/vir/ - Virtual Reality

Because hardware takes a long time to make when you want to make it consumer ready, especially something that's brand new instead of an iteration. You will get it this year, just wait a few more months. I think they will start the hype train when E3 comes.

They don't want to sell a few hundred thousand headsets they want to sell several million on their first real consumer release.

To major companies they don't care about the small enthusiasts communities that inhabit these types of internet hangouts. They want a plug and play contraption that works out of the box for the average person. A market place that they control and that has an acceptable amount of software starting out is also mandatory for them to even consider releasing it to the public.

>Rift

It's already for sale, DK2 nigga.

Why isn't the CV1 released? Crappy positional tracking solution compared to Vive and I expect they are in panic mode. The runtime/SDK is crap. Only shitty games/"experiences" released so far. They are most likely going all mobile, despite claiming otherwise.

>Vive

What to you expect to run on it? No software available yet.

>>718

0.6 runtime is really nice so far. Direct mode works for almost anything i throw at it. It's become a lot less of a hassle to run shit. I do think they are in panic mode but only because of Vive's controller. It was blatantly obvious that they are rushing to market when they announced an xbox controller bundle with oculus touch coming months later.

Also to OP: The reason they haven't released yet is one part manufacturing and one part content. Content is what will sell these and there isn't enough of it yet.

>>718

You got every one of those points either slightly wrong or completely wrong.

>>935

It would not actually matter if they release touch a little bit later or a little bit earlier than the Rift. There will be very little content for people to play either way. For everyone else, Oculus is already distributing Touch dev kits under NDA right now, and will do so on a less confidential scale when the Rift ships. Even Valve is trying to scramble together developers and applications.

>>935

That's fine and all, but it still doesn't explain why the motion controls are coming months AFTER release. Why not release both at the same time, or with bundled options? The only explanation for releasing the HMD before the oculus touch is pressure from valve's rush to market.

Software. Rift/Vive has nogames.

I'm really waiting for the Oculus Touch more than anything.

And a good metaverse. JanusVR has the right idea but Facebook needs to hurry up and replace it with something better.

>>939

I don't know. Facebook doing it just makes it feel tainted. I'm sure the UX would be top notch but joining a facebook metaverse creeps me out.

Check out AltspaceVR. It's similar to JanusVR but more of a social platform and has a really nice UX.

>>941

Microsoft could easily be providing Oculus with the controllers for free in order to both get rid of some of their surplus and spread their brand. It's really windows 10 they're trying make ubiquitous like you say.

However, as a developer, I'm inclined to disagree with you on some things. I can understand very well why Oculus would want to bundle in a normal controller. It's what I would have done, because it means people can play my game exactly as I intend, without knowing if they already have a controller or not (because not everybody actually has a controller despite what you might think). Microsoft basically giving them those controllers is one of the best things I could possibly have imagined happening. In addition, the partnership was great because Valve and Oculus can now work on making some really great low-level optimizations. It's unfortunate that it will only work with Windows 10 on release though, but I don't mind; most people will need to be running it for stuff like DX12 and WDDM 2.0 anyway.

>>938

This is important. Content needs to be there or else nobody's going to buy the hardware.

>>937

Continuing from my response to the other guy, the reason is partly because there simply needs to be at least SOME content first. Oculus will probably provide several bundle or package options, but their default will probably be the one with the Xbone controller. Another reason why they're doing a separate release could be because they can just get manufacturing ramped up for the Rift itself faster, so if you can do it, then why not? They're trying to get this shit out there as soon as possible, otherwise they wouldn't be releasing so late, considering the Vive. I think we're underestimating just how long the it takes to get ready the manufacturing infrastructure for a mass-market product, especially considering Oculus is a new company doing it for the first time. Valve has a lot of experience communicating with hardware designers, and HTC has a lot of experience pushing out products, so it's easy to see how they could reasonably go to market a lot sooner. With that said, there will be the problem of content, since it's going to be like, what, 1 year since Valve started distributing Vive dev kits under NDA? 1 year isn't a long time for developers to make a full game.

>>937

>>942

In the end, the issue about input doesn't really matter since touch will gradually become the main controller. Although touch comes a bit later than the headset, I'm absolutely positive that after it comes out it will be bundled with all future bought rift headsets. If early adopters don't preorder or buy it, then they'll have to have it sooner or later when future consumer versions come out and Oculus stops supporting CV1.

As for content, I'm not worried. After you buy a VR headset you'll definitely search to use it for something and most people will be blown away just with average stuff. Well, I say average, but what Devs will be putting out will mostly be experimental stuff and I'm sure the we will be finding a lot of exciting and weird stuff to play with.

>>943

Touch will not necessarily replace inputs in games that do not use motion controllers. Controllers like the Xbone controller, or even keyboard and mouse, all have their place, and are optimized for what they do best. Touch will be a good general VR input devices but not suited for EVERY application. Rather than speaking about bundles as if there will only be one, there will probably be several, and you will probably be able to purchase components like the controllers and camera separately if you really want. In addition, Palmer has gone on record to say that they will follow the demand of devs and consumers. Right now, the situation is that most devs are targeting a regular controller type of play, and comparatively few are doing stuff which works best with motion controllers, let alone room-scale. When we see more content on that side of things, you can bet that Oculus will be pushing that style of play more.

Also about the content, I'm not personally worried either, but some are, and what I saw was that they are worried for the wrong reasons, so I gave some more logical ones, that don't spell doomsday.

In reality, there will be enough content to play when the CV1 and Vive come out. It's just enough for people to really get a taste of VR and want more I think, and that will push demand for games, which more AAAs will pick up.

How much will the First Wave of VR headsets cost? What additional costs will you need to cover in order to use one (ie, PC upgrades, etc)?

>>946

From the sounds of it the rift by itself will cost around 300$-350$ mark while Vive will be at 400$ or above. It's just speculation and assumptions though, but that's how the major headsets will probably be priced.

>>947

>>946

Yeah, you'll hear different people speculate different prices. It'll probably cost less than a 1k for the headset + PC upgrade though.

>>947

>>949

I see. Better start saving some more money then.

>>951

Truly there was never a good ending waiting for Oculus on either paths they took. People hated that Oculus let themselves be bought by Facebook, but their fate was either being independent and releasing mediocrity which would be out-shined be other HMDs, or making a partnership where they would get limited resources, or get bought by some other big company who had a hardware department and then being consumed by them, becoming part of the system.

Facebook was the lesser evil as hard as that is to imagine.

>>951

Well of course. This is exactly the reason why Facebook's investment helped a lot. At this moment in time it seems to me as if Oculus is poised to become the biggest player in VR until another company with even more funding totally dedicates their whole company to VR.