This should be a lesson: acts like this are poisonous. Nobody I know would even consider buying an oculus at this point because it seems like the ENTIRE VR community has turned against them.

It means that when I go online to do research on what to buy, I'm not going to find anybody praising the oculus.

Can you blame them? Oculus & Facebook started acting like an abusive monopoly before they even had the monopoly.

The issue with the hardware isn't just the price.

You factor in the good faith of the company and past knowledge.

Look at Microsoft and the Kinect. After abandoning the hardware, people just stopped doing projects with Kinect, there was even a 3D scanner based off of it (which was cheaper than commercial model)

Don't remind me. I got the he Xbox one on "sale" last Black Friday. Really ticked off that they sold hw on sale just before the end. I say the end because I see almost no games supporting it these days.

How poisonous is it really though? Not a rhetorical question.

The people who pay attention to this type of thing are VR enthusiasts, who are a minority compared to the larger pool Facebook is aiming for.

An interesting example would be Call of Duty: Infinity Warfare. Its trailer is one of the most downvoted videos on YouTube. As far as I understand, hardcore fans hated it and somehow managed to get downvoting the trailer to be some kind of viral thing (Otherwise, how did it get to those numbers? Nothing about the trailer per-se was that bad. There's even Jon Snow in it).

I thought that this would have no effect on the game's success, since I don't think average consumers are particularly interested in the opinions of hardcore gaming snobs. However, the game has since been released and--as far as I know--bombed. Of course, that could also be due to the game being not that good.

There's no doubt that "influencers" are important in driving sales, but I'm skeptical whether they can play a similar role in preventing sales--especially if average consumers see value in the underlying product.

> The people who pay attention to this type of thing are VR enthusiasts, who are a minority compared to the larger pool Facebook is aiming for.

> [...]

> There's no doubt that "influencers" are important in driving sales, but I'm skeptical whether they can play a similar role in preventing sales--especially if average consumers see value in the underlying product.

The problem is: The necessary system requirements for an Oculus Rift (CPU, GPU (in particular), USB ports) are rather high. The average potential consumer you mention might see value in the Oculus Rift - but will probably not be enthusiastic enough to be willing to additionally buy a high-end PC etc. So the large pool that you believe Facebook is aiming for will contain many more hardcore enthusiasts and much less "average consumers" than you think.

I've had the same thoughts for the last decade or so, and have swayed between both sides. Anything from iPhone adoption, to which social networks will prevail, to which competing technology will win. I've probably been more wrong than not, so the question why is increasingly interesting.

One related theory I can't find any wikipedia information on stems from an old TED talk from 2010:

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/first-follower-theor...

Even if we traditionally consider ourselves (I've always been a "nerd"/"core"/"early adopter"/whatever) on the sidelines, when our industry and interests have taken center stage I think we have had a greater influence than we care to admit, or even want.

Some people want to be first at something, but many people don't, either for lack of anyone else to use said thing with, or lack of support, or high cost of entry, or unproven quality, etc.

I hate to get political, but I think it's increasingly clear that movements can begin with something as simple as a few memes from someones computer.

But it's of course hard to tell if "our" audience is the right one at all times (eg Google Glass, Google+), when comparing to Facebook (select few colleges) and Snapchat spectacles ("celebrity" millenials).

Call of Duty is a well-established franchise.

Oculus was brand new, and as one of their first acts they pissed off most of the people who had supported them, and the VR community in general.

With a perfectly good alternative (that is in some ways better), why would any enthusiast choose Oculus at this point?

And non-enthusiasts aren't buying the systems because they're too expensive and there are too few games. They effectively handed their entire market to another company for the next few years.

>An interesting example would be Call of Duty: Infinity Warfare.

The differences between the market of people buying console-focused first-person shooters and the one for virtual reality headset systems make this comparison not really work.

Call of Duty was originally a much-beloved FPS series during a time when the genre was dominated by multiplayer games with high skill ceilings and "twitch" or reflex-based mechanics. They catered to the market available to them at the time, which was enthusiast gamers with the hardware required to run 3D video games (and to a lesser extend internet access that could play them online.) Consoles had existed for a while, but they weren't always in the position they are now. CoD 2 was released in late 2005, the Xbox 360 was released right around the same time, and the PS3 wouldn't come out until the next year. Internet multiplayer has been a reality on the PC since the 90's but Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network didn't even exist until the early 2000's. Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox famously didn't support internet multiplayer, but its PC version did.

