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Will We See a CV2

TC1999
Adventurer

So after watching OC4 I’m left with a very worrying
thought “Is facebook more interested in creating a hardware that supports their
social media structure then continuing to push the boundaries of high end pc
based VR”



When facebook brought Oculus this was a fear that many expressed
and now I’m wondering if this is now the case.



I love my rift having brought it a month after launch and
with touch it’s given me lots of enjoyment. When I first saw Palmer Lucky talk
about VR and the kickstarter campaign it was inspiring, especially for a long-term
gamer like me.



When facebook brought Oculus, Touch and the current Rift
where already well under development with the principals for both units in
place.  



So why am I worried that we will not see a CV2.



OC4 starts with Zuckerberg saying he wants 1 billion in
VR. Well that’s never going to happen from high end pc based VR. This only
leaves low end low friction based VR. With the announcement of Oculus Go this
fits that perfectly. Essentially a personal VR media viewer that will work well
for all types of media from watching films, youtube, internet browsing and
social media viewing.



Don’t get me wrong I love the idea of Go and have been
waiting for standalone VR devise that is cheap and easy to use to watch films
and do exactly what this will do, and I will buy one. Oculus Go is great
to achieve this and to spread the idea of VR as well as Oculus brand awareness.



However does this new venture depart the focus aware from
leading edge VR for enthusiastic PC gamers?



Zuckerberg has expressed disappointment that VR adoption has
not grown as quick as they would have liked and I wonder if this is a small
insight to what they really now want to do.



Yes VR adoption has not grown as fast as they would have
liked but hang on a second what kind of adoption is truly possible for current
VR.



Gaming right now is the natural fit for VR but VR is not a
natural fit for gamers on a large scale. My great nephew is 13 and he plays
games all day long if he could, either on his phone or on his xbox. For him
gaming is either quick and easy or a way to talk to his friends online. He is
not interested in great graphics, story lines or immersive gameplay, he wants
awards, quick arena matches, collecting stuff and so on. He has GTA 5 and has
never done a mission for him it’s about his friends meeting up and playing the
game the way they want to. I asked him “is this how all your friends play games”
and he said “yes”.



He has tried my rift but gets bored very quickly one because
he’s not interested in playing a game for the game, his friends are not in it
and the learning curve is more than he is prepared to put in to adapt to it. Maybe he is a lazy 13 year old, but aren’t most 13 year olds and this is the age
group the current gaming industry is focused on.



So who is VR right now for, well I would say the older gamer
who one has the money to spend, enjoys solo driven game or has a strong narrative,
into sims and is willing to take the time to adapt to VR, that is not a large
game base for mass VR adoption. As Palmer Lucky has said VR is for a subset of
a subset of a subset.



So with this knowledge and sales feedback If I was the owner
of a mass media platform and want to promote that platform high end VR would
not be the way to go, low end low friction mass adoption would be my choice. Leading back to sadly again no CV2.



What else points to facebook moving away from high cost
leading edge VR, what Carmack said in his talks and Q&A.



Firstly he said in his talk that almost made me shout was “if
Go tanks then Oculus will focus back to predominantly high end PC VR” WHAT are
you saying that Oculus focus is no longer on advancing PC VR. If that is true
than it is very sad news for all VR enthusiasts who see Oculus as the leading
light in VR. Also in a Q&A he talked about they have lenses that can
achieve 140 degree view but are not using them.



In OC4 there was very little talk about continue funding for
VR titles in fact no talk about funding. And there was no really big titles
being showed for next year. So we have Marvel Powers United and possible
Respawn doing something but we have no news on that. Not Very Encouraging.



Santa Cruz looks good but it’s not high end VR. I want
high end VR, where is my leading edge in visual fidelity and FOV VR, Oculus?.



NOT COMING GUYS NOT COMING.



Price drop to £399 had to be done because very soon Vive and
Rift will have inferior speks to upcoming HMD’s.



Samsung Odyssey is coming and yes the tracking is not going
to be perfect but it will have better ergonomics and visual fidelity. When
anybody tries my rift the first things they say is “it looks fuzzy, I don’t like
the binocular look and it feels uncomfortable on my face”, don’t get me wrong
they are also very impressed but it’s not enough.



So please oculus move towards the halo fit and get rid of
the baseball camp fit. Bump up the screen and lenses.



This is what Samsung have done, don’t get left behind.  



So I hope the £399 is to clear stocks so that maybe just
maybe a bumped up rift is coming.



Rift will even be lesser in visual fidelity then the $199 GO
that’s mad and the media will have a field day with it.



The GO will have higher visuals and better lenses then the
Rift, even Carmack said that the new LCD screens has more net gains now then
OLED.



I wonder if these screens are the same as the ones Pimax are
going to use?



