Why I chose Oculus-Walking from point A to B concerns

[Bel-garath]

I had a little back and forth with someone in the Reddit thread. Though he opened my eyes to a few of my concerns regarding the Vive, it didn't address all of them. There are 4 main reasons why I still have more confidence in the Rift and why my preorder money is going there:

1) Despite the Vive/Valve correlation, developer backing is strong on the Rift and I'm assuming (with Facebook's backing) that Oculus has more industry ties than the Vive does.

2) I'm concerned about investing so much in a product (Vive) with HTC's financial situation being a mess and the implications that might have for long term support. I doubt the success of the Vive in such a niche market is going to do much to help HTC.

3) The Rift just seems better built and lighter and comfort goes a LONG way with showing it to folks new to this. My mom refused to wear the GearVR for more than 10 minutes due to the discomfort. The Vive is apparently heavier than the rift and it doesn't fit quite as well (though maybe the final consumer version will). Also, the integrated positional audio on the rift being built in which is so far getting very high marks for quality is one less wire and fidgeting to care about.

4) Finally (and this goes to the impracticality concerns I have with room scaling breaking immersion), though I understand that Vive does seated experiences too, the following Video showing what's it's like to walk from point A-B in even a huge room which doesn't address what happens when you actually reach point B. Can you imagine this in a space like 8X8 rather than 15X15 (or even smaller)...not to mention it looks like he is almost going to choke her with the attached wire. See around the 1:40 mark in the video. Curious to understand how room scaling is going to fix this and not break the immersion when you are walking around. This was Vive's demo after all.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=044OpBaIMjk&feature=youtu.be

[Percy1983]

I have had similar thoughts.

I have just got it past the wife I can have an oculus in my man cave.

Do we have enough room for me to wonder about while my wife stops me walking into walls and throttling myself with a cable... no.

So from the sitting/standing VR perspective oculus is the best so they have my order.

Reminds me of the wii, do I want to wave my arms about to play or a game or press a button...

[Kr55]

I think the jury is still out on your first 2 points, but 3 and 4 mirror my decision making process, for now at least.

I want the best experience with sitting and playing games. So, that would mean, most comfortable headset and best quality display.

And the full room VR, it sounds cool and all and it's really wowing people in demo's with someone carrying the cable for you and directing you, but as soon as I think of the practicality of it at home, I lose interest. There will be very little to no things that use that that I would want to play more than once or twice. I can't make my decision based on that feature, gotta focus on what I will be doing with it 99.9% of the time.

We have yet to see the final Vive product though, so we shall see. Although, how much can it really change between now and the April release? Didn't Oculus have something very close to their finished product out being demoed 3-4 months before even the pre-orders?

[Bel-garath]

"Percy1983" wrote:
I have had similar thoughts.

I have just got it past the wife I can have an oculus in my man cave.

Do we have enough room for me to wonder about while my wife stops me walking into walls and throttling myself with a cable... no.

So from the sitting/standing VR perspective oculus is the best so they have my order.

Reminds me of the wii, do I want to wave my arms about to play or a game or press a button...

Same here. I had a Wii and the concept seemed really cool at first, but in the end it collected dust and I didn't use it for more than 1 month.

[Bel-garath]

"Kr55" wrote:
I think the jury is still out on your first 2 points, but 3 and 4 mirror my decision making process, for now at least.

I want the best experience with sitting and playing games. So, that would mean, most comfortable headset and best quality display.

And the full room VR, it sounds cool and all and it's really wowing people in demo's with someone carrying the cable for you and directing you, but as soon as I think of the practicality of it at home, I lose interest. There will be very little to no things that use that that I would want to play more than once or twice. I can't make my decision based on that feature, gotta focus on what I will be doing with it 99.9% of the time.

We have yet to see the final Vive product though, so we shall see. Although, how much can it really change between now and the April release? Didn't Oculus have something very close to their finished product out being demoed 3-4 months before even the pre-orders?

I agree. I love the potential of being able to walk around in a space for some experiences if I want. I have never seen it, but I know I would also be wow'd. However, the potential for something versus the practicality of it based on what is being shown today just isn't enough to break me away from the Rift. Perhaps I'll change my mind by Feb 29th, but I seriously doubt it.

