is the only problem I have ever
| had returning anything to Amazon - but thats because its
| AOC thats refusing to honor a replacement and amazon
| claims since its a 3rd party its out of their hands.
|
| Once I canceled my PRIME account, and then amazon charged
| me the $99 after I canceled.
|
| I called them, demanded a refund AND a $25 inconvenience
| fee for me having to go through the process to get my
| refund... and they paid it!
| rcarr wrote:
| Monitors are a pain in the arse. I bought a 65 inch tv
| last year to use as a monitor that I'm now selling and
| it's difficult to shift. You can't really ship it because
| the risk of it being damaged is high so no-one will give
| you a reasonable quote with insurance. So I'm going to
| have to sell it to someone locally, probably at a super
| low price. Looking forward to never having this problem
| ever again with this new tech. Between projectors and
| these glasses I think TVs are going to become obsolete
| tech within the next two decades. It's only a matter of
| time until someone makes an app that allows you and all
| your mates to watch whatever you want on your own
| individual glasses but in sync with each other. And for
| the people who want a permanent glasses off experience at
| home I think laser projectors are going to come down in
| price and become commonplace. TVs are going to go the way
| of the dodo.
| samstave wrote:
| Imagine when you have a UX for large screen throws in
| glasses which can be synced/networked whereby you can
| throw up the "wife - yes! IA M COOKING channel to her to
| prove you're chopping what she asked! GEESH!?
|
| vs - swiping back over to the gaming channel with your
| buddies and be like _" Ill revive you in two seconds,
| bitch, GEESH - ill be there as soon as I am done with my
| status report on vegetable cuts Management is
| demanding!"_
| abeppu wrote:
| What kind of tasks do you feel the Xreal "monitor" is good
| for? I looked at this product recently, but it seems like the
| resolution is basically 2x1920x1080 for the space + the
| screen. If you're used to using 1-2 4k monitors to look at
| e.g. multiple panes of text + graphs, this seems like it
| would be a big step backwards, like using a 10 year-old TV as
| a monitor. But some people seem to love it so maybe I'm
| missing something.
| rcarr wrote:
| Anything you want, but of course it's all subjective. You
| can have up to three monitors if you're using the Nebula
| app, so that's three 1080p monitors. You can't see them all
| simultaneously though, you have to tilt your head to reveal
| the left and right monitors similar to how you would with
| real life monitors except for you don't have them in your
| peripheral vision. It's definitely not as crisp as a 4k
| monitor but I think some of the lack of resolution can be
| made up for by the sheer size of the screen. I am also
| willing to trade the lack of crispness for complete
| elimination of neck and shoulder ache from hunching and
| also the ability to have this anywhere I want. I'm planning
| on backpacking and doing the digital nomad thing
| indefinitely so this is really ideal.
|
| One thing that has been surprising is that I thought eye
| strain might be a problem but I've not really had any
| discomfort and I've actually gone back to using light mode
| in the day time and dark mode at night time which is
| something I thought I'd never do having been using dark
| mode for everything for years.
| [deleted]
| lsaferite wrote:
| My teenager plays the Quest 2 daily. Sample size of one
| (sorta), but he plays with all of his friends. He's in our
| living-room for a few sessions each day. And, FWIW, it seems
| like an intense cardio workout for him each time, which I like.
| samstave wrote:
| This is funny to me....
|
| Back in the mid 1980s I started my gaming journey... I would
| sit and play games for hours and my 2400 baud modem helped me
| dominate in Populous, got me connected to BBSs to play games,
| got me on PCLink (the precursor to AOL), and got me grounded
| for a month for running up a $926 long distance phone bill
| for calling into BBSs in San Jose from Tahoe...
|
| My dad yelled at me and told me "I was wasting my life
| sitting in front of the computer all day"
|
| Years later after I made a pretty cool career in computers,
| including doing game testing at intel, designing datacenters
| for NAMCO and Lucas etc... my dad apologized for saying that
| to me...
|
| So its funny that your kid is getting his cardio in VR! We
| are living in the future!
| lsaferite wrote:
| I guess it helps that I too started computers early. My
| first being a Commodore 64 and basically every system in
| between then and now. So, I'm more inclined to let my kids
| use technology than my parents (who were very welcoming of
| tech) were. I still force them to go outside and eat dirt,
| like I had to as a kid (J/k on the dirt bit).
| samstave wrote:
| Ha! I ate dirt in the 70s as a toddler! and spiders!
|
| Eating dirt actually helps build the gut-biome. and it
| helps kids stay healthy through fortifying the immune
| system (this is why all the 'hand-sanitizers' are
| actually worse for human health)
|
| But I was lucky - I grew up within 500 feet of Lake
| Tahoe, and would just walk out the door, go up Ward
| Creeek to the backside of Alpine Meadows, setup booby
| traps for hikers (trip wires... it was the 1980s..)
|
| But I coerced my dad to buy a machine for his "business"
| and then I took over the machine and played tons of games
| - but would also be 'kicked out of the house until
| dinner' at times and just explore the forest, swim in the
| lake, or steal boats.
|
| Again, this was like 1986 and I stole a bunch of boats
| because my dad was a big general contractor who built and
| cared for a crap-load of lake front properties with boat-
| houses, and I knew where my dads clients were all the
| time, so I could steal their boats for joy rides... and
| for some of the houses I had the keys.
|
| It was a common thing in Tahoe in the 1980s to break into
| vacation homes and throw "keggers"
| wortelefant wrote:
| After we got used to multitask screen input in our lifes for
| years, VR is a huge bet that we somehow prefer single-focus-
| session in an environment controlled by someone else. No more
| checking messages in between, no more friendly distractions, and
| the VR companies have full control what we see during a session,
| including ads. This kind of hyperfocus is rare in most use cases,
| especially at work. I wonder how their UX reasearch justified the
| effort.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Have you even used one? It has multitasking and notifications
| and all that. It's mostly just Android.
| wortelefant wrote:
| My previous company built VR learning apps (among other
| things). Immersive learning for trainees, but customers
| preferred implementations where trainees were prevented from
| doing anything else. That was not possible before
| jayd16 wrote:
| I really don't think whatever terrible experience your
| employer straps you into for training will have much
| bearing on the consumer UX of these headsets.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| In fact it _is_ Android.
| Scalene2 wrote:
| The Quest line of headsets support multiple applications open
| and usable at once. So does every headset that uses a PC.
| wortelefant wrote:
| but it is still a controlled environment, the amount of
| context switching with a vr headset is limited to a) digital
| content / applications and b) only to the extend that the VR
| headset manufacturer allows.
|
| Consider how meta originally marketed it in a business
| setting - would the "virtual office" application allow you to
| check your private messages in between? This can be built in
| of course, but currently it looks like an afterthought at
| best.
|
| I talked to some trainers in a company about VR trainings (my
| previous company produced such a course). Some trainers were
| interested in VR because it "keeps trainees from looking at
| their damn phones"
| shock-value wrote:
| VR covers your entire field of view, so not sure why you'd
| claim that it precludes multitasking, even if the current
| iterations aren't yet geared toward that.
| wortelefant wrote:
| Multitasking as in, checking stuff on your phone in between,
| looking out of the window or at your cat etc
| Scalene2 wrote:
| Lots of that field of view on most headsets is covered with a
| black abyss.
| shock-value wrote:
| I think the companies pursuing VR see that as a momentary
| technical deficiency, not an inherent limitation of VR
| generally. So to characterize their efforts as a long-term
| "bet" against multitasking seems silly to me.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| it's true but this seems mostly a software limitation,
| especially with quest pro / 3 which are true mixed reality
| headsets they could have you seamlessly blend in and out from
| reality. Other devices could also be integrated, like a
| virtual, mirrored version of your phone you could seamlessly
| use while exploring a foreign planet in No Man's Sky, you could
| mirror mail, discord or browser windows into the virtual world
| or get notifications synced from your phone and desktop, take
| voice or video (in avatar form) calls though your phone etc.
|
| To extremely varying degrees some of this is already somewhat
| possible, but at the end of the day the Quest is just a low to
| mid-range phone running a proprietary nailed-shut android OS
| that's barely hold together by duct-tape. So Meta can't do much
| with the foundation they built, just like a tablet device its
| just a toy you aren't supposed to do anything real with it.
