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dsmall417's avatar
dsmall417
Honored Guest
11 years ago

Time For Oculus to leave the PC market

I want to start by saying this isn't a rant against Oculus at all. Though, with the surprise left hook from Valve & HTC and Oculus staying completely silent at the GDC in regards to the Rift (Aside from a new demo which they ran on a Titan X, because every average user can afford that setup) and focused entirely on mobile VR. With the Vive coming out and obliterating anything Oculus has done to date and have given us a time in which we will get it, there is almost no way Oculus will retain the real PC users. With so much focus on mobile VR, they are shorting their staff and development for the CV1. It's great that there's healthy competition now in this market and I'm extremely excited to be involved in its growth, but using a cell phone as the power source and storage for VR makes no sense for those who want true immersion. So here's is my honest advice to Oculus; stop working on a CV1. You have lost the market. You were decimated at GDC & you did nothing to defend your honor. Put 100% focus in your mobile VR and once you've convinced Zuckerburg that being a silver spooned brat who got lucky with an idea (much like winning the worlds greatest lottery) and became one of the richest kids in the world, doesn't mean he has any business sense, then he can shift focus on where the real VR is for the foreseeable future or create new mobile technology that can produce identical results and have virtually unlimited storage capacity as a high end computer. Until then or unless Oculus pulls out a miracle, HTC & Valve have won over the PC crowd & are going to be the true VR leaders in the future of PC Immersion. I don't want all the fanboi's or whack-a-doo's to try to tear me down for my opinion here as I have been a huge supporter of Oculus since the beginning, but the Facebook buyout was the worst thing for Oculus. Wonderful for Palmer & his crew who became super rich, but horrible for the company and the brand they established.

9 Replies

  • These lyrics sums up my thoughts perfectly:


    Money, sex, in full control, a generation without soul,
    perfect people in a perfect world, behind closed doors all in control,
    life, in a world of luxury, cold cash money mentality,
    you gotta keep the faith, you gotta keep the faith,
    you better keep the faith and run away.
  • "dsmall417" wrote:
    and Oculus staying completely silent at the GDC in regards to the Rift (Aside from a new demo which they ran on a Titan X, because every average user can afford that setup) and focused entirely on mobile VR.

    They gave an entire talk on pc vr development and the future of the pc sdk.
  • Oculus VR moving out of the PC market to become it's own platform was something clearly announced from the start (in 2013).

    But as far as pioneering VR in 2016 goes, the plan is probably closer to : Don't bring a battery powered smartphone GPU to a VR fight.
  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    I agree with the OP. I just bought a DK2 and while it's super cool what I've seen of the Vive blows me away. It comes with motion controllers, full room laser tracking, and a display that should eliminate screendooring without a giant performance cost. Of course Valve and HTC are actually sharing their VR research with other companies (probably in the hope of cross compatibility) We'll see when the CV1 hits and what the price tag difference is. But so far Vive is looking amazing. I don't think I'd buy either device till a couple months after release though. Better to see who comes out on top first like I did with Bluray and HD-DVD. Imagine all those poor fools that bought HD-DVD players only to have a handful of movies and never have any new releases for it. That's my fear with all the VR competition is that one is going to get more love than the other and when that happens for me it's less about the device itself and more about the availability of content for it. The Rift has been around for longer so I tend to think they still have a healthy head start on their content library. Can Vive make the same claim?
  • EarlGrey's avatar
    EarlGrey
    Expert Protege
    Did paragraphs fall out of fashion recently? Or am I just getting old?
  • Yeah...

    I can't actually make myself read the OP, paragraphs really are a dying breed.
  • Wait till the Vive dev kits get shipped, then you can start to worry.

    It makes sense for Oculus to keep quiet at GDC, why compete against the noise generated by HTC/Valve; Wait until the hype has died down then make an anouncement.
  • "Skelator" wrote:
    Wait till the Vive dev kits get shipped, then you can start to worry.

    It makes sense for Oculus to keep quiet at GDC, why compete against the noise generated by HTC/Valve; Wait until the hype has died down then make an anouncement.


    Waiting for the hype to subside could be a very long wait. <ahem>HL3<ahem>

    Oculus isn't going anywhere and I sincerely hope they stay in the PC market. Solid competition breeds innovation for all.
  • "vizionvr" wrote:
    "Skelator" wrote:
    Wait till the Vive dev kits get shipped, then you can start to worry.

    It makes sense for Oculus to keep quiet at GDC, why compete against the noise generated by HTC/Valve; Wait until the hype has died down then make an anouncement.


    Waiting for the hype to subside could be a very long wait. <ahem>HL3<ahem>

    Oculus isn't going anywhere and I sincerely hope they stay in the PC market. Solid competition breeds innovation for all.


    HL3 is a twinkle in Gabe Newells eye, more likely to be a VR version of portal which would be cool. >;{}