Oculus is losing the race

[EarlGrey]

The race to consumer VR is on and it seems many have joined the race.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/11/carl-zeiss-vr-one-is-a-99-answer-to-the-samsung-gear-vr/

There are many other examples. The race is hot!


Still the consumer version of Oculus Rift is nowhere in sight, after more than 2 years in development. We're all waiting for that killer VR experience on the PC, but Oculus seems to be spending a lot of effort on R&D.

Sure they might release the best VR headset that will be available to the consumer, but it will cost $400 while some cheap crap can be picked up for under $100. We all know the history of that sort of competition, the cheap crap wins every time.

In the end Oculus will have maybe 10% market share in VR devices. They will not be able to compete with a technology superior device that costs $400 vs. a $100 cheap clone for China that works just well enough.

In the beginning people are mostly curious about VR and not maybe ready to spend $400 for a HMD, but maybe $100 just to try out a cheap one.


3 years from now we'll look In retrospect and figure out what happened, but the answer is clear, Oculus waited too long to release a consumer VR headset and allowed everyone to play catch up and maybe beat them to the punch.

Time is running out, they have maybe less than 6 months to release a HMD.

[Anonymous]

Yeah you can see how focusing on the top 10% has just ruined apple.

[snappahead]

No offense but...dafuq are you on about? I disagree with almost every word of this post lol.

[pedrw]

The truth is that they still do not have a good enough product to sell in stores

And the real question is:
When will they be able to find the right resolution ?

[Gizmotweak]

Well Damn!

Might as well toss my DK2s in the trash. No point continuing to develop for it if a 2 billion dollar company that is consistantly dominating the vr talk-o-sphere and keeps pumping out one amazing prototype after another on its rapid move to consumer release is going to fail. Especially since there are so many AAA titles already developed for VR that are ready to release but cant because they are just waiting on these slowpokes...its not like software will drive the hardware sales or anything.

BTW, you got any good stock picks? I want some fast in and out stocks that are immune to market volatility and are guaranteed to succeed.

Also, whats the best way to please my woman...lately beatings are suffering from diminishing returns...should I just get rid of her and start fresh with a new mail order bride? And if so, which country will give me the cheapest model that works just as good?


In all seriosness though, i see it a different way. The convergence of the CV1 release which will happen in 2015 with DX12 Windows 10 the new AMD cards which nVidia will trump within weeks with their new flag ships and the arrival of the nVidia VR and VR SLI tech along with games that will be releasing in the next year or so primed for vr like that one from ccp which must not be named because they are an evil company and cancelled the vampire mmo, the hotly anticipated star citizen, technolust, and a host of others that are no where near completion now but will be within a year give or take a few months and the release of the haswell-e chips and new boards and ddr4 mem and the resulting upgrades for many pc users...oculus is primed to dominate as a result of a perfect timing event...a point in time where it is feasible for anyone who wants to, to finally enjoy pretty damn decent vr in the privacy of your own home wearing nothing but three day old underwear (which one would hope they turn inside out for the third day).

But then again...thats just my opinion and you coudl be right.

[EarlGrey]

"pedrw" wrote:
The truth is that they still do not have a good enough product to sell in stores

And the real question is:
When will they be able to find the right resolution ?

There's no guarantee that bad VR won't succeed. Just as there's no guarantee good VR will succeed.

Many bad products have launched but still succeeded, and good ones failed. There are tons of factors other than technological superiority, timing, marketing, price, etc.

Then there's the form factor design. People won't buy Oculus Rift because it's in the wrong color! Or a lot of people don't have a PC, so they rather buy something they can use with their smartphone even though it sucks badly.

[technotica]

The more VR-Devices there are the more it will cement into the average consumers mind that VR actually is a thing and not just a fad and the better the chances that it will be done right this time and keep being developed.

[Chivas]

Two different markets, and the Oculus is invested in both, with "powered by Oculus". The units that would use your existing smartphone aren't a direct competitor. I don't see anything coming out anytime soon that will compete with consumer version of the Oculus Rift. VRVana is a very long way off, if it even makes it. Morpheus isn't a competitor yet as is still concentrating on PS4. Most of the other developers have been quite in the last few months. Thats not say one won't come out sooner, but so far it doesn't look that way.

It appears that Oculus wants the competition to drive the market anyway, so I'm not so sure the sky is falling.

[Darcanis]

"Gizmotweak" wrote:
should I just get rid of her and start fresh with a new mail order bride? And if so, which country will give me the cheapest model that works just as good?

I hear you are better off with Asian countries as less Russian mob ties and concerns, and yes they will make you a sandwich! lol /jk

Seriously though:

There's a ton of different monitor companies out there producing monitors. Don't really see them suffering much with the competition. Same with Mice and any other computer component/accessory. First to the market does not always mean most relied upon or successful in the end. Android wasn't first to the market, and is doing quite well last I checked.

[Gizmotweak]

"EarlGrey" wrote:
There's no guarantee that bad VR won't succeed.

"EarlGrey" wrote:
Just as there's no guarantee good VR will succeed.

Trust in the force Picard.