| Some of that is also the reason why Carmack left [1].
|
| [1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/john-carmack-leaves-meta-
| criti...
| TekMol wrote:
| All use cases in the video are games.
|
| I think that is the reason why I don't feel anything towards VR
| headsets. While I am totally into technology, I'm just not
| interested in games.
|
| Actually, I am not interested in entertainment at all.
|
| I wonder what makes people different, so that some are very much
| into entertainment and some are not?
| eb0la wrote:
| There are a lot of use cases in B2B with VR but they are not
| easy to sell.
|
| I remember a long time ago Silicon Graphics used to build
| Reality Centers. Their best sales pitch was some Oil company
| was building an Oil rig and using VR they could find - from
| blueprints - some valves were installed too high and that saved
| them a lot of money.
|
| I worked for a company that had a software to scan train
| tunnels for inspection. It was cheaper and quicker than sending
| technicians there, but the interface -built on PowerBI was a
| pain. VR could be much better...
|
| ... but you need an easy way to build that App.
|
| (btw if someone knows about it, just drop me message)
| nologic01 wrote:
| Are movies entertainment? There are movies that would probably
| count as the best hours of your life.
|
| Dont get distracted by labels. Human talent gets expressed in
| many ways.
|
| The important skill is to filter the crap.
| kypro wrote:
| Out of interest do you have strong interests elsewhere? Or is
| it just entertainment?
| TekMol wrote:
| Yeah, strong interests in a lot of stuff!
| Symmetry wrote:
| SimulaVR markets themselves as a productivity VR headset.
| Essentially, have as many terminals and other windows as you
| want floating in the air around you while still having the pass
| through cameras to see around them. The review copies are just
| being made now, though. Not really out yet. It is supposed to
| fit my huge noggin unlike almost every other headset, though,
| so I certainly preordered.
|
| https://simulavr.com/
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Is it coming out at some point soon? They've been working on
| it for so long.
|
| I wish they would focus more on software rather than making
| us all wait for their super expensive hardware. And yeah I
| know it's a whole PC you're buying. But I don't really buy
| expensive PCs in a form factor that has yet to prove its
| usability.
| Symmetry wrote:
| They're promising they'll ship by the end of the year at
| the latest. Again, I pre-ordered but I'm also thinking that
| if the PC thing sucks at least I'll finally have a plugin
| VR headset that actually fits my head. Go ahead and wait
| for the reviews to come in before making a decision if
| you're not in my boat.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I won't buy it either way. I simply can't afford it :)
| With wages as they are here in Southern Europe it's a
| non-starter. But I hope their paradigm works out so I can
| get it from another company or maybe someone ports it to
| the Oculus Quest. Freely placing windows in space instead
| of "desktops" or "screens" makes much more sense in VR.
| RajT88 wrote:
| One day, there will be a VR desktop environment with floating
| windows that I can use.
|
| People have been playing with it - but it's got a ways to go
| still. I would love working in VR with many, many floating
| windows all around, instead of contained within the 2 viewing
| panes in front of me IRL.
| epolanski wrote:
| I just cannot possibly imagine the user experience of that be
| any better than flat screens.
| hirundo wrote:
| I bought the new HTC Vive XR Elite last month for just this
| use case. I had never tried VR before so I really didn't have
| a feel for whether it would work. It did not. There was so
| much glare and blurriness that I had to scale the font to
| huge headline size to read without strain. I returned the
| system. I'm more than willing to try again if there's a
| chance it might work.
|
| In real life I do not have issues with motion sickness or
| claustrophobia. Both of these hit me when wearing the
| headset, particularly the claustrophobia. The nausea was mild
| but definite.
|
| Even so it was an extraordinary experience, and I may be more
| excited about the potential of AR than before.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| My experience with trying to play flat games or watch movies
| in VR is that it shows up the imperfections in the system a
| lot more than tailored experiences. Until they have some eye-
| tracking mechanically adaptive optics, there'll always be
| some imperfections in the system, and a high-contrast
| perfectly flat rectangle full of text right in front of your
| face shows off those imperfections far more than a full 3D
| environment full of naturalistic objects.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Floating windows are cool but VR operating systems will be
| much more interesting when they start integrating 3d tactile
| widgets and mixed reality. For example, to access your disk
| it could look like a shelf you pull down from above or
| something which renders each directory as nested boxes.
|
| Or a collection of retro games could display in mixed reality
| as if it were real boxed games on a shelf along your real
| wall.
|
| Or it could be integrated with a smart home control system so
| you could just point at a light to turn it on.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I could see Microsoft making this.
|
| ...And then mothballing it, because they couldn't figure
| out how to make mountains of money off it.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| >> Or a collection of retro games could display in mixed
| reality as if it were real boxed games on a shelf along
| your real wall.
|
| > I could see Microsoft making this.
|
| The first quoted part is actually similar to part of the
| old Microsoft BOB concept. Indeed some Later version of
| Packard Bell Navigator (which was basically a Bob clone)
| literally had general programs presented as box software
| sitting on a shelf.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| I'm honestly surprised there isn't already a VR frontend
| for Steam that works just like your second example. Valve
| love upselling on virtual items like profile pictures,
| backgrounds, trading cards, emotes, so a virtual bedroom
| full of virtual consoles and virtual doodads that you can
| show off to other users seems like it'd pay for itself. And
| they already have a VR team.
| RajT88 wrote:
| A VRChat-like social area like this on Steam would get a
| lot of my free time.
| hparadiz wrote:
| We need either VRC or something like VRC with in-world
| item management, avatar/world creation, and full support
| for adult content. Anything less is just wasting time.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Have you tried Eleven Table Tennis in VR or any of the other
| sports titles?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Adult content is a huge market for this imho.
| delecti wrote:
| A big barrier is that Meta isn't going to allow Pornhub (or
| whoever) to publish on their Oculus app store.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It's stupid. It's a huge market, one where VR tech adds
| huge value. There's a huge sprawling ecosystem with content
| and "peripherals" that are motion synced.
|
| Pretending it doesn't exist doesn't help their metaverse
| ambitions nor their bottom line.
|
| The urban legend is that Betamax eschewing NSFW content
| lead to their demise in favour of VHS and while that is not
| entirely true there is certainly some worth to that story.
| numpad0 wrote:
| One of open secrets not spoken in English is there's the
| DMM video player, which is...
|
| 1: https://www.dmm.com/digital/vr/-/howto/oculusquest/
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| You don't need a dedicated porn app, just a VR video
| player.
|
| For PCVR users, there's DeoVR.
|
| Download the videos from PornHub/xvideos/etc., then play in
| DeoVR.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| On the quest there's also SLR. Google it, as I don't want
| to link directly to it here. They provide a player as
| well as a library of suitable content you can stream.
| They're basically the pornhub for VR.
|
| Only issue is that only a small subset of content is
| streamable for free.
| thetrustworthy wrote:
| What do you consider entertainment? Do you not do any
| activities or consume any media that entertains you?
| TekMol wrote:
| Our exchange here entertains me :)
|
| But I wouldn't call Hacker News part of the entertainment
| industry.
| zepolen wrote:
| I find your comments entertaining.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| "the man who didn't understand fun"
|
| I guess I'm one step closer to understand how the phrase
| "play-to-earn" was ever born without being stopped by an
| interlocuter.
| koheripbal wrote:
| The problem is two fold because the VR video games are boring.
| criddell wrote:
| > I am not interested in entertainment at all
|
| This makes no sense to me. You don't enjoy music? Movies?
| Books? Dance? Sports? Plays? Museums of any kind?
|
| Have you always been that way? When I was very young I could
| entertain myself for hours in my backyard looking at shadows
| and insects.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| The coolest thing I saw on the Quest was a 3D YouTube video -
| it was something educational ish about the universe maybe.
| Very immersive but they only had a few good ones
| GuestHNUser wrote:
| I feel the same way as the parent. Just about everything
| touted in the entertainment industry fails to hold my
| attention or generate any desire. I haven't felt the urge to
| watch a movie, play a game, or really engage with much
| marketed media in a while. Don't mistake me for being
| depressed too, I am quite happy.
|
| I get a lot of fulfillment in life from fairly mundane
| things: work, socializing, exercise, reading about whatever
| niche I am interested in the moment. I don't think it's
| abnormal either.
