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.

[deathadda88]

"Tim74UK" wrote:
Hi Ronson.

I wonder if Cyber is taking note that it isn't new comers that are posting angry comments, it's experienced people such as you and I.

I don't know why they did it, but they just wrecked their own market space.

only 5% of the market can run VR at the moment and of that only 2% of those can afford to buy the Rift.

So they are marketing their product to 2% of the market...??!!??

Oculus should learn about the Law of Diminishing returns!

Tim, you are on point, but let me correct something. It is 5% of the market that can buy VR, but it is the 2% within that 5% that can afford/willing to fork out the incredibly expensive RIFT. So really, they marketing their product to 0.2% of the market.

Oculus is officially out of the race. Most of the preorders are just placeholder enthusiasts, who are still in deep thought and negativity, saving their places in case of some miracle.

VR is in danger. There will be zero content.

[deathadda88]

"Twitchmonkey" wrote:
This does kind of put the nail in the coffin for the argument that Oculus was just looking to appeal to casual gamers though doesn't it? No one but the most hardcore is going to be picking one up now.

Nope. They are appealing to rich enthusiasts that are interested in technology other than gaming. They have stated multiple times they want VR to be more than gaming, which is why they have Oculus Studios.

The specs of the Rift is also not that great, in relation to resolution and panel type. They could have opted for 1440p each eye, left out the rest of the rubbish like audio, recommend a 980ti as a minimum, then you can say it is not casual gamer.

Right now it is not casual gamer, nor is it hardcore gamer. It is attempting to seize a weird niche, in tech junkies...ie, they plan to move away from gaming.

[crowbarstrong]

i dont see why people are complaining about the specs for the price
i dont think most of you will even get 90fps with it on games
luckey tale sure its a low graphic game but try run blackops 3 or even fallout 4 i recon with the minimum recommendation you will only get 20fps for the game i get only 40 - 60fps running 1440p res and thats with 2 290x 6gb cards crossfire and 3770k watercooled oc to 4.8ghz

[Sharpfish]

my post below from another thread. why not. And yes it's the old timers and VR nutz who are making valid protests. The mainstream were expected to baulk at VR at almost any price (Even £200) so that's a given, but hardcore VR nuts like us? who previously would have paid £1000 for a shitty sub par HMD 10 years back? well times have changed, and we had different expectations and we KNOW what we had with the DKs for the price and we know that CV1 doesn't add £300 of greatness - therefore we can't help but see it as a cash grab, along with the xbox pad not only being un-needed but actively harming good VR I see it all as a cynical cash in on VR before everyone else does it rather than curating 'best VR' as Palmer original claimed he wanted to do...

original post:

Sadly the oculus order page is badly designed concerning outside of US ordering, it statest constantly till the last minute that the super high price does NOT INCLUDE taxes. That is what immediately turned me against it and now I can't go back with that bad taste in my mouth, only to find (later) people saying VAT was included in the £499. Call it inept website programming or whatever but you should get that stuff accurate from page one or lose sales that won't return.

And besides, even without VAT/Tax/Shipping etc the base price itself is still freakishly high with ZERO explanation as to why it costs so much vs DK2 (which was built on a much smaller scale). A slightly better screen(s) and some cloth + some $50 headphones doesn't make things twice as expensive as previously, especially with economies of scale and FB cash supposedly subsiding the retail price.

And even though we knew ages ago, it's still worrying that this isn't available from places like Amazon or in stores outside of the US (for easy return/replace/warranty/refund issues) so that is a big ask from a 'cut off' company to buy and have shipped at that price, especially as we didn't ever get concrete details on the screen quality and differences vs the DK2.

The morning after the night before and I'm still left with a feeling we've been kicked in the sack. I saw it coming from Palmer's tweets about 'to start it'll only be the hardcore...' and hints at high prices, but it just doesn't add up. And if Xbone pad really is basically free for them to include, all I can say is that cloth they used to wrap the rift in better have gold dust embedded in it for that price cos no way does 2 low res screens, a small circuit board, some fresnel lens and some dangly ear phones add up to £500.

If oculus ever care to do a BOM and be honest about costs maybe it would ease the distaste and feeling we are being taken advantage of.

