[HN Gopher] Quest 2 is outselling Quest 3
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Quest 2 is outselling Quest 3
Author : tosh
Score : 52 points
Date : 2023-12-13 20:27 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| verdverm wrote:
| I bought my Q3 directly from Meta, this analysis would seem to be
| missing all that data, since it is based on a scrape of Amazon.
| Some raw numbers would be nice, rather than just the 2:1 ratio
|
| edit: seems like all the reporting goes back to this one tweet:
| https://twitter.com/jayhadhope/status/1729496169464623208, maybe
| a bit more data here: https://www.roadtovr.com/meta-
| quest-2-3-sales-holiday-2023-a..., numbers are a bit larger
| anyway
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Q2 owner here: I actually want to upgrade to Q3 since the Fresnel
| lenses on the Q2 are kind of crappy producing tonnes of god-rays,
| and the 3 step IPD adjustment is far too rudimentary and limited
| in range(it goes up to 68mm while my eyes are 71mm) because of
| which, to my eyes, it looks like ass in some scenes. Q3 lenses
| and flexible IPD should solve all those issues.
|
| Devil's advocate take: Unlike cheap handheld gaming consoles,
| when it comes to VR, cheap VR devices with large drawbacks might
| actually be poisoning the well , instead of helping VR uptake.
| Hear me out:
|
| People will naturally go for the cheapest option when making an
| impulse buy like this, play with it for a bit, be disappointed by
| the compromises made to achieve that low price point, return it
| or let it gather dust, and then give up on VR forever thinking it
| sucks. The Q3 while being more expensive and less of an impulse
| buy, might leave less people frustrated and willing to give up on
| VR and more likely to recommend and tell everyone how awesome VR
| is. Just a shower thought.
|
| I think also an important metric would be to look at the rate of
| returns for those devices as well. That should let us know how
| many customers were actually happy with their VR console.
|
| My biggest issue with the Q3 and why it probably sells much less,
| despite improving Q2's shortcomings, is it also includes a lot of
| unnecessary AR gimmicks that needlessly jack up the price and no
| VR gamer ever asked for. People want to try VR for full immersion
| escapism, not to look at their apartment/living room in AR with
| expensive goggles on. They can already do that on their
| iPhone/iPad.
|
| IMHO they should have just left the AR gimmicks out of the Q3 to
| keep the price lower and keep the focus on VR gaming. It would
| have sold much better, but it seems The Zuck really wants to keep
| pushing AR to people (probably for AR ads and AR shopping in the
| future).
| verdverm wrote:
| I primarily bought my Q3 as a holdover to the Visor. I use the
| Immersed app and AR definitely is a great feature when using a
| virtual desktop setup, for drinking coffee and using a real
| keyboard. I secondarily bought it as a Q1 upgrade for
| entertainment.
|
| That being said, the AR features still don't hold a candle to
| the Hololens 2 experience. The hand and environment recognition
| are still behind, even after 3+ years, and passthrough will
| never compare to real view. There are tons of visual
| distortions in the Q3 passthrough to make it usable like the
| early videos people put out, but for desk work it's fine. Then
| main issue with Q3 for virtual screens is the uneven pixel
| density. Words are blurry if not at the center, where you would
| normally use your eyes to look IRL. This is not peripheral
| distance, but quick eye glance distance. My understanding is
| Visor is designing their displays and lenses so this is not an
| issue.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I recognize there are legit use cases for AR beyond gimmicks,
| but for that you need _GOOD_ AR, while the Q3 AR feels kind
| of janky, half baked and screams of cost cutting compromises.
|
| They tried to compromise to get a low priced AR headset to
| the masses, but in the end fucked it up since the headset is
| neither low priced enough to be an impulse buy for the
| masses, nor is the AR good enough to satisfy the tech
| enthusiasts with money. It ended up being the worst of both
| worlds, hence the low sales.
|
| Q2 really hit the sweet spot in terms of features to price.
| verdverm wrote:
| I wonder how much of the AR they can fix in software, but I
| definitely agree with your sentiment on Q3 AR, though not
| sure I would call it the _worst_ of both worlds. One thing
| you can do is use the hand recognition in a VR experience
| instead of requiring controllers. Not having to pick up
| controllers to use a wrist glance menu is definitely a nice
| feature in an experience.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I wonder how much of the AR they can fix in software_
|
| They have a good track record for SW updates with great
| improvements, but I buy a device for what it offers now,
| not for hopes and dreams for the future.
|
| _> One thing you can do is use the hand recognition in a
| VR experience instead of requiring controllers. _
|
| Q2 also does that in VR since a SW update a while ago.
| cableshaft wrote:
| For my experience so far, the color passthrough on Q3 is
| good enough for gaming, where you don't really need to read
| anything too closely, but not good enough to use it at the
| desk for long periods of time.
|
| And actually the passthrough is okay for that too, it's
| more that it still feels like the screens need to be a bit
| higher resolution for the Immersed app to be comfortable
| long-term over my existing desktop and ultrawide monitor.
|
| It's nice to play ping pong or that shooting at fuzzy ball
| creatures demo game that came with it and be able to chat
| with my wife or look down at the dogs as they run by and be
| able to see them well enough. Looking forward to seeing
| what other mixed reality games come out later (I'm planning
| to make something myself at some point also).
|
| I'd still love for it to be better, but I'm still pretty
| happy with it as it is right now. Apple Vision Pro I
| suspect will be much, much better, but I can't justify its
| price tag.