| TekMol wrote:
| When I watch a movie, I do enjoy it. But there are so much
| way more interesting and exciting things to do than to watch
| a movie. So I rarely watch one.
|
| Books? Loooooove books. But they are usually about the real
| world. Science, biographies, theories ... I wouldn't call
| them "entertainment".
|
| Never been much into dancing.
|
| Doing sport is super awesome. But is that really counted as
| "entertainment"? Or do you mean watching sports? I find
| watching sports pretty boring.
|
| Plays - whats that?
|
| Museums? Hell yeah! But I never heard someone call museums
| part of the entertainment industry.
| BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
| > Plays - whats that?
|
| it's like a movie but with real people in real time. you
| may have heard about something called 'theater'
| JohnFen wrote:
| Live theater is my favorite by a longshot. Beats the hell
| out of what the movie industry has been churning out.
| TekMol wrote:
| Yeah, theater is good.
|
| But I like other things more. Like watching people in a
| cafe. Gives you more opportunity to join the action :)
| younggeorge wrote:
| And then the people you talk to end up talking about
| movies and video games and you lose interest because
| you're only living interested in the real world.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| p_j_w wrote:
| Video games and movies are part of the real world.
| milkytron wrote:
| I think your preferred entertainment is still
| entertainment, it's just not the typical entertainment that
| many people partake in.
|
| The google definition of entertainment: the action of
| providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment.
|
| So reading, museums, and whatever you do for enjoyment is
| still entertainment.
| yccs27 wrote:
| The crucial difference here is between "entertainment" as
| a general concept and "entertainment" as products of the
| entertainment industry.
| holoduke wrote:
| Life should be all about entertainment. You are missing
| something essential I believe.
| wepple wrote:
| I disagree. Life is about finding meaning, and for many
| entertainment is meaningless; distracting yourself until
| you die.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Every pursuit is a distraction until you die. There is no
| intrinsic meaning to life, you just do whatever you can
| to keep a steady release of dopamine in your brain. For
| some people that's watching television, for other people
| it's Family, for others it might be practicing musical
| instrument, the list goes on and on but it's purely
| subjective.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| > Doing sport is super awesome.
|
| There are a lot of good VR sport apps. I am part of a VR
| cricket league which I play in every morning before
| breakfast. It's awesome!
| ydnaclementine wrote:
| > When I watch a movie, I do enjoy it. But there are so
| much way more interesting and exciting things to do than to
| watch a movie. So I rarely watch one.
|
| I used to think this, turns out I was watching bad movies.
| Use time as a filter and watch old movies by directors that
| are still talked about (Kubrick, Tarkovsky, etc)
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > Doing sport is super awesome. But is that really counted
| as "entertainment"? Or do you mean watching sports? I find
| watching sports pretty boring.
|
| Well, there are some good fitness-oriented VR games around.
| Beat Saber is rad, that's the main one people know about,
| and there's a bunch of other ones too.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Lots of people are complete shut ins and/or tech fanatics.
| People with a life outside of computers aren't really
| interested in VR, it's a nice gimmick for a dinner at a
| friend's place but that's about it. I'd go even as far as to
| say even full blown basement dwellers aren't so interested in
| VR
|
| I was really into it ~10 years ago when I was a shut in nerd,
| back then they were announcing the revolution, fast forward 10
| years and literally nothing changed, it's still a gimmick for
| 99.9% of people.
| jdironman wrote:
| Not necessarily true. There are some "productivity" apps, as
| well as streaming (does anyone use that though?), and also
| exercise apps (admittedly probably falls under the game
| categeory). And, honestly, I don't see this changing until
| inputs change. Things like coding, spreadsheets, writing, all
| generally require a keyboard and mouse. At minimum a keyboard.
| Maybe GPT powered headset that can really understand you and
| has the ability manipulate things / OS level access might
| eventually come about.
| valine wrote:
| Its hard to make other use cases work when text is barely
| readable. The resolution just isn't there for productivity
| apps.
|
| I'd be surprised if Apple doesn't lean into that angle with
| their new headset. Pixel density on phones was a problem before
| the iPhone 4, and they sold the heck out of the retina display.
| If Apple can make small text readable in VR they'll enable a
| whole world of new VR applications.
| olah_1 wrote:
| > text is barely readable.
|
| I understand what you're saying, and I agree, but it's like
| saying a party is boring because there are no books.
|
| The whole "meta" concept is that you're socializing in VR and
| it feels as if you're talking to your friend directly. I'm
| sure the resolution has improved in the new model, but even
| still, super sharp text isn't as important as you'd think to
| make the fundamental social use cases work
| theptip wrote:
| Socializing is one thing you do in the Metaverse. Working
| is probably the bigger one though.
|
| Lots of people don't grok this but the endgame for VR/AR is
| replacing every monitor in every office and home. Probably
| ditto TVs when every person owns a headset.
|
| It's going to be a massive game-changer (and a rapid
| transition) when VR gets good enough to work in.
|
| The question is just whether this is a 5-year timeline or
| 50. Mark is obviously betting he can get traction in the
| 5-10 year timeframe.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| Why would anyone want to work with a helmet on their head
| at all times like this? It's like saying the endgame for
| computers is all communications will be over video phones
| like on the jetsons. It sounds like a cool scifi concept
| until you realize even if the technology is there people
| would often rather not be seen on camera when they talk.
| numpad0 wrote:
| VR headsets are just more compact than laptops, let alone
| desktops. If you _could_ just replace workstations with a
| headset, though it will not likely happen in near terms,
| that'll be nice.
| valine wrote:
| VR hardware is chock full of compromises right now. VR's
| final form factor will probably look more like goggles or
| glasses.
| theptip wrote:
| First, note I said VR/AR, so not everyone needs a
| headset. Many workloads will work in AR, though the black
| pixel problem means these will be much harder to crack
| and so will probably arrive later.
|
| But I think once the VR headsets get miniaturized a bit
| more (give it a generation or three) people will laugh
| when they think about the current models, just like we do
| about cell phones vs. the first satellite phones that
| were bigger than your head. At some point these will be
| as light as a pair of plastic sunglasses or goggles.
|
| There is nothing forcing you to use VR for something like
| a call, where you don't currently need a monitor. But I
| think we'll see a tipping point where the face tracking
| gets across the canny valley and people stop saying "you
| need to meet someone in person to really connect". At
| that point VR calls substitute for in-person meetings,
| not VCs on a screen.
|
| Consider the move to remote work; if we can get a virtual
| meeting room to feel like whiteboarding in person,
| including gaze and expression detection, then you could
| bounce between meeting room with your distributed team
| and perfect immersive dev setup without leaving your
| seat.
|
| For the median worker using a monitor I think the
| requirements to beat monitors are just good enough
| resolution for spreadsheets/email (we may be there next
| gen?), comfort (currently the crux), and a decent story
| on input passthrough (your physical keyboard rendered in
| VR? Something else? Seems tractable, we just haven't
| standardized any options.)
| gtop3 wrote:
| I see three assumptions in your paragraph that need to be
| true in order for the technology to work. I'm ordering
| them by how likely I think they are to come true in the
| next decade.
|
| * Headsets will have good enough resolution and be
| generally comfortable enough to replace monitors for
| office space.
|
| * There is a solution to the pass through input problem
| that is acceptable for the average office worker. I don't
| think there is a solution of the passthrough problem that
| beats a keyboard/mouse, or even a laptop in a cafe. I
| think it's more likely the average office worker will
| accept a worse form of text input given the right
| conditions.
|
| * It's possible to project a 3d image of myself while
| wearing a headset that doesn't include the headset and
| passes the uncanny valley. The uncanny valley is wide,
| and even AAA video games haven't cleared it yet.
| theptip wrote:
| That seems like a good list. For 1, I expect to update
| substantially (either for or against) after seeing how
| much of a jump Apple's headset is. I view this one as
| inevitable unless something crazy like a complete end to
| progress on SoC density.
|
| For 2, there are demos already; Immersed (and maybe Meta
| natively?) has a mode where it recognizes your keyboard
| (like 2 specific models, prototype) and positions the
| keyboard in VR. Not good enough for hunt and peck but if
| you touchtype this works. The Quest 3 seems to have
| better passthrough so again, this generation will provide
| a good steer. This one seems pretty easy though.
