R.I.P. PC VR

[RonsonPL]

740 Euros for the crappy 95-100 FOV 1080p VR in 2016, with no support from AAA core-gaming crators, no support for VR controller, and overpriced hardware both in terms of HMD and PC parts.
I sustain what I've said: Even 899$ price would be good if the VR was the best VR PC could handle in 2016/17. It's far from it.


Well...


It was obvious since just a little after FB bought Oculus, but we all had hopes despite the continuous stream of bad news pointing towards the worst scenario.


Seems like EVERY single big company thinks nowadays that core gaming is not existing and not worth putting any effort.
The industry we have now:
Ubisoft creates Tetris which struggles to maintain 30fps, and wants a pay subscription for Tetris DLC. Games with $300M for marketing are given to some crappy dev studios in third world countries, ending up with non-fixable, broken PC ports (Batman, AC:Unity). Gaming CPUs are so good that I can sell my CPU for 110% of what I payed for it... 3 years ago. New CPUs are overpriced and build with crappy cooling solutions (lesser OC, damage from cooler mounting issues in Skylakes), AMD doing anti-progress in terms of gaming performance (Bulldozer actually performed worse than the old architecture), recent news about GDDR5x instead of HBM, 120Hz monitors for 500% of the normal price, not even 3D standard in new HD Blu-Ray specifications, etc. etc. etc..

Let me explain what just happened.
Oculus just killed the last pieces of hope that wasn't killed yet. The hope that core gaming/PC/PC VR will be in good shape in this decade.

I was really worried when I heard that Oculus will give free CV1s to backers. Seemed obvious to me that this could be a move to prevent bad PR flood that could happen when people realize the difference between what Palmer promised and what came out of this promises.
Now every time a person like me writes anything bad about Oculus, tons of fanboys and ignorant people will say "hey! Shut up! They're great! They gave the backers free CV1s! We should love them!".

Well. How about no.

Let's summarize:
1. Oculus abandoned PC VR totally. They'll releae "something" so people won't scream at them, but at this price, at this date, at this specs, at this shape, at this shape of VR industry (99% focused on low-end hardware and mostly non-core-gaming content), it's pretty obvious PC VR for core gamers will not achieve even 10% of the potential it could achieve in 2016/17 if not for typical big corpo thinking.

2. Bundling a useless controller at THIS price is even more stupid than I though. No core gamer needs an additional joypad, and if anyone does, there's not a single one that don't know how to buy it. Or what to buy. There are much cheaper and 100% sufficient joypads if someone didn't have one (or many) already

3. Oculus ignored PC VR as soon as Facebook realized they can do easier money on mobile. No controller needed, no expensive PC needed, lots of casuals with much smaller expectations. Talks with big companies in PC industry started much too late, and were much too small. Specs are laughable. The same FOV as mobile VR justified by "PC is not powerful enough for more". Crappy resolution, just 90Hz, not even 95Hz that Abrash presented as bare minimum. Even PSVR has 120Hz. No controller. No big move towards AAA core-gaming content sooner than later.


It's basically "well, we'll just do something, and that's it". Half assed Rift. That's what world gets after almost half a decade of waiting.




Intel and AMD are NOT focusing on single-thread performance and low latency. Quite the opposite. They simply think there are no gamers that would like better physics, view distance, less latency etc. There was no Oculus or any other company that explained to them that they're wrong. Oculus had a HUGE chance to do that. But instead of saving the gaming industry, Oculus added another knife stabbed at it's back.
Nvidia had plans for low-latency-friendly HMC based GPUs, but delayed them. Now there are not even plans to use HMC for gaming. Instead of HBM revolution (latency is still crappy, but at least bandwidth is great) we'll get some shitty GDDR5X.
No hardware company thinks high quality core gaming exists.
No game publisher does.
No VR company does.

All that could've changed thanx to the huge success of Oculus kickstarter.



There's no other way to put this:


Palmer. You f.. this up.

[djmisterjon]

What is this award, you were supposed to make money on the applications.
I was going to buy a $ 380 max, but then forget me!
Liar !

Not the oculus rift but Oculus Fist

[RonsonPL]

"djmisterjon" wrote:
What is this award, you were supposed to make money on the applications.
I was going to buy a $ 380 max, but then forget me!
Liar !

Not the oculus rift but Oculus Fist

It was supposed to:

- be the best VR possible at 500$
it's not. It's 600 or 800 for us Europeans

- be the best VR possible, have the dedicated display, the best possible or even better thanx to a) FB money, b) Samsung Gear VR help for the access to better displays
it's not. Not even close.

- be core gaming oriented
it's not

- have much, much higher res than DK2
it doesn't

- use dedicated controller, since joypads are not good for VR
it won't

- have <20ms real (before any techniques like time warp) motion-to-photon latency, not PenTile screen.
??? At this point I'm afraid to even ask. I'm afraid I wouldn't like the answers.

- be just as it was planned before. No bad influence from Facebook after the aqcuisition



All lies. 😞

[Twitchmonkey]

PC VR 2014-2016

Gone but not forgotten.

[born2biscuit]

What I want to know is can you see your PC's desktop and stuff on it and watch movies on VLC player through it

[foulplay]

Wow, so much hyperbole from the OP, how about some cheese to go with all that whine?

[reBoot185]

i got an amazing 3D video card for $30 with a $20 rebate.. i'm thinking i'll use google cardboard for a few years with trinus Vr and tri-def 3d.. i already have an oculus dk2 so why waste my money on some $600 version from **** who constantly over charge and claim they're charging the bare minimum..

i love shopping on ebay.. it's cheaper than radio shack.. eventually china will release their VR items.. $200 holodecks and $150 video headsets...


pitty we have so many people claiming $600 is a good price.. no... $200 is a good price for a monitor.. which is all this is is a screen pushed up to your eyeballs.. and i'm sure she sound system is great but my $1 ebay earbuds are amazing and naturally noise cancelling.. you decided to go with some 1995 headphones...

read about how that's a bad idea to include sound too.. basically it won't fit anyone but it lets you raise your price substantially .. your marketting people need to be fired.. and go to ihop sometime and check the breakfast prices there.. it's 3.99 for all you can eat pancakes not $399 ..

[Equinoxe]

RonsonPL

As almost 29yo gamer/enthusiast I feel your pain. It's really sad.

I agree with everything you wrote here...

[willste]

Most people aren't spending $600 on a whim for monitors or pc peripherals.

I think it is a price I would be willing to pay, but they clearly missed their goal price. Whether it's fair or not depends on the market for hmds which is yet to be defined. Compared to the dev kits it seems expensive.

The bundled games and free kickstarter hmds were clearly an effort to soften the blow. They probably should have let us know about the adjusted price range a while ago.

I wonder if they couldn't have made it 500.

But I think if you were unhappy with Oculus up to this point then the price is just a drop in the bucket. I am just happy to see consumer VR with VR games finally be avaiable and to see Oculus have the resources it has to keep making it better.