Context for people not following VR religiously: the Vive is $200 more than the Oculus Rift however it includes hand controllers and an extra tracking device. Both come bundled with 2 games if you pre-order. The Rift also has integrated headphones that are attached to the strap whereas Vive has a headphone jack on the headset. They both have integrated microphones.
Edit: Rift also includes an Xbox controller in the $599 bundle and Oculus will be selling their own hand controllers (called Touch) in H2 2016.
But you didn't even mention the biggest difference - the way they do positional tracking.
The Rift uses a camera pointing at the headset to track it, which means you have to be in the field of view of the camera. It's designed primarily for seated experiences.
The Vive uses two laser "lighthouses" and phototransistors on the headset to triangulate its position. It's actually really clever and allows room-scale VR.
I somewhat suspect that the Rift will be more successful - not many people have an entire room to dedicate to VR, it's cheaper, easier to set up, the dangling cable problem isn't so severe when seated.
I'm going to predict that Vive-style VR will be most popular in dedicated VR venues - i.e. instead of going to laserquest or paintballing, you go to a VR place. There are actually already some in the UK in shopping centres. I think they're called VR Zone or something like that. They're seated though, and I haven't tried them.
Not all Vive games have to support room-scale games, it works for sitting down/cockpit games just as well.
Beyond that, I really do think that the front camera (supporting AR to a degree, and being able to grab a drink or use a keyboard) and bluetooth/phone integration (immersion, collaboration) are the biggest technological advantages the Vive has. Recently game devs have been gushing over it, but when it comes to gamers typically the price really is the deciding factor regarding hardware adoption.
>the dangling cable problem isn't so severe when seated.
That is exactly why I don't get how people say the room scale thing makes the Vive the winner in this VR race.
As long as there are cords involved, being able to move around is not a game changer. Especially the way the Vive does things. Didn't HTC say they adressed the issue of being caught in the cords by making them visible in VR? Talk about immersion break. There you are, in the VR world and you look around and see the cords that actually bind you to a very narrow sector in real life.
This whole room scale VR can only become a thing once the tech is wireless and by there own statements, that is still a looong way from being a reality. Especially seeing as these are the 1st generation devices, I say you save yourself some money and get the rift seeing as you will not get much out of that feature that only the vive offers currently.
Really what makes the Vive the superior option (in my eyes) is that you can have both a seated experience and a roomscale experience. A roomscale experience also removes any "VR sickness" because all your movements translate 1:1 with the virtual world, so anyone who struggle with movement while being seated won't have the same issues with the Vive headset (in roomscale VR).
If you have tried VR, you will realize that one of the first thing people do, is try to look at their hands, only to be disappointed as they can't be seen. The Vive makes this possible on day 1. (Obviously not a 1:1 mapping of your hands, you'd need something like the Leap Motion Orion[0] for that.)
Most everyone who has tried the Vive have not found the wires to be a problem. Also what you say about seeing the cord in VR is not true, there is however something Valve calls the Chaperone[1] system which activates the camera when you are too close to the edges of your play area. The picture has a bluish tint, because the resolution of the camera is sub-par, so this is a cool workaround. It also prevents you from going around "worrying" that you will break something outside of VR, because as long as the system doesn't warn you about anything: You are good to do whatever you want in VR.
You are not going to have room size experience with any of those headsets at home at least it's not feasible you are tethered with so much crap that you need a man servant walking after you ensuring that you don't hang yourself on that tether.
If you want a room size experience just hook up 2 OR cameras it will work the same way (but better) as the lighthouse approach that HTC took, and you can hook upto 50 of those cameras currently to track I believe up-to a 100 players.
As far as commercial room sized experience goes Vive is sub optimal, it's heavy, wobbly, doesn't have good audio support and you can't currently track more than 5 people at the time and since Vive only supports 2 trackers per space it's also going to have issues with commercial applications that aren't a single open room.
> You are not going to have room size experience with any of those headsets at home at least it's not feasible you are tethered with so much crap that you need a man servant walking after you ensuring that you don't hang yourself on that tether.
Depends on the size of your play area obviously, but looks pretty good from this[0], and this "crap" you're talking about doesn't seem very bothersome.
> If you want a room size experience just hook up 2 OR cameras it will work the same way (but better) as the lighthouse approach that HTC took, and you can hook upto 50 of those cameras currently to track I believe up-to a 100 players.
Better how? I haven't seen a good comparison of them yet. I'm curious tho, how do you intend to scale up to 100 players using USB3 connections? That would be a MASSIVE amount of data flowing through the computer powering all of this(, the reason it requires USB3 is because it needs 60Hz high resolution image to have good tracking). The Vive takes a completly different approach by having the headset (and controllers) catch and interpret the (infrared) light emitted by the (dumb) lighthouses.[1]
> you can't currently track more than 5 people at the time
Do you have a source for this? I can't seem to find anything about this. Is it a limitation of the hardware or the software?
> Vive only supports 2 trackers per space it's also going to have issues with commercial applications that aren't a single open room.