|
| For 3, if we can do deepfakes we can do 3d photorealistic
| avatars. Can't be more than 5-10 years away to render a
| face in real-time. Unreal already has some crazy tech
| with MetaHuman that would work here already I suspect,
| given enough compute.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Lots of people don't grok this but the endgame for
| VR/AR is replacing every monitor in every office and home
|
| It's very, very hard to see how VR/AR would be a good
| replacement for monitors in general, even if it was
| perfect.
| theptip wrote:
| I find it helpful to invert the perspective; let's assume
| we have perfect VR/AR; what would monitors be good for
| when you can call up arbitrary number of windows anywhere
| in your visual field?
|
| There are maybe some information-radiator type use cases.
| Probably things like big screens at live events / shows.
|
| But for individual users, I think anything a monitor can
| do, an endgame AR display can do, and more flexibly.
|
| Why would you (personally, I'm interested in your
| viewpoint) want a monitor if you had a perfect AR display
| that you could dismiss into thin air when you didn't need
| it, or conjure up a 6-screen dev environment when you did
| need it? You could put your keyboard and mouse down at
| any comfortable chair and be as productive as your
| current dev setup with your optimal monitor count.
|
| (My claim was even stronger than yours, I don't think
| they need to be perfect to be better, but since you
| volunteered it, let's explore that extreme.)
|
| I'm assuming "perfect" is something completely
| unnoticeable like lightweight glasses or contacts BTW,
| and I think there is a bunch of good stuff before
| perfect.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I'm assuming "perfect" is something completely
| unnoticeable like lightweight glasses or contacts BTW,
| and I think there is a bunch of good stuff before perfect
|
| If that's the case, and if your perception of your real
| environment is in no way hindered, then I agree --
| monitors wouldn't have an advantage.
|
| Short of that, though, I would strongly prefer monitors
| over VR.
|
| > you can call up arbitrary number of windows anywhere in
| your visual field?
|
| This is not something I personally would want to do. I
| want my computer/user interface to be constrained to a
| specific part of my visual field. Even if it's all in VR,
| that's how I would use it anyway.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| I'll be interested to see if views on this have shifted
| this time next week after Apple's announcement.
|
| For my part, I think the notion of putting down giant
| expensive phyiscal rectangles that are geolocked to one
| physical position just to use computers is going to seem
| like a quaint artefact of history in a few years.
| jayd16 wrote:
| What did you really expect for this sort of venue? B2B clips
| would muddy the consumer announcement.
| eppp wrote:
| If VR headsets had the resolution to be giant virtual monitors
| then that seems like a really cool use case.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| They already do have enough resolution to do real work. The
| problem is that for a lot of folks it is physically straining
| and taxing to be in a VR headset for hours and hours
| straight. A small portion of people just physically cannot do
| anything in VR without getting violently sick.
| kypro wrote:
| Looks great to be honest. The worst thing about the Quest 2 was
| the size and crappy pass-through.
|
| Will be interesting to see how Apple's headset compares.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I personally have 4 quests and the only use case I use somewhat
| regularly is shapesxr. Everything else is decent but not really
| compelling. Have spent about 200 on games
| MBCook wrote:
| Pre-announcing something? Days before an expected Apple
| announcement in the same market?
|
| Someone is getting nervous.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Sadly, it seems like all announcements get announcements now. I
| can't even draw conclusions about it, other than that the
| marketing people have really got their hooks in.
| MBCook wrote:
| They don't appear to have said anything other than it's
| coming and better than the Meta Quest 2 (duh).
|
| I hate the trend of pre-announcements too. It's one of the
| things I like about Apple (though the rumor mill does it for
| them).
|
| Even worse is the trend of announcing announcements. It's
| been in politics for a while ("Today candidate Smith
| announced he will announce he's running for President on the
| 12th."), but we're starting to see it with announcements for
| when details will be given about upcoming games, which is
| basically the same thing.
| [deleted]
| vyrotek wrote:
| Me and my kids are excited for it. We've had our Quest2 for a few
| years and really enjoy it despite a few Meta-related annoyances.
| One thing I really wished for was better was the passthrough and
| I hope this delivers. There are a lot of cool game tech demos out
| there held back by current passthrough quality. Local multiplayer
| passthrough VR just sounds like a lot of fun.
| rvz wrote:
| Another surprise front-running tactic from Meta to derail Apple's
| headset announcement; just like what Microsoft did to Google 3
| months ago.
|
| Given they decided to announce this earlier they must have looked
| at the Apple XR spec leaks and will undercut Apple's efforts to
| attempt to sell their headset. The first new form factor of an
| Apple product is the worst one to buy (Unless you are a
| collector)
|
| Meta is clearly far ahead in AI, XR and vision research than
| Apple is. But then the goal is obvious and it is the AR glasses.
| Either way, the death of Meta Platforms Inc. (Formerly Facebook)
| has been greatly exaggerated here.
|
| We'll see about Apple's headset but the leaks only show that the
| hardware and the price is very underwhelming. The most important
| thing to look out for is the software. But no doubt that Apple
| will try to justify the high price at the last minute.
| Zemtomo wrote:
| It's use cases not software.
|
| Gaming with headsets is sweaty but fun and Sony is the best
| company for that (PS5).
|
| For business who will style themselves and than will use a
| headset like this?
|
| As usual I'm very very curious about the anouncment.
|
| I can see are/vr in the long-term for being cheap enough that
| you buy one for a main unique purpose like building your house
| and potentially for the regular online game session but not as
| something which will change our environment.
| JohnFen wrote:
| This. Currently, the only markets I see for AR/VR are
| hardcore games and certain niche applications. I don't see
| widespread mainstream adoption in its current form factor.
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| Quest 2 screens are 773 ppi. The leaks say Apple's will be
| 4000.
|
| I'm not sure how that comes across as underwhelming to you - it
| seems to me like Apple (unsurprisingly) is going for the high
| end market with specs to match.
| seydor wrote:
| > what Microsoft did to Google 3 months ago.
|
| And what Meta did to openAI with Llamas
| system16 wrote:
| > just like what Microsoft did to Google 3 months ago.
|
| Except MS actually did steal Google's thunder. This trailer did
| nothing but confirm how boring Meta seems and just made me more
| curious about what Apple's offering will look like.
| Simulacra wrote:
| I still think they need to come down considerably on the weight.
| Until it is as light as wearing sunglasses, I think it's going to
| cause fatigue, especially for children.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| It's not a solution to drive adoption, but if fatigue due to
| the weight is an issue for today, one solution is to add more
| weight on the other side of your head.
|
| I bought some head-mounted night vision gear a couple of years
| ago, and found that even a single PVS-14 (easily <1/2 the
| weight of a Quest 2) mounted in front of your eye is heavy
| enough to cause neck strain after an hour or two, especially if
| you're moving around a lot. A properly fitted helmet with a
| chin strap helped keep it in place, but the neck fatigue
| remained. I added a small sandbag on the back of my helmet to
| offset the weight of the optic, and the problem was almost
| entirely resolved.
|
| With my Quest 2, I replaced the OEM strap with a "comfort head
| strap" From KIWI design. I then found a USB-C power bank that
| weighs about the same as the Quest headset, and 3D printed a
| holder for it to attach to the hard plastic frame of the head
| strap in the middle of the back. Not only has that resolved my
| neck fatigue issues, but the battery pack means that I can use
| the Quest 2 all day if I wanted without having to recharge, and
| without being wired to an electrical outlet.
| pavlov wrote:
| Meta hopes that this could be their Windows 3.0 moment.
|
| With desktop GUIs, Apple created the market and built a beautiful
| product that was also expensive and closed (the Mac II).
|
| Microsoft's cheap GUI environment seemed like a pointless also-
| ran for years, until suddenly the software and hardware stars
| aligned and it was good enough to power 95% of apps that people
| wanted, for a fraction of what Apple charged.
|
| Of course we haven't yet seen what Apple Reality Pro actually
| does. Looking forward to it!
| amelius wrote:
| I'll buy one when it matches the resolution on my monitor (which
| isn't even ridiculously high).