Including a breifcase is also pointless if it's costing so much, all these little bits that nobody REALLY needs and we're told "they don't add much" when clearly SOMETHING has added a hell of a lot to the cost and it can't be the HMD itself (twice as much as DK2?) there's not twice as much tech, it's barely any better than DK2 from all accounts (in a night/day way - only in an iterative 'yes that's nicer' way)

I can understand those that haven't had a DK maybe not thinking straight and wanting VR at whatever the cost, but I honestly think they'll end up regretting it at this price. Even if Vive ends up at £900 and PSVR (which will be cool if not as powerful) at £400, I think CV2 is where oculus will make a really good HMD and maybe be able to bring costs under control, same goes for Vive 2 or w/e.

The main concern right now is that without touch even available much less not bundled, all we'd have to play on the rift for a year would be sub par stuff like lucky's tale, yes VR makes it 'cooler' but it's still hardly the kind of game any of us played after the mid 90s?? And most of the better stuff is still hacky and unofficially supported. They maybe even made it so you can't hack games like Alien to work with CV1 so easily? (speculation). On top of that we really need PASCAL GPUS to make even the low res of CV1 work great for good look games (not cartoon games), so given all that + the stupid high cost of CV1 without ANY VR INPUT, it makes perfect sense to forget about VR for another year, or to wait and see if Vive can wow us (at any price).

Y'see without touch (or vive wands) VR really is just a curio, I enjoyed DK2 a lot but was always left unfulfilled by a lack of VR interaction, to ship CV1 without touch was wrong imo and for touch to now be delayed till half 2 of 2016 is just bad. There will be so many sub standard VR 'experiences' out there now made for gamepad it'll take years to dig themselves out of the trash. Supporting CV1 with Xbone Pad is adding to the problem. It's almost worth another £200+ for vive JUST to support VR properly, in general, to seed the idea of proper VR control. Even sony get this (DS4 has built in VR control and the move wands are quite decent too for a start), Vive will have wands, and then there's touch... poor old touch, a great controller but essentially cut off from the product it should be explicitly linked with.

I think they purposely delayed touch btw, there is no reason on earth why they couldn't have waited a while until touch was finished and then bundled it in, if they got xbone pad at almost free cost then touch - which they make themselves - would also be so, and the whole pack could have been £500 and seem much more reasonable. I'd have bought rift + 2 touch pack for £500.

I think they delayed touch because they are in a back hander deal with MS for both cash and OS concessions. (Windows API hooks to give rift an advantage over vive maybe when it comes to latency or some other VR need). And to get this microsoft, as they do, made them deal with the devil to aid in publicizing and shifting those terrible Xbox One units! Hence the crappy "stream xbox to vr" non VR gimmick and packed in Xbone controller (when they know full well millions of PC users already have Xbox 360 controllers that would work fine if MS wanted them too). Also Xbone pad needs Windows 10 I believe? so again - Xbone Pad included means more have to upgrade to Win 10 (I'm on Win 10 and it's decent so no prob with that but what a shitty underhand way to promote your OS and crappy console).

Oculus have chosen Facebook, Microsoft and Samsung to deal with - 3 devils - 3 deals and each of those companies (well the latter 2) have taken what they need from oculus while promising things that have yet to pay off in any meaningful way for the end user.

Money corrupts everything. I wish Palmer was still in his garage tinkering, there's something nicer about a good dream never realised than an evil corporation (or three) controlling us like puppets to give us our (already nerfed and trickle fed as all tech companies do) VR FIX.

We could have had CV2 spec already and at £300 I'm sure, but that's not how it works in business. Give them less, charge them more, keep them hungry. It's getting old and consumers are getting wise (aside from the sheep who jumped on this pre-order it seems).

[Sharpfish]

"RonsonPL" wrote:

"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. 😞

yes, sadly all lies. And I agree with everything you said. Some of us wanted to believe Oculus still had our back but it's clear they didn't, not since the FB buyout. Nate's warm smile and Palmer's child like charm kept many of us believing for too long.

Turns out it's just yet another cash hungry company* that doesn't give a crap about anything other than shareholders. :roll:


*exactly like Facebook... err funny how that worked out eh?

[Sharpfish]

"directrespect" wrote:

"Tim74UK" wrote:

"directrespect" wrote:
When I was 25 I was making 600 a day. I feel sorry for you whiney bums but not really.

It must mean Ignorance comes at a premium where you come from!

No it means if you thought the Rift was going to cost less than $599 then I am not surprised you can't afford it.

No it probably meant that he, and I, and others who know wtf we are talking about expected a $599 HMD for $599 not a $250 old tech/low spec HMD marked up to $599 for the ignorant.

The price is fine IF the product was stunning. The product is already way behind and only a bit above DK2, I bet CV2 working units in the oculus offices are way better and they are laughing at those buying CV1 because they know how shit it is (comparatively) for the high price, and the lack of touch included is just ridiculous. Palmer himself said over and over that without proper input VR was phcked! and here we go... xbone gamepad the worst fit for VR on the market currently.