I'd be very surprised if this was true. Everything I've read seems to indicate lighthouse is built to be scalable from the ground up. The whole idea of it being wireless, only requiring a power outlet, makes it infinitely more scalable than any USB3 solution.
Again, would appreciate sources for any of your claims because I can't seem to find any of them...
>Depends on the size of your play area obviously, but looks pretty good from this[0], and this "crap" you're talking about doesn't seem very bothersome.
That's not a room experience they aren't moving, rotation slight side to side movement isn't an issue.
If you haven't been to the demo's look at the demo's from CES/PAX/Gamescon for VR headsets that actually do whole room experience.
>Vive only supports 2 trackers per space it's also going to have issues with commercial applications that aren't a single open room.
You can't install more than 2 lighthouses it's the current system limit I'm not sure what is surprising now, HTC said that future versions might have support for multiple trackers and that they are working with their commercial partners on another set of trackers that could both sense other trackers and have a wider spectrum range to support large scale commercial installations.
In the Vive demo's I've been too they went as far as putting up partitions in order to prevent interference if they were running multiple demos at the same time.
>Do you have a source for this? I can't seem to find anything about this. Is it a limitation of the hardware or the software?
That was the figure that was talked about during the demos, upcoming promotional events like http://virtuallydead.co.uk/ also limit it, I would say the limit is probably both in hardware and software but mainly "hardware" atm since the Vive room tracking only works when the room is upto 15 sq. feet anyhow (and technically only works when the room is at least around 15 sq. feet to begin with).
You could say the same with movie theatres vs TVs though right?
Having tried experiences like The Void I'm confident these out of home experiences will be able to offer significantly more features to warrant leaving the house. Features that may never be possible in a house.
The Vive's tracking does not magically get around the constraint of having to be within field of view of the tracking devices. The lighthouses also have FOV.
The inverted tracking and placing the two in opposite corners does though. Going under one and facing away from the other will probably break the tracking but otherwise there's enough swept by either lighthouse to keep tracking.
In theory yes you could but out of the box it doesn't support that. Is there any support for that currently or planned? I've never seen multiple cameras talked about with the Rift.
Not only is it supported but it has been confirmed that an extra camera will ship with the Touch controllers. Every time I have used Touch it has been with multiple cameras. At Oculus Connect 2 they had ~50 stations setup with multiple cameras.
It does have a forward facing camera to enable AR/Hololens- like experiences though. But yeah, it's using the Lighthouses for tracking (relative for seated VR, absolute when standing)[1]. Fortunately for other VR systems they're open source and freely available to integrate into any hardware system.
Interesting. I guess it's not really a good 1-1 comparison if Vive and Rift have such widely different tracking systems.
I'd guess that Rift is less expensive to the end consumer thanks to Facebook subsidizing, and HTC/Valve waited to price their VR device higher so they could position their device as the 'expensive high end' gaming VR device. Both Rift and Vive are probably going to be sold at a loss for at least few years just so they can get the market segment to boom, so they can manufacture at a large enough scale to profit.
I expect the Oculous touch controllers to cost $199, this would make the Rift more expensive than the Vive in most parts of the world (you have to pay shipping twice).
No problem! As a VR developer I'm pretty bummed that Vive isn't including integrated headphones. It's such a pain to put on headphones and the headset at the same time.
Having tried the CV1 multiple times I can say the headphones are surprisingly incredible. Every time I use them I'm impressed. I doubt I will ever use other headphones with the Rift.
That, and at the price point of this gear, it's safe to assume they'll have their own preferred headset/earbuds. It's an additional wire, but really not a huge deal.
There are indeed competing standards but Valve has introduced OpenVR which is what Steam games will use, which is sure to be an important factor for VR studios. I suspect OpenVR will be the common choice going forward.
The sad truth is that Oculus is striking a lot of exclusivity deals.
The good news is that the Vive has a lot of unique content just by virtue of its (presently) superior tracking.
Long story short: right now, there's a wealth of content for each system that the other will not be able to play.
It stands to reason that Oculus exclusives will eventually "time out" and get ported, but it is not known whether the Rift + Touch will ever really support room-scale tracking or not.
I hope this isn't the VirtualBoy all over again. I really love the idea of VR gaming but I'm not yet convinced that these platforms will succeed. I'm certainly not willing to shell out $800 on it knowing what I know now.
Let me elaborate: It doesn't seem that compelling to me yet. I haven't seen any must-have launch games for the system, and I'm concerned that I might end up with an expensive system that I don't use much at all. It's firmly in the "wait and see" territory for me, which I suspect it is for lots of other people. That's unfortunate, because if most people don't find it compelling, and decide to wait on the sidelines like me, then it won't sell much at launch, it won't justify investment by lots of gaming companies, and it's much more likely to fail.
My opinion is that the consumer headsets launching this year already offer too good of an experience for VR to 'fail' this time around. Virtual boy was a miserable experience from what I've heard (I never got to try one). The CV1 changes people's perception of whats possible with computers.