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Apple's will next week. The whole next gen of these headsets
| will probably hit that mark due to hi-res micro OLED displays
| that are coming to market now.
| adamwong246 wrote:
| [flagged]
| nathants wrote:
| the competition for vr is a 27" 1440p 240hz monitor.
|
| perhaps someday vr will be competitive, but not today.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| During the pandemic I would hang out on calls with a few buddies
| that got the Q2 or had the Q1. We played some games, but by far
| my favourite was a cheap Google Streetview browser app called
| "Wander". We would get on a call (the audio was crystal clear on
| the Q2s, but not on the Q1s) and go as a group in the app. We
| would "walk" around different places and talk about a mix of the
| place and general chit chat. Sometimes a person would show others
| where they grew up, or spent some time living, share interesting
| tidbits about that places. Other times, we'd play a game where
| one person would select a place on the map and the others would
| try to guess where in the world they were.
|
| Anyway, I didn't care much for VR games and I wouldn't be
| surprised if mainstream use of VR is not games. Meetings are way
| better than Zoom/Meet whatever, watching movies on planes and
| such is way better than on a phone or tablet, with better
| resolution working would be viable and passthrough would enable
| things like redesigning your home in a way that's simply not
| possible with any other screen. There's tons of great non-gaming
| use cases for VR that's significantly better than any other
| platform.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I still don't understand why I would want one of these. There's
| no killer app that makes any sense to me.
|
| I mean, I absolutely do not want one from Facebook, or anything
| else from Zuck, but even if a company not founded on advertising
| revenue offered one I don't know why I'd want it.
| iamjake648 wrote:
| I pretty much only use it for games with friends. Some of the
| Mini Golf, Ping Pong and Chess games are pretty good.
| chasebank wrote:
| I don't want one either but I'd imagine porn is 'killer app'.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Sorta.
|
| It's surely a popular use case, but I don't think it's going
| to be enough for it to spur adoption the way it allegedly did
| for VHS / home video. There are a couple of big issues with
| it.
|
| The biggest right now is probably lack of standardization in
| terms of video quality and features. It's difficult to find
| _any_ VR content that maximizes the capability of even the
| Quest 2, much less porn. There 's lots of stuff out there
| that's listed as "8K" and such, but is actually either badly
| upsampled lower-resolution video, or has been compressed so
| much by the streaming provider as to be unrecognizable.
| Likewise, most outlets tag content as "VR" but don't
| distinguish between 2D content that's been "split" into two
| video streams, 2D SBS (side-by-side), 3D SBS, etc. This isn't
| an insurmountable issue; at some point we'll likely see
| headsets become popular enough that it will be profitable for
| a company to move into the space and offer consistently high-
| quality content.
|
| The other issue is hardware-related: the apparent pixel
| density just isn't high enough yet for comfortable use long-
| term. I like my Quest 2. It's the first headset I've had that
| doesn't suffer from bad "screen door". The resolution is
| still too low to use it effectively for anything text-based,
| which is a shame because I _really_ want to use it to
| interact with a virtual desktop for terminal-based
| development work.
| rchaud wrote:
| It's not. VR Porn exists, but most porn users are not
| "enthusiasts" that will buy things to enhance their "hobby".
|
| On the same token, you have people that will drop thousands
| of $$ on cam girls, none of whom are camming in VR.
|
| People will pay for porn, just not the type that was thought
| up in a brainstorming session by a bunch of computer vision
| nerds.
| pirate787 wrote:
| I play about 4 days a week, the game Population One is awesome.
| I'll buy Quest 3 as soon as its available.
| seydor wrote:
| Pretty much the only app I use is the Wander app (Google Street
| View browser). I don't see the appeal of games but for static
| stuff i d say it has a lot of use cases (Architecture etc)
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| I don't want one of these because I want to be _invested_ in
| games, not _immersed_. The first time a Gloom Spawn jumped out
| at me in TotK was bad enough and that was _without_ a headset
| putting me in the position of actually having my life-force
| drained from me by shrieky-hydra-hands.
| lsaferite wrote:
| Oh man, that dang Gloom Spawn startled me pretty bad the
| first few times I saw it and caused a hilarious (to
| observers) scene. One type of game I won't play in VR is a
| horror game. TBF, I won't play them at all, but any game that
| has scary bits won't be played in VR.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| I imagine many onlookers would be able to tell who is
| playing a horror VR game based on the presence of a nearby
| change of clothes.
| dom96 wrote:
| Hopefully this one has better speakers. The speakers in the Quest
| 2 were actually worse than in Quest 1. I don't mean from a sound
| quality perspective, but from a usability perspective: they
| literally tickle my skin and I wonder if there is something about
| my head shape that makes this happen or if everyone experiences
| it and just lives with it, it's super horrible and distracting.
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| My biggest complaint about my OG Quest is the weight against my
| face, so the 3rd gen being thinner and lighter is great news.
|
| As a side note, I miss the Oculus branding. Meta Quest never
| sounds right to my ears.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Agreed, the Oculus brand always felt great to me and seemed to
| have a lot of goodwill from early adopters. "Meta Quest" never
| parses right for me, neither do any other "Meta <brand>" names
| as I hear terms with "meta" at the beginning too much.
|
| I wonder if "Quest, by Meta" would work better in branding.
| MrJagil wrote:
| I think they missed the mark with that trailer.
|
| They promote it like it's a skateboard: cool tricks, fast paced,
| hip and happy. I don't think that's why you want a VR headset at
| all, it's actually the opposite: immersion, sinking into a
| another world, it's concious dreaming.
|
| The D&D pitch could be perfect. I'd love to play a VR/AR d&d
| game. But in the video, the first thing he does is take off the
| headset and smile? It makes no sense. He should be totally
| enraptured, not happy to take it off.
|
| It's like they don't _get_ their own product.
| _trackno5 wrote:
| I disagree with you. That trailer makes it a lot more appealing
| to a broader audience.
|
| It gave me strong vibes of Nintendo's ads for the Switch and
| Wii.
|
| Even if they can sell VR as a fully immersive experience, I
| doubt that would be something that drives more sales than a
| bunch of people smiling after they've experience what the
| headset offers.
|
| If Meta wants this thing to be big, they can't just capture
| people that want fully immersive experiences.
| system16 wrote:
| If that was the intent, I think they failed miserably.
| Nothing in that trailer looked even a fraction as fun or high
| quality as a Nintendo experience. In fact it just reaffirmed
| why I'd much rather play Mario or Zelda on Switch for a
| fraction of the price.
| giobox wrote:
| > In fact it just reaffirmed why I'd much rather play Mario
| or Zelda on Switch for a fraction of the price
|
| No debate from me the Nintendo games are vastly better and
| I'd take a Switch before a Quest almost any day of the
| year, but I think it's important to point out pricing is
| closer than your comment indicates - an OLED switch is 349,
| a quest 2 is 399 in the US and still competitive as a
| headset if you are looking for one. Obviously there is also
| the non-OLED switch, but I think point remains they aren't
| miles apart in pricing.
| _trackno5 wrote:
| That's cool, but don't conflate the fact this doesn't
| appeal to you with it not appealing to the general
| population.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > It gave me strong vibes of Nintendo's ads for the Switch
| and Wii.
|
| Nintendo doesn't make fully immersive games. They make fun
| games with often cartoon graphics and logic.
|
| Which happens to be how people play "immersive" games anyway.
| The number of glitched GTA5 videos I've seen proves that its
| not really about immersion as much as it is about seeing if
| the physics engine of GTA5 can handle a car hopping across
| the skyscrapers or not.
|
| Nintendo's entire pitch is: "Here's something we found fun",
| and it works. Because its not very clear that anyone else is
| focusing on ya know, fun things.
| giobox wrote:
| You are using a very narrow definition of "immersive" here
| - personally I don't think graphical realism is necessary
| to provide immersive experiences. Sure it can help, but its
| a very shallow way to think about gaming broadly.
|
| People spend literally weeks of game time deeply immersed
| in both of the Zelda titles, as the obvious example.
| dragontamer wrote:
| I'm not talking about graphical realism.
|
| I'm talking about shoving fire breathing blocks together
| with fans in the most recent Zelda game (so that you can
| build your own flying tank or platform). Its designed for
| fun and play, not immersion.
|
| If anything, VR's issue is that instead of trying to be
| fun, they're trying to be immersive. No. You know why
| Beat Saber is one of the best games on VR? Because its
| fun.
|
| I don't think the Beat Saber blocks realistically
| represent anything. The scoring system is pretty
| arbitrary (wider swings for more points as opposed to
| timing), etc. etc. But it works and is fun. That's the
| important bit.
