Pico Interactive has cancelled their plans to release the rumored Pico 5 competitor to the Quest 3. Instead, their next headset will compete with the Apple Vision Pro.
The top model of Pico 5 (the Pico 5 Pro Max) had the same CPU/GPU as the Quest 3, 3840x3840 per eye resolution, true display port cable support and eye tracking, potentially making it one of the best PCVR and stand alone headsets. It also had tracking ring-less controllers like the Quest 3. Price was going to be around $1120us.
The lower model was 2560x2560 per eye, no eye tracking or display port cable, but still the same CPU/GPU as the Quest 3 and similar price to the Quest 3.
Apparently sales of the Pico 4 weren't great (it still hasn't been released in the US, which doesn't help).
Quest 3 is a difficult headset to compete against, even with the same specs and price, the Quest store, constant new features like xbox game pass, plus availability of third party accessories etc, it's a tough market.
Competing against the Quest Pro line (if there's a Pro 2) and Apple's future headset seems like a better path given Pico has a head start over Apple, at least as far as a modest userbase. Still not easy if Apple manage to price things a bit better, and then there's Apple's inevitable marketing and storefront expertise.... just that price!
13700K, RTX 4070 Ti, Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming, Corsair H150i Capellix, 64GB Corsair Vengence DDR5, Corsair 5000D Airflow, 4TB Samsung 870 , 2TB Samsung 990 Pro x 2, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, Quest, 2, 3, Pro, Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (10.0.26100)
Yeah they already went up against the Quest 2 with the Pico 4 - which I do rate as the most comfortable headset and it had good pancake lenses before the others. Good colour passthrough, the headstrap...
Yet the Quest 2 massively outsold the Pico.
One question - is it official, or just rumour? OK just checked: "according to people familiar with the situation" = not official.
The Information, broke the story. I don't know much about them... US based journalists specialising in the tech industry. I guess you have to take it into account, when everyone announces the same news but it's all from one journalistic source.
13700K, RTX 4070 Ti, Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming, Corsair H150i Capellix, 64GB Corsair Vengence DDR5, Corsair 5000D Airflow, 4TB Samsung 870 , 2TB Samsung 990 Pro x 2, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, Quest, 2, 3, Pro, Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (10.0.26100)
Yeah, I'm hoping they bring out a 5 but then again, going for something better as long as it's not Apple prices, well that's even better still. I honestly believe the sweet spot for Pro headsets is £1,000, not £3,000.
I want to see huge leaps now - the Quest 3 really has me excited for the future again especially after this week with all of the game and app releases.
Yep, I doubt I'd pay £1,500 for a Quest Pro again, maybe £1,000 would tempt me next year but then again, if there are some exclusive features that excite, I could easily get sucked in! Provided it didn't lose anything major, like stand-alone + PCVR, you kind of know with a Quest line, you're likely always going to have that, regardless of Pro or consumer level.
Apple is a different beast, it's going to rely solely on it's own, ecosystem, starting from scratch with no existing users and no PCVR... and with a £3,000 price, they have to lower that price to get things moving, surely Apple fans aren't into Apple that much?.. or maybe not that into VR!
So yeah, whether Pro or consumer, I don't see Quest or Pico as competitors to Apple, just seems to me like the functionality make the markets separate.
Then again, maybe in the eyes of the average consumer who hasn't bought a headset yet, they're all the same just different levels of quality and price.
13700K, RTX 4070 Ti, Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming, Corsair H150i Capellix, 64GB Corsair Vengence DDR5, Corsair 5000D Airflow, 4TB Samsung 870 , 2TB Samsung 990 Pro x 2, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, Quest, 2, 3, Pro, Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (10.0.26100)
One of my coworkers bought a Quest 3 and returned it when he found it doesn't provide developers with full access to the cameras and depth sensor. He's waiting for the Vision Pro instead (he wants to do AR development, plus he's an apple user).
I don't know about the Vision Pro, but Apple do give developers access to colour and depth data from iphones.
My Zed Mini (headset addon) lets me have full colour stereo passthrough with 20m depth range and easy access to all of the streams.
All Meta would really need to do is have a permission for it like Android and ios do. Maybe even a temporary permission (like have to opt-in every time you run the app, for extra safety).
It seems Hololens provides access to colour and depth streams, but only in "Research Mode". Apps using research mode can't be released, they are for the developer only.
One thing we could do with full camera access: flight sim cockpit chromakey.
If you had a physical cockpit built (ok, a bit of a niche group), place a green screen around the outside of it. Then in the flight sim you'd render the game where the green screen is and passthrough everywhere else (to see the real cockpit controls).
Then have some fiducial markers in the cockpit so the headset can accurately fix its position, so you can superimpose cockpit display panels with rendered versions.
(I was actually planning on doing this back when the Rift-S was first announced, before I found out that the cameras were low quality grey scale and they wouldn't let us access them)