Obviously we are in the early adopter phase of VR where the utility is not obvious to many people but that's always how great technologies start. Gaming will provide enough momentum to keep the industry alive even if a killer non-gaming application isn't found in the short term. We are in the Apple II phase of VR for sure.
In 5 years once there are portable all-in-one headsets that give better-than-current-desktop quality experiences for <$500 and with applications built from the ground up for VR... I can absolutely see every other house in america owning a kit.
It was over a year ago, so I'm pretty sure that means it was a dev kit Oculus.
> My opinion is that the consumer headsets launching this year already offer too good of an experience for VR to 'fail' this time around.
I really, truly hope that you are right about this. VR is a technology with such awesome potential. It'll be like living in a William novel. I'm just not yet convinced that this generation of devices will be what actually pushes it into the mainstream. That's the reason I brought up the VirtualBoy; not because the devices have similar technology, but because I'm worried that market performance may end up being the same.
Probably. But in the end, HTC's recommended specs are pretty much identical to Oculus's. I think the only difference is Oculus wants "3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 port"
I don't understand how people claim that Vive is currently "superior" to Oculus.
The approach that Oculus took on virtually every aspect is better than what HTC/Valve went with.
It will launch at 600$ which is 200$ and while it comes with a traditional controller (more on what it's a good thing below) it doesn't matter as much as the pricing does getting more stuff only works when the prices are equal when they aren't the cheaper device wins.
It launches with a traditional controller which is the most important aspect of this as it comes with a control scheme that both gamers and developers are familiar with which will help to bridge the gap while developers work on good motion / acceleration control scheme for their games.
If we take the Wii for example then allot of the early games came out with traditional controls and through out it's life span even 1st party games from Nintendo continued ship with traditional controls only for titles that motion controls didn't made much sense for e.g. Smash Bro's.
The OR Xbox 360 style game pad is something that everyone is used to and knows how it works, it means that developers can focus on utilizing the VR aspects of OR instead of trying to work extra hard on making a more complicated control scheme work. Traditional gamepads are also considerably more easy to implement for seated gameplay which is how most consumers will end up using it any how.
Sure a whole AR/VR room size experience might be cool for 15-30min ala Lazer Tag but no one will have that at home.
On a side note playing with both Vive's and OR's touch controllers OR wins here too, the Vive one isn't as comfortable especially for mixed control schemes which is what even the best motion controlled games eventually opt for.
Now tracking, people say that the Vive tracking is superior it's not really, you can stack multiple (upto 50 in the SDK iirc) OR cameras to track multiple players across a large room, from talking to people that were interested in large scale installations (5+ players in a single room) OR is pretty much the only way to currently go because the camera setup can correctly directly track multiple players without any interference.
And it's not like room scale VR is going to be viable both are still tethered headsets in all of the demo's I've been through there was a guy behind each player which was pretty much holding the tether ensuring that it won't tangle or snap off and that the player wont end up on the ground or with the tether around their neck. The installation of a single frontal camera is easier than installing the lighthouses as far as a home setting go, people are used to the Kinect and the Sony Eye cam, the OR camera could also be used for additional full body tracking and object recognition.
Overall as far as build quality and comfort goes the OR is more comfortable (subjective) the rift is considerably lighter and the weight is much better distributed meaning it sticks in it's place better I had issues with the Vive wobbling which can cause major issues for people who suffer from borderline VR/Motion sickness, the OR also comes with great built-in headphones which are definitely of high quality the sound quality from the demos I've experienced as well as the overall noise isolation is about the same level as my Shure premium earphones, the Vive took the bring your own headphones approach which doesn't work well as it puts limit on the size, shape and strap of the headphones and even in the demos it didn't seem like they've managed to find a perfect fit.
On the software side Oculus also has a big advantage they were first and they've scored most developer deals atm, since Oculus is also what drives Samsung VR (which I actually own and even it is superior to Vive as far as comfort and many other things go) and they also plan to licence their software and hardware IP to other companies it looks like Oculus will have the better support out there.
Sorry Valve but Vive atm seems more like a me-too product than a true innovator and industry leader, their bet to go with HTC is also problematic for the long term aspects of the Vive since HTC is in quite a bit of financial trouble.
How can you reasonably claim that OR is "pretty much the only way to go currently" when the Vive has done perfectly well with lighthouse tracking? You mention tracking multiple players at the same time, but not a single developer is even trying to do this. Maybe Oculus will tackle this at some point in the future, but they certainly aren't right now.
And while it's true that the Vive headset is still tethered, many folks have tried it out and almost none have reported any real issues with the cable.
Some of your points are correct and legitimate, but I think in these two areas you're showing some real bias.
Regardless, I don't think there's any reason to really be worried here. These are two very expensive devices geared towards affluent early adopters. The VR space is going to evolve a lot in the next few years. If room-scale takes off, Oculus will possibly have to redesign their tracking system, but they have the money and the manpower to do so. So if you're a big fan of Oculus, I don't think you need to worry about the company going bankrupt over this.
Edit: Rift also includes an Xbox controller in the $599 bundle and Oculus will be selling their own hand controllers (called Touch) in H2 2016.