| rvnx wrote:
| Considering the dozens of billions of USD already spent,
| instead of playing half-way, Facebook could have considered
| to have a fully immersive experience by choosing the same
| path as Neuralink; connecting directly within the brain, or
| in some areas nearby (like one company that Neuralink
| allegedly tried to purchase).
|
| If it is possible to read your mind, then it will be possible
| to inject game and ads at some point.
|
| Facebook could open a gigantic business model: "we are
| directly in the brain of our users, our users are happy and
| are connected to the Matrix (Meta), you will not find better
| ad placement than here".
| codersfocus wrote:
| You aren't thinking deeply enough if you think ads is what
| they'd do. Electrically connected chips can just zap the
| pleasure center, conditioning you to a level beyond the
| word brainwashing.
|
| I think people talk too much about AI apocalypse and too
| little about neuralink. Neuralink will be the death of
| humanity in principle, eviscerating whatever hopes of
| freewill we hoped we had.
|
| Imagine your employer programming the chip to give you
| pleasure when you work. Imagine autocratic nations
| implanting it into every newborn, and algorithmically
| controlling the nation's thoughts --- leaving propaganda as
| a laughable, feeble relic of the past.
| Arrath wrote:
| The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true
| horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new
| era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers
| use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of
| unwilling human minds. They are creating their own
| private army of demons.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Neuralink will be the death of humanity in principle,
| eviscerating whatever hopes of freewill we hoped we had.
|
| Neuralink is a thing that will never achieve any sort of
| mass-market appeal, though, so I'm not nervous.
| Clubber wrote:
| >Neuralink is a thing that will never achieve any sort of
| mass-market appeal, though, so I'm not nervous.
|
| The only way I see it happening is if not having it
| becomes a significant competitive disadvantage in the
| workplace. If it could also stimulate parts of the
| pleasure center, perhaps that too.
| JohnFen wrote:
| If we reach a point where having brain surgery in order
| to avoid a competitive disadvantage in the workplace is a
| common thing, then I really do need to stop and get off
| of this planet. Things are already dystopic enough as it
| is.
| svnt wrote:
| I think it is just a challenge to market the experience.
| Immersion doesn't look like immersion from the outside -- all
| you know is you can't see most of the actor's face.
|
| You also can't accurately show what the user is experiencing
| because your advertising surface is typically not a VR device.
|
| If someone can't crack it then I guess the method will just
| involve grinding away at getting more users each generation so
| you can map their ad onto your own experience.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I think it's very interesting to just compare it to a wii ad.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTsF_v66HhI
|
| I think it comes off as a lot more immersive. Look at the woman
| bowling. The ad really makes it feel like she is bowling and
| throwing the ball that is 1:1 with the screen (more than the
| actual game tbh). Compare it to the images of the guy jerking
| his arms around the one minute mark. The bit of the japanese
| dudes just stepping back and helping themselves to lemonade in
| t he background is funny and smart as hell.
|
| We don't see what the VR guy is doing. He is alone while doing
| it. The content they do show is clearly fake, like the dnd.
|
| High fidelity motion tracking has a lot of disadvantages tbh.
| Like wii bowling. You can't waggle the ball in front of you. It
| more or less just detects your swing. It does feel your toss
| is... "real" because if you don't do it the intended way it
| just doesn't work and if you do it right, it works great. See
| the number of VR games that try to implement awful "throwing"
| mechanics where it's just you releasing an attachment to the
| ball and letting the physics do the rest. Hard problem.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| They also don't do a good job marketing their metaverse.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| I think you're making an assumption that what you want from VR
| is what everyone wants. For me the last thing I need is total
| escapism or "conscious dreaming". The coolest thing I have done
| on VR is Superhot, an action game. And my main use case would
| be sim racing.
|
| > He should be totally enraptured, not happy to take it off.
|
| Most gamers don't want to make gaming their whole life. I want
| to have fun for 45-90 minutes and walk away.
| reptos wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| sledgehammers wrote:
| I can't even imagine what kind of dystopian societal destruction
| they are still capable of.
| adamwong246 wrote:
| The power of this tech to distort reality is scary but what
| really chills me to my core is the how easy it was. To see so
| many trying to escape reality itself is pretty bad but that
| they would so willingly hand over the reins to _Facebook_?!
| Yikes.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| I just want to play resident evil in VR because it is fun,
| sorry if that's existentially horrifying for you but it seems
| to me like an overreaction to the present state of the
| technology.
| suyash wrote:
| same old bulky headset, similar price point. Where is the
| innovation?
| SCdF wrote:
| It's smaller, they claim 40% in the title of the video linked
| slily wrote:
| I've been hoping that Valve or another manufacturer would release
| an untethered headset, but I might pick one up if that doesn't
| happen soon. I'm not a fan of the Facebook/Meta ecosystem, but I
| stopped using and never upgraded from my Rift due to space issues
| which are worsened by tethering and sensor placement
| requirements, and getting tangled up in the wire when turning and
| moving around.
|
| How (in)convenient is streaming to it from a PC/Steam? How about
| from a different room, is it very sensitive to signal strength?
| Is the added latency noticeable?
| segasaturn wrote:
| I find it interesting just how quickly the interest in VR/AR,
| NFTs and the Metaverse dried up. 1 year ago this announcement
| would have made waves around the tech and gadget space, now its
| an in-other-news story.
| jclardy wrote:
| To be fair, this is a pretty lackluster "announcement". They
| basically said "hey, here is some new hardware that is a bit
| better than last years model"...and forgot to say "hey, here
| are a bunch of new ways this will actually improve your life".
|
| Better resolution...great. Am I actually going to be able to
| read text comfortably for extended periods to do work within
| the headset? Better passthrough...cool, but does that enable
| any new mixed reality setups? Can I use other devices around me
| or sip my coffee without taking the headset off?
|
| I expect next week we will see a lot more interesting
| experiences from Apple's announcement.
| JohnFen wrote:
| That's the thing about hype: it eventually evaporates, leaving
| just disappointment.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Well, now it's all about AI... people seriously believe ChatGPT
| may exterminate human life.
| slushh wrote:
| When ChatGPT generates 3d worlds, interest will come back.
| ChikkaChiChi wrote:
| Link to press release: https://about.fb.com/news/2023/06/meta-
| quest-3-coming-this-f...
|
| * 40% slimmer optic profile (without foam) * full color
| passthrough for AR
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Is this just the Quest Pro rebranded?
| benguild wrote:
| Just in time to get rekt
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I own both the Quest 2 and the Pico 4. The Pico is significantly
| better across the board. Better screens, much lighter, better
| controls, runs cooler. I can easily use it until the battery runs
| out whereas the Quest 2 would give me headaches because of the
| neck strain. It's too heavy!
|
| Things I would love to know is:
|
| - How does it compare to the Pico 4? - Screen specs - FOV specs -
| Pass-through, is it better than the Pico 4's?
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| Wow, no eye tracking.
|
| My prediction is that eye contact will be the "killer app" of VR.
| I keep waiting for someone to release an affordable headset that
| would let you make eye contact with your family/colleagues.
|
| But here we are, 4 generations in and Meta isn't doing it.
|
| Kinda bizarre, but the future can wait I guess. Hopefully the
| Quest Pro will prove out the use case at least for the business
| market.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Indeed, it's an odd move, because they've gone all in on mixed
| reality which must have pushed the cost up considerably, but
| left out the one piece of hardware that was actually essential
| for their "metaverse" vision to really succeed. That means
| it'll be years now before there's even a viable piece of
| hardware for it.
|
| It honestly feels like Zuckerberg is chasing Apple here (which
| is a weird thing to say when Apple hasn't even released
| anything). He doesn't want to lose the race to true AR. But at
| the same time they have absolutely failed to release anything
| at all compelling in the mixed reality space for the Quest Pro.
| It all feels very unfocused / uncoordinated.
|
| I think they would have been far better off dropping mixed
| reality, putting basic eye tracking in and selling it at $399.
| turnsout wrote:
| This looks like a great improvement over the Quest 2! It will be
| interesting to see Apple's headset in comparison. Beyond the
| obvious price difference, I'm guessing Apple will focus more on
| personal communication (FaceTime) and productivity (floating iPad
| apps). Will it be a hard sell when the Quest 3 is pretty good?