[marcosedu]

"keithianw" wrote:

I agree. I love the potential of being able to walk around in a space for some experiences if I want. I have never seen it, but I know I would also be wow'd. However, the potential for something versus the practicality of it based on what is being shown today just isn't enough to break me away from the Rift. Perhaps I'll change my mind by Feb 29th, but I seriously doubt it.

Yeah. I bought DK2 back in 2014 and I don't regret not even a single penny that I spent on that item.
As much as I like that there is another HMD for PCs in the market, we do not really know how good Vive is.

Opposite to Oculus Rift, that had a lot of iterations and evolved pretty well to its first consumer ready version.

That being said, I hope Vive survives. Having only one good HMD for PCs available isn't a good thing in the long run.

If I was rich, (or, maybe, if I didn't want to move to bigger house), I would probably buy both.
But, for now, I will stick just with Oculus Rift CV1 S2.

[Bel-garath]

"marcosedu" wrote:

"keithianw" wrote:

I agree. I love the potential of being able to walk around in a space for some experiences if I want. I have never seen it, but I know I would also be wow'd. However, the potential for something versus the practicality of it based on what is being shown today just isn't enough to break me away from the Rift. Perhaps I'll change my mind by Feb 29th, but I seriously doubt it.

Yeah. I bought DK2 back in 2014 and I don't regret not even a single penny that I spent on that item.
As much as I like that there is another HMD for PCs in the market, we do not really know how good Vive is.

Opposite to Oculus Rift, that had a lot of iterations and evolved pretty well to its first consumer ready version.

That being said, I hope Vive survives. Having only one good HMD for PCs available isn't a good thing in the long run.

If I was rich, (or, maybe, if I didn't want to move to bigger house), I would probably buy both.
But, for now, I will stick just with Oculus CV 1 S2.

I actually might buy both, thats a possibility, but I really need to see what else we learn between now and Feb 29th. I still have major concerns about HTC/support, but like someone else wrote above, it's still an unknown and just an assumption. What I do know that if I didn't have the money for both and I had to chose one, I would take the Rift. I think a seated experience in general is going to be a lot more refined in this first iteration of technology and for reasons I already stated I have more faith in the Rift right now. I also hope my concerns about the Vive are alleviated and HTC thrives as I agree with you that the more competition the better. I suspect that others will come out of the wood works eventually (included Apple's wait and see approach before releasing some super user friendly refined and confined approach).

[DaftnDirect]

Surely the standing/sitting preference will mainly affect which game you buy rather than which headset? Both headsets will do both experiences with the Rift being a bit more limited in the walking department.
Once we're past the exclusive releases stage, I'm sure most, if not all vr releases will be available for both?
The other factor for me is the convenience of the Oculus setup, just one camera needed (two later).

[Bel-garath]

"DaftnDirect" wrote:
Surely the standing/sitting preference will mainly affect which game you buy rather than which headset? Both headsets will do both experiences with the Rift being a bit more limited in the walking department.
Once we're past the exclusive releases stage, I'm sure most, if not all vr releases will be available for both?
The other factor for me is the convenience of the Oculus setup, just one camera needed (two later).

We haven't seen any technical or detailed comparisons of the same game across both platforms, so I'm not sure how to answer that. I'd prefer both seated and sitting experiences. I agree that the game is more important than the platform. However, those who prefer the Vive keep stating its a seated experience too, yet that hasn't been a focus of any of their demos that I've seen...but you're right, that isn't the determining factor. That is why I listed 4 points. What I will say is if I think that one headset comes with a bunch of things I'm not going to use and is more expensive (which I think the Vive will be), why would I want that? I'd rather get the one where the focus is on a more practical stationary/seated experience, that has more long term viability/support (Facebook financials versus HTC financials), the one that is more comfortable and fits on the head better (Rift seems to be the leader here so far) with integrated audio..in other words, if I think the games I care about require an impractical set-up plus the other points I mentioned, I just don't see why I would want to spend all that money when the Rift is a more proven experience with better backing (again, in my opinion of course). Others will state Valve..but I don't see that as strong as the facebook/Oculus industry connections across media and developers as well.

[onefang]

"keithianw" wrote:
I'd prefer both seated and sitting experiences.

In that like Country AND Western? Rock AND roll? B-)