This is VR 101, don't lay into RonsonPL just cos you don't get what VR is/should be. :roll:

[Sharpfish]

"kalec84" wrote:
Oh please, we are buying 600-800€ iphone and i-pads every single year for fuxk sake!
.

err no *WE* are not. Only the same idiots who pre ordered CV1 are. Don't excuse one bad company by quoting another one.

iSheep are the last people to trust when it comes to sensible buying. :roll:

[Hiro_Protag0nist]

"Sharpfish" wrote:

"kalec84" wrote:
Oh please, we are buying 600-800€ iphone and i-pads every single year for fuxk sake!
.

err no *WE* are not. Only the same idiots who pre ordered CV1 are. Don't excuse one bad company by quoting another one.

iSheep are the last people to trust when it comes to sensible buying. :roll:

OK Sharpfish, to be honest, like Ronson, if all you are going to do from now on is post comments like the above and you now have no interest in Oculus, maybe it's time to stop posting?

Calling people idiots for pre ordering the Rift is out of order.

[Fazz]

"RonsonPL" wrote:
@andyring

Because the price set this high will influence the shape of VR gaming, PC VR and PC gaming. I explained it well in a post above, just a few minutes ago. I explained it well, but the text is written horribly, and needlessly long, sorry for that.

I think you made some good points and only spoke the truth. I also find it funny that some people can only say you are wrong, but are unable put up a good argument against what you have said. Seriously, if you tell someone they are wrong at least make a case against them and not just say: "Your wrong."

[Sharpfish]

"RonsonPL" wrote:


PS. You still think there was nothing better achievable, even if in reality CV1 debuts in summer 2016, when PSVR has 120Hz display and RGB on top of that, and Sony already presented better games lineup than Oculus, despite the fact that Oculus had a huge head start from DK1 and DK2 devs? What Sony showed is nowhere near to "good quality core gaming in good quantity", but it's less bad than Oculus, and that's huge IMHO.
Great PC VR would make me consider taking a loan for the HMD if I had to.
1080p, 95° FOV (for me, glasses-only user) with laughable games lineup besides what already was lucky to be VR compatible (racing, flight sims, etc.) is not the PC VR revolution that could've happen more than 4 years after I've watched Carmack at E3 presenting his duct-tape thingy.

Well said!

And right now (as a PS4 owner) I find it weird to say but PSVR actually feels/looks a lot more exciting AND worthy than CV1. We all know PSVR can't compete on tech with rift/PC but at the end of the day all that really counts (in this first wave) is content, and Sony are putting proper games out there. I personally LOVE drive club (It looks stunning, like reality at its best times thanks to lighting and art direction) and even that is going to have some VR component (ok it'll be downgraded graphics but even so... that alone is better than anything I can think of for the rift right now).

On top of that, PSVR will be cheaper, the HMD looks way better designed, it'll have zero issues with compat or getting up and running AND it already has proper input (I already own two move wands from PS3 so just need a camera - plus DS4 has some VR tracking built in etc). It's like sony are really trying to do well even given their system's drawbacks, while Oculus (given access to the most powerful systems on the planet) are holding back in spec and software - and then on top, limit everyone (market and buyers) with a silly made up price just to appear 'premium'. The CV1 will be outdated as soon as it hits the street, so it should be priced as such! it's not the end game nor is it even the bare minimum for great VR (no VR input as standard, too low fov) so why it's priced at this stupid price I can't work out.

Maybe Vive will or won't disappoint but like I've said at least I feel THEIR heart is in the right place (no compromise VR given balance of cost and spec + proper input) and for that I feel money invested in Valve is money invested in GOOD VR to build a future.

Right now I feel any money given to oculus since GearVR (and now rift) is working against VR and enabling facebook to do so (to harm good VR) with shit like gamepads, low res, high prices, bad software. ONE great game from Valve for vive will be worth 10 lucky's tales on rift. ONE breakthrough hit from Sony's first party studios for PSVR will be worth 10 lucky's tales.

Even if we have to reduce out expectation for VR in 2016 now based on the shitty spec of CV1 and the high cost (that works against VR in many ways inc reducing a customers spare cash to buy a decent GPU to run good VR!) then I think PSVR, as nerfed as it may be, is still a better way to get VR in 2016 than the Rift.

And I hope Valve can cater to the real PC VR nuts with some decent software and the included VR input of course.