By this point it's obvious that the numbers in gaming are shifting. The relatively low sticker price of a gaming console means you don't have to work with the segment of the population who have enthusiast-grade computers. Pretty much anyone can afford to buy an Xbox 360. Crucially, the expense of console gaming isn't frontloaded. The most expensive part of being in the PC gaming segment was (and still is) either buying a bunch of components and assembling yourself, or spending even more for a prebuilt. Assembling computer parts is actually not that hard, but not assembling computer parts is even easier, and you can walk out of any department store with a home console for a few hundred dollars. You'll spend more than that over time from subscriptions, peripherals, more expensive games, etc., but you won't have to spend a grand up front just to start playing.

Call of Duty's publisher, Activision, observed that this new pie is titanic compared to the old one and decided to focus on grabbing a slice of it. There's now a market available to them that's way bigger, will pay the same amount of money for the disk, and doesn't necessarily need things like a dedicated server with admin features. Their new approach of releasing titles on a more annual schedule for this market works because it's substantially larger.

On the VR side of things, an HTC Vive costs eight hundred dollars. The Oculus Rift, which is just the headset and has no hand controllers or "room scale" features like the Vive, will still run you $599. Its "Touch" hand controllers became available only recently and buying those will send you up to the same price point as the Vive. Keep your wallet out, because VR applications require high end GPUs with as much memory as possible, like the Nvidia GTX 1060, which is likely to run you $270 or more. Today's virtual reality options are restricted to dedicated enthusiasts with expendable income to a much greater extent than early Call of Duty games were. Aiming for a market other than "VR enthusiasts" is senseless, there is no other market.

There are VR products that aren't quite so ludicrously expensive, like the Gear VR that uses a phone, but my experience is that they have very little to offer and casual consumers aren't going to line up to buy games for them.

While I personally align with you on this, the "ENTIRE VR community" has not turned against them. It's definitely biased, but just check out the VR communities on reddit (including /r/oculus). They act like Oculus Touch has somehow magically saved the reputation of Oculus and has actually somehow moved VR forward in an unimaginable way.

I think it's objectively obvious that the Vive is better both technologically and from a user-experience point of view (less sensors, better tracking, better end-to-end process. no lock-in), but that doesn't seem to be a common opinion in the greater VR community.

The entire VR community is not against them. Certainly some are. They have the best VR now (modulo large room scale experiences), which has helped them lately.

I haven't used any VR besides my Oculus DK1, but I've recently heard that Vive is hands-down the best. Haven't heard anyone suggest that Oculus is competitive. I don't follow the VR community very closely. Would you say this sentiment is widely held?

Now that Touch shipped last week, yes, it has changed and I would say that opinion is widely held.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/oculus-touch-motion-cont... - "Until now, our recommendation was the HTC Vive, without much hesitation. But the situation just changed. From a hardware perspective, the Rift edges out HTC's Vive."

https://www.wired.com/2016/12/review-oculus-touch/ - "this is the most natural and versatile VR control experience available."

http://newatlas.com/oculus-rift-review-touch/46711/ - "So Oculus Touch is a big ergonomic advantage for the Rift, and the additions of 360 tracking, room-scale and Guardian are effective as catch-up moves. But it's content that seals the deal for the Oculus Rift as our pick for best VR headset."

I own both the Vive and the Rift and I have no idea where these reviewers are coming up with this. The Rift absolutely needs to have the 3 camera setup in order to work well and, even then, it's still not as good as a 2 lighthouse Vive setup. On top of that, the timed exclusives are annoying to me because I can't compare the 2 systems against each other to really determine which provides the better VR experience.

I might be in the minority, but the Valve Lab is still my favorite VR experience and Arizona Sunshine is quickly running up there for me. I don't like the locomotion AS uses, but the game is as close to the real-deal for VR as I've experienced so far.

I agree Valve Lab is my favorite experience, but it's available natively on Oculus Rift as well through SteamVR. And I have no issues with the 2-camera setup for a medium-sized play area. At room-scale, Oculus already recommends 3 and is not trying to claim that 2 camera setup is ideal.