Lastly the coming update for Home with Dash looks great and
really looking forward to it. Please oculus let us know you are still committed
to high end PC driven VR because this update is maybe a prelude benefit for GO and
Santa Cruz.



I would have like to have seen some news about what Oculus is
working on for higher FOV, better lenses, better fidelity, and better
ergonomics. Even if this was not happening strait away and was coming down the
pipe as Oculus did in OC3 last year with Santa Cruz, this would have created a
buzz for VR on PC.



The silence is deafening

108 REPLIES 108

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

The software is what will currently push the boundaries of Gen 1 PCVR. I love my Rift and I'm happy with many of my VR experiences over the last 17 months. However, nothing has really pushed those boundaries yet. The software hasn't even come close to making the hardware obsolete. And that's how it works in the Info Tech world.

Even if a CV2 was offered right now, unless there is software to justify the upgrade then I wouldn't bother. It's not a problem limited to OH either, the software issue increases 10-fold when we look at Steam VR offerings.

Oculus is still very much committed to high-end PCVR, and they said that 2019 is most likely the time for a CV2. I agree with that assessment.

TC1999
Adventurer
Yep totally agree with you, I would just have liked a little tease of whats to come.

In terms of software yep it all works great and with a little more visual fidelity, and FOV this would only enhance the current software. From what I understand open vr and rift sdk can work with 140 degree FOV beyond that it gets more difficult and the screen has to be stretched without correction. This is what pimax is doing from what I understand. 

Carmack said Oculus do have lenses that can do 140 FOV, man that would be great as I am now getting a little tired of the binocular effect. 

I suppose I'm being a bit of a "Are We There Yet" and want the halo fit, 2k per eye, 140 FOV now or at least know it's on the way. 

OC4 left me disappointed in some ways and excited in others. 




Zenbane
MVP
MVP

I'd say we are between 12-15 months before real talks of a CV2 start to come out. That's not too bad. I'm still waiting for the first big VR MMORPG!

Anonymous
Not applicable
I don't think Oculus is abandoning it at all, I think they have a plan for the next generation along with a timeline. Obviously it will probably require a little more powerful CPU and GPU's over what we currently have as well.

Patience can be a good thing. In the meantime I am enjoying the heck out of my Rift.

logotomie
Expert Protege
While i agree that software is underwhelming, i don't agree on that there is no reason for new hardware. I would pay 600 now for a CV2 with higher res/no pentile/better fill display, ideally also with increased fov. And no that does not require more hardware, less oversampling or even upscaling would be fine.
Maybe i am more sensitive then others, but i can easier overlook the upscaling and veil effect of PSVR then the pentile pattern i see in CV1

Anonymous
Not applicable

Zenbane said:


I'd say we are between 12-15 months before real talks of a CV2 start to come out. That's not too bad. I'm still waiting for the first big VR MMORPG!


I dont think we will see a VR MMORPG for a while. At least 4 years after CV2... sadly xD but it will come:)) Well at the level we will want it to be anyways. Sure, they can add VR to any current MMORPG - but a real design base one wont be for a while because of the required AI support. The current GPUs being release right now (10s and vega) are design to help jump start that and in 2018 with the release of their 11s and whatever AMD releases will be focus on it. 

Anonymous
Not applicable
Oculus aren't talking about the CV2 yet because this generation is under 2 years old so far. It's way too early. We'll hear about the CV2 plans at OC5 for launch in 2019/2020.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

logotomie said:

While i agree that software is underwhelming, i don't agree on that there is no reason for new hardware. I would pay 600 now for a CV2 with higher res/no pentile/better fill display, ideally also with increased fov. And no that does not require more hardware



Higher Res and FoV wouldn't require a graphics card upgrade? What are you running now?

No doubt that some people enjoy throwing away $600, but most people would rather put that money towards something more meaningful. We can take the best of the best VR experiences, and none of them get dramatically better by increasing Res and FoV. Certainly not $600 worth of hardware better.

The reason everyone keeps dropping their VR prices (HTC, Oculus) is because the cost of entry is still too high. It's the same reason that PlayStation quickly sold more VR HMD's than both the Vive and Rift: console-VR is cheaper.

So anyone bragging about being so willing to spend another $600 on another PCVR HMD is going against critical industry pricepoints. And when it comes to what is really happening in the industry (not just the few exceptions that like to throw money away), the software needs to drive the hardware.

RonsonPL
Heroic Explorer
Oculus dropped PC VR long time ago. They were supposed to drive it, push it forward. They definitely are not interested in that anymore since FB acquisition. It was obvious years ago, when it turned out that their "best, thanx to the dedication of pushing PCVR as much as possible and thanx to the Samsung deal" turned out to be not much more than 1080p OLED screen with PenTile matrix, while budget oriented PSVR managed to get RGB. 
Then we had the release with a joypad. Touch delay. Let's not bring back the original date planned for the release.
The quality of the software on PC side also pointed towards that since a long time.