| Guess we'll find out...
| ilaksh wrote:
| The thing that matters is a huge portion of the existing mobile
| apps will work.
|
| That seems like a massive oversight by Meta to not work on
| supporting Android apps. Since it's actually similar to Android
| under the hood I believe.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| > Meta has officially announced its Quest 3 VR headset _in a post
| on Mark Zuckerberg's Instagram._
|
| The future is weird.
| turtlebits wrote:
| I like my Quest 1 for fitness games, but what bothers me most is
| the low resolution/screen door effect. No mention of any spec
| improvements in that area. Looks like the official announcement
| only mentions "higher resolution".
| ilaksh wrote:
| Quest 2 improved the visuals and Quest 3 improves it more. That
| has not been a secret.
| jandrese wrote:
| The primary advantage of the Quest 2 was the price, so I hope
| they don't discontinue it given that the Quest 3 is apparently
| $200 more expensive. It is still likely to have the biggest
| disadvantage of the Quest 2, which was the mandatory
| Facebook/Meta/Horizon Worlds stuff and the absolute headache that
| came from their account migration/connection shenanigans.
| loeg wrote:
| > It is still likely to have the biggest disadvantage of the
| Quest 2, which was the mandatory Facebook/Meta/Horizon Worlds
| stuff and the absolute headache that came from their account
| migration/connection shenanigans.
|
| The Facebook account thing ended in August 2022.
| https://about.fb.com/news/2022/07/meta-accounts-and-horizon-...
| kstrauser wrote:
| You still have to have a Meta account, which to many people
| (including me) is essentially the same thing. No thanks.
| pavlov wrote:
| There's no real name requirement for a Meta account, so
| it's not at all the same thing. You can tie it to a
| throwaway email and use a fake name.
| RistrettoMike wrote:
| And I'm sure you'll be able to pay for games & apps using
| a totally anonymous payment method, right?
| pavlov wrote:
| Sideload your apps, or use WebXR apps in the browser.
| jandrese wrote:
| One of the nice things about the Quest is you can still
| tether it to your computer, and it does the tethering
| over Wifi so there are no pesky cables in the way. App
| support for Quest controllers on the PC side is sometimes
| spotty, but I've had pretty decent luck. This is where
| being cheap is a real advantage, lots of developers
| include Quest support because they are so popular. There
| are advantages to being on the most common system. I've
| gotten a bunch of VR games out of Humble Bundles that are
| installed on Steam and stream to the Quest 2 no problem.
| ArchOversight wrote:
| Not entirely accurate. Facebook has locked me out of my
| pseudonym account and is requiring I upload a government
| ID to gain entry again.
|
| Thankfully it was not used for anything other than
| chatting with people in certain communities and I have
| other Facebook accounts that are also pseudonyms, but
| Facebook can and will sometimes require verification of
| an account.
| lsaferite wrote:
| Are you talking about a Meta account or a Facebook
| account?
| pavlov wrote:
| Yes, for Facebook accounts they require a real name.
|
| That's not the case for Meta accounts which are a
| completely separate thing. I agree it's confusing.
| JohnFen wrote:
| But it's still the same company. No thanks. Facebook
| cannot be trusted.
| loeg wrote:
| This is a different set of goalposts than the claim I was
| responding to.
| jandrese wrote:
| The account management is still breathtakingly complex and
| confusing. The switchover in August '22 was a nightmare. I'm
| sure there are still people who are locked out of their
| headsets because they couldn't figure it out. And this is on
| top of the mess they created when they forced the Facebook
| account integration.
|
| It's worse than the Mojang->Microsoft account mess, and
| that's saying something.
| darknoon wrote:
| They did a price drop on it, seems like it will stick around
| until they can make the Quest 3 a more consumer-friendly price.
| ralusek wrote:
| Announcing it now, with no specs and no release date, and only a
| promise of discussing it more in September...clearly meant to
| draw attention away from whatever Apple announces next week.
|
| As far as VR goes in general, HN is extremely crotchety. I love
| VR. I love games in VR. I love sculpting in VR. I love hanging in
| VR. But what I'm really excited about, as someone with a tendency
| to change seating locations constantly throughout the day, is
| working in VR. I want a multi-monitor setup in bed. I want one on
| the couch. I want one on an airplane, in an Uber, etc.
|
| I was hopeful with the Oculus Pro, but I've heard that the
| resolution just isn't there, for programming tasks it feels like
| you're reading text on a 720p CRT.
|
| I have high hopes for this space, and am very excited to hear
| more about this, as well as what Apple announces. What I don't
| have high hopes for are the responses to my VR enthusiasm. I
| understand that you would never strap something Facebook makes to
| your head, or that you just don't like the one or two gimmick
| games you tried, that's okay.
| phh wrote:
| It basically doesn't say anything about what's new (besides color
| passthrough), that's rather annoying.
|
| I love my Meta Quest 2, and I'll blindly buy Quest 3 as soon as
| available. It's an awesome game console, and the games' quality
| is very consistent (I also do PC VR, and even though PC VR has
| some neat stuff, it's much more effort. I usually can do PC VR
| only 1 hour in a row because any frame jitter gives nausea, while
| Quest manages 1 frame drops per hour).
|
| That being said, I'm expecting to be let down: - No more Carmack.
| I'm pretty confident he helped push quality forward, and quality
| is really what puts Quest 2 ahead of its league. You must really
| have 0 head tracking issue and 0 frame drop. - the design with
| camera islands screams at "designers wanted a say", but they
| forgot practical use. Quest 2 was smooth, which makes it easy to
| put into a bag and out, and camera' lenses were kinda protected.
| Here you've got the worst part of all. If my smartphones are any
| reference, the ones with islands are scratched within 6 months.
| My Quest 2 is 2 years old and looks to be able to sustain 5 years
| without a hitch. I'm not optimistic about Quest 3.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I love my Meta Quest 2, and I'll blindly buy Quest 3 as soon
| as available_
|
| As another happy Quest 2 owner, please wait for some reviews
| before puling the trigger. It seems most of the Quest 3
| improvements come on the AR side, which I honestly don't care
| for, as I just want escapism out of my apartment in the form of
| immersive VR games.
|
| Also, the Quest 2 will be getting extra performance via a SW
| update, so don't throw it away just yet:
|
| _" In an upcoming software update, we're updating the Quest 2
| and Quest Pro GPU and CPU. Quest 2 and Pro will see an up-to
| 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19% GPU speed
| increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro."_[1]
|
| I'm honestly impressed how much graphic performance they can
| squeeze out of that old-ish smartphone SOC. Wish all SW
| companies would put in such efort in continuous performance
| optimizations, especially on the PC side (the Electron Windows
| 11 weather app uses 500MB RAM lol)
|
| [1] https://about.fb.com/news/2023/06/meta-quest-3-coming-
| this-f...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The Quest 3 looks slimmer and lighter in weight, that might
| be a big win in itself if it is just as good as the Quest 2
| (and doesn't regress like the Pro).
| phh wrote:
| Yup I completely agree with you. Quest 2 is an awesome game
| console because of the immersion. I expect AR to be as
| gimmick as it has been on smartphones (though I'll probably
| find a game or two that will be fun for few hours), but
| passthrough is a useful feature. My expectations on Quest 3
| is exclusively better performance, to have a wider range of
| games.
|
| I perfectly agree that the amount and quality games that can
| be squeezed on Quest 2's GPU is freaking awesome, but still
| PCs have better games, and I'm not just speaking of graphics.
| For instance "open world" games like Derail Valley doesn't
| seem possible when I see performance of Synthriderz on long
| "experiences". It looks like loading anything that isn't
| already in RAM is painful (which is weird for a unified
| memory architecture, but anyway)
| potatoman22 wrote:
| If the AR on this headset is good, it could become the
| primary AR platform for devs/commercial use. If it's $500,
| that'd make it 7 times cheaper than the hololens.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Meh, commercial customers already had AR headsets and
| even at more expensive pinpoints those were still
| justifiable for business as they're tax write-offs
| anyway.
|
| Also, I doubt Meta have a damn about commercial users as
| commercial users don't drive sales. Meta makes money on
| the Quest by selling you games on the Quest store.