I don't own a Vive but I've spent a good amount of time using my friend's and the display of the Rift is superior (and even he agrees). The Vive used to be a better overall package because of wands, but Touch is better (and battery life is FANTASTIC).

Touch is the best part of the Rift, one hundred percent (the controllers are better than the Vive ones for sure)--but in practice I found that dealing with its cameras was a bear to the point that, while both the demo units I set up have gone back, I'm probably buying a Vive when I get into VR work. The Rift requires some long USB runs unless you've got an office/game room with a lot of space to burn, whereas you can be a lot more flexible with spacing with the Vive because the lighthouses are passive and the brains of the device are on the headset and the controllers. I have a studio space that is built on inadvisably long USB runs, but that's with gear that seems a lot friendlier to it; the third camera for the Rift was a real problem in terms of USB spacing and it wasn't the sort of thing I'd want to leave set up in any room I'd have any other people in.

I don't personally agree that the Rift display is superior, but I think that's a reasonable-people-can-differ thing.

While I agree that the Oculus display is better, the pick up and go experience of the Rift is still better to me. Setting up the 3 cameras on the Rift and just getting everything to work well was a pain the butt. The Vive walked me through setting up the base stations and tracking the room and it was kind of fun to do it so it breezed by.

> "The optional dual-sensor, 360° setup works well for these games also, just with a smaller tracked area. Officially Oculus doesn't yet support 360° and room-scale configurations beyond "experimental support," but we recommend spending the extra $79 on that third sensor for the full experience."

From what I've heard it doesn't really work that well, even with a third camera, with intermittant tracking issues, and with much less space than the Vive.

Your quotes are either misleading or shill.

> Your quotes are either misleading or shill.

Or what you've heard is from Valve fanboys and these quotes are true. What I've heard suggests that it's this way, so .. we're stuck.

Of the articles above, only Tomshardware even tested roomscale.

I don't think it's that binary. The quotes are misleading because no one actually tested room-scale VR with the Rift except for Tom's and, of those that did, they tested it with the 3 camera setup that's not the standard config for it.

I would say that Oculus taking 6 months to catch up to Vive, to only gain parity, to not significantly leap frog, and then only assuming you stand just so, puts them behind in the overall race. They've not demonstrated anything to show they have upped their R&D cadence. I expect we will have a Vive refresh in another 6 months and the Rift will once again be behind.

Go to PAX sometime.

You may even see the stray oculus in the field of wild vive games.

I dont think there's a significant technical difference at this point, honestly, but the vive has won the hearts of the developer community, hands down.

Why does this seem to be the completely opposite reaction to what I see on Reddit? Over there, everyone seems to think that Oculus' funding of VR titles means that Oculus has won the hearts of the dev community. I don't really see that myself, but it seems like it's constantly repeated over there.

I have some dark thoughts about exactly who's still haunting Reddit these days, but that aside--how many of the people repeating that are developers?

Every developer I know personally who's either developing or considering developing VR titles--sample size not large, but north of ten or so?--is considering, in order, PS VR, Vive, Rift. (PS VR is difficult unless you're an established developer, obviously.)

Meanwhile, Sony is outselling them both.

I have to imagine Sony is over inflating their sales numbers somehow, because I don't know anyone with the Sony system, and I'm one of the organizers of our local VR meetup, so I would think that would get me in front of more VR consumers than average. In the past, I know Sony has counted console units that have left their warehouses as "sales", i.e. even the ones still sitting on retail shelves, having yet to be sold to a user.

The only Sony system I've even seen out in the wild was at one of those video game bars that had it set up in a motion room with the Wii U and DDR where all the games were not seated. It was down for almost 50% of the time and, at least on the TV that was mirroring the view, there was stuttering every 2 or 3 seconds that someone was playing. I never got a chance to use it myself, so it might be awesome, but my initial cursory experience with it was not positive. I also do not know anyone that owns it personally and I am largely involved in my local VR community.

The social screen on PS VR is untethered from the headset display, so it's not really reflective of the performance of the headset itself. Also bear in mind that the baseline PS4 can barely hit 90FPS normally when it isn't rendering very much--this is why a lot of the early PS VR games are so visually simple. I think the PS VR stuff will heat up when more PS4 Pros hit the market.

I don't know. They've been on intermittent backorder since launch and scalps selling them for $800 on ebay (MSRP is 400)

I don't doubt they're channel stuffing (who doesn't) But it's pretty well accepted that it's been a runaway success.