CV2 will probably happen, but with no dedication. Look at Valve and their Vive.
So, when everything is already there (displays, prices etc.) Oculus will regoin, while for now, they will simply allow the competition to overpass them. It's really sad that some we have to look at StarVR Pimax hand-on reviews to get quotes like those (about wide FOV HMDs):

As soon as I put on the headset, I was amazed by the lack of black border within my vision. For the first time ever, I finally felt like I wasn't looking into a VR headset! "
or
 "whole new level of experience". 

Until real hardware becomes available, people won't understand. You can have a great example of how people might have absolutely no clue about what proper PCVR means and how it could be shaped both in terms of what's possible and in terms of business model. 


Zenbane said:


We can take the best of the best VR experiences, and none of them get dramatically better by increasing Res and FoV. Certainly not $600 worth of hardware better.

So anyone bragging about being so willing to spend another $600 on another PCVR HMD is going against critical industry pricepoints.


See? Compare what Zenbane wrote to what's said by people who actually had the chance to compare, and you see the problem. So many people think that when you make a game, it has to be Call of Duty. It has to be great cash grab, 12 year old kids must like it, and it has to bring billions every year, otherwise it's not worth the effort. Sorry to steal Jim Sterling's example here, but what can I say. It was a damn good example. Same with everything. What's happening now is the false assumption that only market which matters is the mass market, only group of people worth targetting is the biggest group of people. Meanwhile we had gaming industry 20 years ago which was doing pretty damn fine without having to sell 20 million of copies to make profit. The false assumption is that it cannot happen again. And what high quality VR is capable of in terms of creating unique market, is absolutely huge, yet so many people are unable to see it. That's why statements like that above are totally wrong. It doesn't matter what were the "industry pricepoints". Industry never had VR before. It's like saying that "better displays in a phone aren't beneficial to anyone" in 1998. Why would people pay more for a cellphone just to get better display for their SMS messages? Fast forward and suddenly millions of people pay 300$ for their phones instead of 40$ for another device offered in the same store, which also allows for phone calls and SMSes. 

+50% FOV. Huge improvements in SDE, PPD, good blacks and details in blacks. Big investments in at least a few really big game titles. This is what should be aimed at and this is what should get a lot of effort to make it happen as soon as possible instead of (what happens now) just waiting until it somehow aligns all the puzzles by itself (which means 5-10 years lost). Sure, it doesn't matter for people who plan to be able to enjoy VR games 30 years from now. Not so great for those of us, who dream about VR since The Lawmower Man ignited the first VR craze.
I wrote over a year ago that Valve doesn't look like PCVR's savior. I was right. Now I will write that Oculus is not the company to put all your hopes in, when you hope for proper quality (and scale in terms of software being released) PC VR.

But eventually consoles will get something faster than tablet CPU.
Eventually microdisplays, micro-LEDs, curved OLEDs, and maybe even specifically tailored for VR crappy LCDs appear in some of the devices. Eventually someone will realize the potential. Eventually something will start to move. Maybe it will be forever crawling, maybe we'll add more and more years to the "we lost this" count. But maybe the huge PCVR boom will happen. Now this hurra-optimistic scenario can happen in 2019-2020 instead of 2017, so I think PCVR enthusiasts are facing a really boring year or two. Unless something with proper FOV and resolution comes up first in a meaningful shape (tracking, price adequate to what the hardware offers, a way to reach more than 1000 gamers etc.).

I don't know what to think about MS. They struggle to understand who core gamer or gaming is so they might be just dumb and don't want to go into VR with their Xbox X. But maybe it's the opposite? Maybe they don't want to poison the well and plan something only after the minimum quality acceptable by gamers is there? So maybe Xbox 4 released in 2019-20 with proper power and dedicated 140+°FOV and 4K displays?
2019-20 are packed. Most likely new consoles from both MS and Sony, very likely RAM prices drop (faster graphics cards for less, especially in mid-high and high-end range, cause top of the line GDDR6 and HBM 2econo and HMB3 won't be cheap). Besides that a whole bunch of display technologies. New Displayport and HDMI 2.1 available in older (by then) hardware. New production process for CPUs. It might all align just well enough to allow the big jump.
But for now. At least for a year, most likely 2, and way more if I'm (yet again) too optimistic, PCVR is burried, I'm afraid.
Not an Oculus hater, but not a fan anymore. Still lots of respect for the team-Carmack, Abrash. Oculus is driven by big corporation principles now. That brings painful effects already, more to come in the future. This is not the Oculus I once cheered for.