| Commercial customers don't buy any games. The Quest 2 for
| business is 2x more expensive for commercial users.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| My first thought was - wait this sounds exactly like Quest Pro
| but a $1000 cheapwr
| mikae1 wrote:
| Would never strap anything under Meta control to my face, but
| would love to see a deGoogled/deFacebooked Android rom for an
| affordable headset like this one.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Carmack pushed for this on the Oculus Go while he worked at
| Meta: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/27/22696030/oculus-go-
| root-a...
|
| It's extremely unlikely they would do this for the Quest
| ecosystem, but it would be the ultimate act of goodwill towards
| the community. Who knows though, I think they still officially
| support sideloading so technically anything is possible.
| jedberg wrote:
| If Apple announces at VR/AR headset that looks comparable to the
| Quest, I think the choice is a no-brainer if you care about
| privacy. And if you're already in the Apple ecosystem, I can only
| assume that my Apple headset would work seamlessly with my
| Mac/iPhone/iWatch/iPad.
| satysin wrote:
| Perhaps but I think it is quite unlikely the Apple headset is
| going to be anywhere close to $499. $1499 is more likely.
| Knowing Apple it will be higher than my guesstimate but we will
| know soon enough I guess.
|
| As for this new Meta Quest headset. There is nothing Meta make
| I would touch with a 10 foot pole for personal use. I don't use
| Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp and I don't plan to change
| that anytime soon.
|
| Hell I have all of Meta's known domains blocked at both the
| network and browser level so I don't stumble onto something.
|
| Meta, to me, is toxic.
| justinsaccount wrote:
| What if valve released a standalone VR headset? For me that
| would be the no-brainer.. a (most likely) open platform + large
| library.
| jedberg wrote:
| That would be great for gaming, but my main use case is
| productivity. I want to drop my monitors and just use an A/R
| headset. A man can dream....
| layer8 wrote:
| Based on current rumors, the Apple headset will have better
| display tech, but no controllers (only hand gestures), a
| separate battery, limited software, and a much, much higher
| price. For casual game-oriented use, the Quest will be the
| better choice for most.
| anttiharju wrote:
| I think I'll get back into Beat Saber with this, loved the game
| on CV1 but the cables were a nuisance so ended up selling the
| goggles.
| bhouston wrote:
| BTW the main Beat Saber guy left Meta recently
| https://twitter.com/JaroslavBeck/status/1659245376300302336
| nightski wrote:
| Not sure why that would matter. The team is still there.
| Everyone moves on at some point in their career.
| ZitchDog wrote:
| Eye tracking is hardly mentioned in this press release but I
| think is a Huge Deal. Will allow foveated rendering (huge
| optimization) as well as increased emotional connection in face
| to face experiences.
|
| "The eyes are the window to the soul."
|
| edit: My mistake, I misread the PR, quest 3 does not have eye
| tracking. Boo.
| modeless wrote:
| Eye tracking isn't mentioned at all. I don't think it has eye
| tracking.
| dougmwne wrote:
| No eye tracking based on all the leaks, which appear to have
| been 100% accurate.
| herculity275 wrote:
| The Bloomberg report seemed to imply that this one won't have
| eye tracking.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Did they solved the problem of needing a Facebook account to use
| it and when you create one just for it they ban it for violating
| the TOS and you're left with an expensive paperweight?
| pavlov wrote:
| Yes. There's a new account type called a Meta account which
| doesn't require a real name and isn't tied to a Facebook
| account.
|
| This gets asked a dozen times in every comment thread about the
| Quest. Maybe a bot should automatically post this information
| at the top of the comments to avoid the noise.
| [deleted]
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| You gotta wonder how many generations of hardware can they got
| through before people stop feeling like its reasonable to point
| at beat saber (2018) as an example of the platform being good.
| aimor wrote:
| "Meta said that starting June 4th, the Quest 2 will drop its
| price by $100 to $299.99 for the 128GB version"
|
| Ah, what a deal. The same price it was 1 year ago.
|
| https://twitter.com/metaquestvr/status/1551975828442910720
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| In the meantime there's been inflation, the CPU and GPU are
| getting clocked up, and I believe the other SKU of the Quest 2
| is the cheapest its ever been
| rchaud wrote:
| Not cheap enough considering the competition are light-years
| ahead in terms of brand recognition.
|
| They've lost $15b already, it's shocking that they're trying
| to break even on hardware instead of subsidizing adoption.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > Not cheap enough considering the competition are light-
| years ahead in terms of brand recognition.
|
| Nobody is really competing with Meta in the unwired VR
| space.
| wilg wrote:
| That price is gonna look amazing in a week when Apple announces
| their weird expensive thing.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| 773 ppi vs >4000 ppi
| smoldesu wrote:
| Also internal battery vs external battery. There will be a
| lot of interesting comparisons to be made once both
| products hit shelves.
| wilg wrote:
| One dollar per ppi
| CharlesHorsey wrote:
| One inch-dollar per pixel
| pavlov wrote:
| Considering 10% inflation in the meantime, that's actually a
| standard tech price drop.
| travisporter wrote:
| According to this website it's really only a $7-8 difference.
|
| https://data.bls.gov/cgi-
| bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=300&year1=2022...
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| It launched at 299 for the 64GB version, not the 128GB version.
|
| Plus, there's actually been quite a bit of inflation since
| then.
| baal80spam wrote:
| I'm pretty sure timing of this announcement is not accidental,
| it's basically the last chance before WWDC.
| epolanski wrote:
| Does that thing still requires a facebook account to be used?
|
| IIRC there was a famous article here some time ago, how some folk
| got banned on facebook and got locked out of his Oculus.
| yomlica8 wrote:
| Last I heard it requires a Meta account now. Which is a totally
| different thing because it has a different name.
| zapt02 wrote:
| It is different in the sense that you can sign up for it
| without having a Facebook account and actually not have them
| connected at all. It's good enough for me. What was not good
| enough was having your Messenger friends randomly inside your
| VR headset, and that has been fixed.
| epolanski wrote:
| Then I think I'm not interested.
|
| If I need to have a Meta account to enjoy this, it can stay
| on a shelf.
| cglong wrote:
| Out of curiosity, why? AFAIK, Oculus has always required an
| account of some kind. The Meta account is separate from
| your facebook.com one, so it doesn't seem any riskier than
| an Oculus Account of yore.
| numpad0 wrote:
| The backend is still centered around your legal full
| name. They allow display names to be displayed, but
| people are getting their legal name still tied and
| occasionally shown on that meta Meta account.
| cglong wrote:
| I personally bet the old Oculus Accounts were also
| correlated to a user's Facebook/Instagram/etc. accounts
| using metadata such as IP address. I guess making it
| explicit using Meta Accounts does give them more leniency
| with data linking though.
| Janicc wrote:
| I'm sure you adhere to those same principles when being
| forced to use steam for steamvr aswell.
| epolanski wrote:
| Steam isn't in the business of violating my privacy and
| shoving me ads.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Everytime you open Steam it literally has a popup window
| of an ad
| ryandrake wrote:
| Same here. I have an O.G. Oculus Rift that's essentially a
| brick on my shelf now, because I won't create a Meta
| account. It was bad enough I had to create an Oculus
| account, but this is a bridge too far.
|
| You should not need to have an account on a server
| somewhere in order to use what is essentially a computer
| peripheral. I would not use a mouse or monitor that
| required an online account.
|
| I understand the Quest is different, and a bit more than a
| peripheral, so an account _maybe maybe maybe_ is justified.
| But I won 't buy one of them either because Meta.
| Teslazar wrote:
| There were two potential concerns about accounts and one of
| them has been resolved:
|
| 1. Requiring an FB account resulted in users who were banned on
| FB not being able to use their Quests. This has been resolved
| since users only need a Meta account now.
|
| 2. Concerns about having any account with Meta. I doubt this
| will ever change since they're selling the headsets at such a
| low price and obviously want to make some money selling users
| software/games.
| DueDilligence wrote:
| [dead]
| bilsbie wrote:
| How's the privacy with this? Do you need a Facebook login?
| jayd16 wrote:
| You can make a one off meta account but the purchases would be
| associated with that account. You could do side loaded things
| though, no problem.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| You used to but fortunately they've walked back on that. You
| still need a login but it's separate from a FB account
| pavlov wrote:
| No. You do need a Meta account which isn't tied to your real
| identity.
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