Proof that rift s will be here sooner than you think!

[inovator]

Oculus Rift Is Disappearing From Stores, Suggesting Update Imminent – Variety

https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2019/digital/news/rift-update-coming-store-shortages-120315...

[Anonymous]

If you need a month, I'll say November.
If you're after the type of grey markings, I'm staying vague. Could be a stripe on the head band or a grey "S".

[nalex66]

I think it’ll get announced for sale with no warning, and probably soon (same time as Quest). Like the switch to the all-in-one Rift + Touch bundle, they didn’t do a big lead-up, they just did it one day. 

I dont see the Rift S competing for sales against Quest. I know a lot of us will buy both. 

[inovator]

Exactly. It won't compete. It's totally 2 different uses like night and day.

[LZoltowski]

I also noticed recent changes on the main site. 

There is now a VR Products dropdown menu up top (plenty of space for new hardware!) ... gone is any mention of the Oculus Quest holding pages, which means launch for that is imminent AND/OR the spec has changed. 

[LZoltowski]

@DaftnDirect 

Rift S announcement at GDC - March 18th
Quest launch either at GDC or F8 - March 18th or May 1st
Rift S launch OC 6 - September

I am also speculating there might be a GO refresh in the works as well, it's their best selling headset.

If I were Facebook I would distance Oculus away from it'self for now. Not the best of PR at the moment. Plus I think they want a more gaming-focused image, so GDC and OC 6 are best bets as well the other big games conferences this year. This year there will be quite a shift in marketing I think. 

[Fazz]

Richooal said:

I'm saying they'll give the Quest as much time as possible to make sales before releasing the Rift S (if it exists) in time for Christmas.

And it will be the first Oculus headset that is not mono-colour. I'm thinking Black (like the original Rift) with Grey markings.

I don't think Oculus would do this because it's bad business and customers wouldn't be happy. Trying to get people to buy an Oculus Quest and delaying Rift S for that purpose is just wrong on every level. Oculus Quest is for people who don't have a PC or want to use a VR headset in another location. Oculus GO sold lots of units and so will Oculus Quest regardless of Rift S been available at the same time.

I think it would make a lot of sense releasing Rift S around the same time as Oculus Quest, because the tracking would be the same, which would make porting games from Rift S to Oculus Quest much easier.

[Alextended]

I don't even like that they do two products, they could have just made the Quest also be able to connect to a PC (both wired and wireless preferably) for a tracker-less 360 PCVR experience. It would justify its price more than only having its own exclusive software library which has to be powered by a relatively weak Snapdragon 835. Oh, and they better make the better experiences like (hopefully) the Star Wars one available on PC (and better) as well, they shouldn't keep games from existing customers. It's understandable if a PCVR game can't be ported to the mobile chipset of the Quest but the opposite should be pretty damn easy given the gap in their power even if they don't actually spend too much time optimizing it for PC.

Anyway I'm certainly interested in seeing the advancements they have made in trackerless VR compared to the first WMR sets for example because I think inside out tracking is the future of (home) VR, I just don't think it's gonna be perfected in these early iterations, at least not for people who have sampled the robust tracking of the existing Rift or even Vive. If it's your first VR experience or if you've only used PSVR or mobile VR it's certainly gonna feel like next gen stuff though, even with its shortcomings (just as a regular Rift + Touch would feel like a next gen jump in that case).

I'll probably upgrade at some point to a better Oculus Rift 2 style HMD for resolution, iq, whatever other improvements (more than Quest/S improve on the original Rift though, it's a very small step from what we know) when they make one for us (like HTC made the Vive Pro but more sensibly priced, haha) and eventually even later a potential Touch 2.0 controller (to one up the Knuckles as Touch one upped the Vive wands when it finally arrived) before an S/Quest style device with good enough tracking comes along so that it's no longer a trade off between easy set up and freedom vs actual tracking/VR/software quality.

I'm not exactly looking to upgrade every other year, I only just bought the Rift a few months ago (even if some of you guys have it much longer). Plus I'll likely need a new PC to power a much higher resolution VR set anyway (my CPU is an aging 3770K, my GPU fares better as it's a 1080 but that's gonna be old news soon enough too) so yeah, that will also have to come first for me.

[Luciferous]

Maybe there are other factors that have caused them to accelerate their plans.

ie the valve headset and knuckles coming out. What if it was better or equivalent to the S. You could potentially lose a lot of customers if valve offered something special soon and you didn’t release the s until November?

[DaftnDirect]

I think, like some others have said, Quest and Rift S have enough separation in terms of target audience that they can be launched together without much detriment.

I think the Rift S will primarily be attractive to people who have a Rift or Vive or have a sufficiently powerful PC to run one or are considering getting such a PC but have been waiting for gen 2 headsets (or gen 1.5 if you prefer) to come along.

Whereas Quest is for everyone else... for people who just want the simplicity, freedom and low cost of stand-alone VR, also some people with the Go may want to upgrade to this.

There are also some people who are considering getting both (like me), and the launch dates probably won't stop them (me) doing that.

As @Luciferous says, if the Rift S is a sufficiently big graphical jump, there could be a big opportunity to capture a lot of Vive users who's brand loyalty would otherwise have them waiting for a new Valve headset. I think competition with other manufacturers is a bigger consideration than any potential competition with your own line-up. They may also take a page out of the phone manufacturer's books, weren't there 3 iPhones and 3 S10's at their last launches?

[RonsonPL]

This is interesting.


If the real launch in March was to happen, those speculations and guesses would've had to be  proven to be true. At this point, there's just some observation which may be a good hint or just nothing.

If it was to be released in March - April, my comment about it:
- Possibly a better display, maybe even significantly higher res one, or maybe just better optics
- Probably a switch to an LCD. If a step down, then maybe OLED with less than 90Hz
- I wouldn't exlude a possibility that some parts are inferior to old Rift.
- some advantages in areas criticized by many, although nothing actually important. Maybe ergonomics, maybe weight, maybe inside out tracking giving advantages, 
- simple eye tracking could be implemented, but unlikely. Not a proper one for foveated rendering, but just for selling data of what users do to advertisers and some use cases like public speech simulators
- I wouldn't be all that surprised if it has some features allowing for cheaper PCs to handle it. Maybe far less SDE so lower resolution could be acceptable, plus maybe some small additional boost from some "fake" foveated rendering. This could be done, even without tracking. It wouldn't work as real foveated rendering, the full-detail area would have to be way bigger, tracking would have to be partially replaced with A.I. and gains would be just tiny compared to the real FR, but I can see cloud based AI analyzing where people looked at specific moments of the game or VR experience. Dynamic resolution scaling could be execuded better with this. 


Something surprising can also happen. What is unlikely but theoretically possible?
- accessories. Maybe a wireless add-on, maybe a dedicated wearable mini-pc with battery bundle
- an on-board inside-out camera. Maybe some form of a low quality see-through
- some usable form of hand tracking
- some big content or content access changes to go along with the launch of Quest and Rift S.