It's consumer grade tech, your VR club is a different PCMR audience.

I've spent significant time with both systems. Without a doubt, the Rift is the inferior system.

The Rift is more comfortable to wear, but it comes at the cost of reduced Field of View. The Vive can really be strapped onto the face hard, giving a view that almost verges on providing peripheral vision. The Rift feels like looking through binoculars in comparison.

The Touch controllers are much lighter and better balanced that the Vive wands. Personally, I found the grip gestures expected for the Touch to be very painful, but that will vary by person. I do think they are too clever by half. I got a better sense of "I'm holding a gun" out of gun-games on the Vive than on Touch. I also found the ability to aim at and hit targets easier on the Vive. Ultimately, I think the argument on which controller is better is missing the greater point though, as neither is an ideal design. A hand-tracking system would be much better (and no, not the Leap Motion, that thing is garbage, yes, even after the Orion update). Though Vive-centric games have always had both motion controllers and room-scale by default, whereas the Rift market is now fragmented between gamepads and Touch, and seated versus standing. Also, Touch is only just now out, whereas Vive has had developers working on content for over half a year. Indeed, Valve is already working on a new form factor for the controller.

The two camera setup for the Rift is absolutely, hands-down awful. In a room dedicated to VR setup, I constantly lost tracking when turned to the left or right. The Vive's Lighthouse system is designed to be much, much more scalable. I've never had such pervasive problems maintaining tracking with the Vive.

Yes, you're supposed to have three cameras for room-scale on the Rift. To me, that's another point against the Rift. It's a very complex system that is prone to failure. I can get the Vive to track a space about 20ft by 20ft on stock hardware, in default configuration, with no special finagling, just calibrate and go. I have to spend more money on an extra camera with the Rift, extra PCIe cards for all these USB3 cameras, and it's hit or miss whether or not I can get 10ft by 10ft working.

The Rift's camera based system is limited by how high of a resolution they can pack into the camera, how sensitive they are to tiny IR LEDs across a room, and how many spare cycles they have to run the image processing algorithm on all those camera feeds. In comparison, the Vive's Lighthouse system is limited by how bright they can make the sync pulse, which basically amounts to an IR flash bulb.

In general, I think this is indicative of a much larger problem in VR, consumer reactions, and journalistic reporting. These are all amazing pieces of technology. If you've never seen any VR system after 2015, then you're not prepared for the experience these things provide. It's really easy to get lost in the wow-factor and fail to evaluate the system as a whole. E.g. the Rift headset is more comfortable, but is comfort an important metric compared to FOV? Is it enough that the Touch controllers are theoretically "more ergonomic" than the Vive wands, or is application design built around the controller important, too? Or the MS Hololens: wave-guide displays and inside out tracking are craaaaazy! But they are also kind of janky, the FOV is unusably narrow, and Windows Holographic has terrible UI affordances.

When I stop losing the forest for the trees and focus on a unified experience, the only system I have time for in my personal life right now is the Vive. We support "everything" in the projects we build, but if I'm just trying to relax and enjoy myself, I know the Rift and Gear VR and Hololens and Daydream are all staying on the shelf.

FWIW, I upvoted this, but it's also the best post I've ever seen on HN about the current state of VR tech. I'm glad it's here, and I wish I'd seen it before I replied to 'TwoBit's combative initial post in "VR Resources" so I could've just linked yours.

Thanks.

I'm sorry I missed your reply, because I think there is a conversation to be had here.

Frankly, I'm just about burnt out on everything about VR that is not actually experiencing VR apps. Other VR developers and the tech press talking about VR and consumers who haven't tried VR since 1995 and consumers who are coming to VR from gaming are just driving me towards disconnecting from it all, to work in peace, but that's not exactly productive.

I have to go, there is a baby in the other room who I can hear is grunting out a massive turd. Please find my email in my profile. I think there is something more to discuss here RE: The Myth of The Best and on pragmatism.

I think this is far over exaggerated. I have been following Oculus since very early days and haven't been bothered in the slightest.

What you're seeing is negative feedback from owners of competitive devices.

As a datapoint, it has kept me out of high-end VR completely. I am actually more ticked off at the exclusives. And I'm a geek who buys lots of tech toys. VR is as bad as consumer IoT if you think about it.