| gryn wrote:
| the AR on the quest3 so far for me has been a convenient
| way for me to check my surroundings or do some little tasks
| without having to remove the headset, put it back again and
| re-adjust it. I don't have a quest 2 to compare with but
| this small gimmick seems like a small but important win to
| me.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| You can do that with the pass through on the quest 2.
| It's not pretty mind you. But it's not intended to be
| anything more than safe guard in case you wonder outside
| the play boundary you defined.
|
| I've got to say, the Quest 2 is a really nice device.
| It's obviously not super high quality compared to a lot
| of other headsets on the market but its compromises are
| generally well thought out.
| postalrat wrote:
| AR could be the kill feature that sells more quests than
| meta ever hoped for. IMO it's too early to predict what
| ideas people might have for it.
| verdverm wrote:
| Games like this show the potential:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XlGASFS62U
|
| (virtual electric hotwheels)
| antiterra wrote:
| I have never seen people so excited for VR/AR as they have been
| by the in-device recording of AR views. Generally everyone is
| careful to clarify that the real experience is full of warping
| and distortion, but people are genuinely enjoying even that
| poor version of what is to come.
|
| VR gaming is maybe not the killer app that VR fans think it is,
| only Beat Saber has really come close. A lot of us genuinely
| tried to get into VR gaming (for my part I've owned: DK2, Rift,
| GearVR, Rift S, Quest, Quest 2) but decided 2D gaming is better
| in the current state of things.
| coumbaya wrote:
| I upgraded from a day1 vive to the quest 3 last week, boy what an
| insane progress (and for half the 2016 price!), except for
| tracking, can't beat lasers I guess, but it's good enough.
| ianlevesque wrote:
| Yeah it's really incredible the progress in just a few years.
| gary_0 wrote:
| https://nitter.net/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1734993768980402467
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Good news for me since I started development on a Quest 1 game 4
| months before the Quest 2 came out, and am damn near finally
| going to release it right after the damn Quest 3 comes out!
| endisneigh wrote:
| I have 4 Q2s (for the fam). The Q3 is better but not enough
| better. I tried the Vision Pro, and it's not even close. Someone
| who actually really cares about this stuff will buy the Vision.
|
| I mention that only because the increase in quality really needs
| to be able to be perceived to justify the increase in price.
| Honestly think the Vision Pro visual fidelity and UX is 10X.
|
| I'm curious how the Q2+Q3 compares with the Vision Pro once out.
| gryn wrote:
| but they are not even in the same price bracket, if I'm
| considering the vision pro (3.5k ?) then my comparison would be
| against the new varjo xr-4 releases that are around 4k (or 10k
| for the varifocal lenses version).
| nomilk wrote:
| For those with either q2 or q3, what do you use it for? Can q3 be
| used for productivity purposes (e.g virtual office) or is the
| tech not there yet? I bought a quest 2 and tried boxing and beat
| saber (both impressive), but the novelty of VR wore off and I
| haven't touched it since (i.e. in years). I think a lot of quest
| 2 owners were similar. Is quest 3 any different?
| jmcgough wrote:
| VR Chat is the ultimate VR app. Infinite number of cool things
| to do and people to meet, lots of nerdy hobbyists who make VR
| stuff out of passion.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| I recently purchased a Quest 3 and have tried a bit of VR
| Chat. Any pointers on how to get the most out of it?
| selectnull wrote:
| Walkabout MiniGolf. I haven't played anything else since I
| bought that game, more than 2 years ago.
| kolinko wrote:
| I tried the last year's pro. We bought two for productivity in
| the company, hoping for better meetings in remote, colab
| designing in 3d in AR etc.
|
| The hardware was definitely there, but software definitely not.
| And on top of that, forced FB integration which sucks in
| business context (you can't just have an office device, because
| it's tied to a specific person's private account).
|
| Gave up shortly after that, and didn't have the time to check
| it again. So perhaps things changed during the year.
| heyoni wrote:
| Does this still require a Facebook account to use?
| Operyl wrote:
| No, they brought back email accounts a while ago.
|
| https://www.meta.com/blog/quest/meta-accounts/
| Bellend wrote:
| Thanks for this. My Q2 is gathering dust. First I needed an
| Oculus, then I had to sign up for a Oculus Dev (to get rid of
| that god annoying boundary) and switch it off. Then that
| stopped working because I needed Facebook, so I created a
| fake facebook account, and used that but it got banned as a
| fake account.
|
| The only reason I haven't turned it on for 18 months is
| because I am pre-fatigued. Where is my account now? Have I
| lost all my games... probably... do I need to factory reset?
| IDK.
|
| What a mess. I think during vacation I will do a factory
| reset and probably look at piracy options to get back my
| games.
|
| One final thing, do you know a good place to look at what is
| new in VR? I did enjoy the games I bought. Superhot,
| Beatsaber. However I really enjoyed non-games more.
|
| Thanks again for clarifying!
| meltyness wrote:
| Q2 was priced for a fire sale until they hiked mid '22. Maybe Q2
| has always been cheap, and product discovery is still a barrier.
|
| This peripheral is obviously the future, and not apparently a
| CueCat situation.
|
| It's gonna take doing to convince people it's not that TV screen
| they stick on your face at the dentist.
| rodlette wrote:
| I've not yet been interested in anything VR, but glad to see
| there's innovation and cheap entry points.
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(page generated 2023-12-13 23:00 UTC)