I want to start off and say I love the rift and amaze everyone I show it to. Now to the point lol. Just as phones are now updated in yearly cycles I think that same plan would work great for the rift. I, like many other people have no problem paying a premium for updates, not only does this push the old tech cheaper likely and make it more mainstream as a result but it provides profit which is the bottom line here. The resolution at the moment is not well for videos and the video market is huge for the rift, more than most would bet. I really think it would be a win/win for oculus and the consumer, the only negative I see is people getting possibly upset about the model they bought recently, but that's early adoption and if you aren't willing to shovel out the money just enjoy what you have at the moment. I have looked around and there does appear to be a crowd willing to pay for those higher resolution updates and not to mention higher hz also. I apologize for any grammatical errors I typed this on my phone fairly quickly cause I feel my two cents are really worth something and are more common amongst others than you would think.
if and when the market gets as big as a cellular phone, yearly update I can see. For now, you are talking about 1% population. I see a cycle of 1.5 years cycle for every generation.
@mbze430 That is a good point to make. I don't recall when the 2nd version of the iPhone was released though, I believe next year but I could be wrong. I will say though I did hear an interesting take on this where people wanted a newer version, someone mentioned just like the smartphone it was at first expensive and the big spenders(early adopters) kept the market going but going through with updates. It will be interesting to see what happens, I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see either a new vive (past the one coming already, which isn't much different) or a new rift by next year but that's my take with my reasoning above. I think it's a great idea, just like Nvidia releasing ridiculously expensive Titan X pascal graphics card, it gets it out there and the ball rolling but perhaps I'm not being honest with myself cause I really want higher hz and resolution
Yearly atm would be too fast and not provide enough over all stablity for the VR community. Right now the cost per headset is pretty high so your underline customers will need to feel safe with their purchase for a little while. Plus this is the first release and there are still a number of things that need to be improve and come down in cost before we can do yearly release cycles.
Once VR hits around total of $1,000 (pc, headset, controls) then we might start seeing it sooner. Right now it's best to do 2-4 year release cycles. CV2 should be out within 2 years for the minor hardware improvements and changes, but CV3 might be another 4 years out for any bigger changes (such as design changes and for the market to play catch up with other hardware makers).
CV2 will be CV1 with just better upgrades and 2-4 feature changes (such as eye tracking, camera on the headset, resolution increase (2k per eye) and FOVE, adjustments to the IPD, and strap redesign/fitting for the face).
CV3 will be a full redesign with flex screens or direct eye display and that means less weight over all changing how it fits/sits on your face. So instead of being 2 inches deep - they might be able to remove a whole inch worth of plastic and lens weight using flat lenses as well. HMD will be super light then! Plus 4k per eye with even more FOVE will also be super nice:)
There is even the possibility of eye tracking helping what is display on the screen with a bigger jump of 8k per eye displaying a 8-2-1k box, if eye tracking plans out like it should for CV3. Then again that's 6 years away xD from 2016 to 2022.
The main reasons is because VR is control by the other markets and their current standings. For example, AMD and Nivida GPUs basically controls what the resolution will be and what can happen with in the VR world. With phones - they pretty much control everything from the ground up meaning they can push a little harder or save a little here and there per phone release.
On the other hand, like I said, if eye tracking does plain out - it will give a 30 up to 50% more performance back to VR to control on what they like to do for the future. More tricks they figure out for VR to increase performance, the more they can use it to either push hardware limits or come down in cost. By the year 2026 - I feel VR/AR will be kind of a normal thing to see/know about in the public eye and that means we might start seeing yearly upgrades by then.
You can also look at other 3rd party vendors between here and then as well for other changes in between release cycles. That would give you your yearly upgrade as well - but then again - that is like switching consoles so some things might work well on one HMD but not the other or at all.
It's nice to hear feedback as this is something I look forward to, I hear you out Mradar, I think me and you can agree a new rift would arrive in two years. You mention Nvidia controlling the market in a way and that's true because they power the technology, it's interesting though they just pumped out a new graphics card in a very short time span, that is definitely capable of current graphics in rift titles but at 2k in each eye or at least very close. Maybe I'm putting something together that I shouldn't, as someone who doesn't know people willing to buy into this tech yet and sales falling with early adopters it is my opinion the need to push will happen and people aren't used to older looking graphics and want cheaper prices. Interestingly I almost feel the need to realize newer headsets is driven by the lack of crowd, look at the short term evolution from the dv1 to now, they felt the need to advance. I by no means think I have the answers but i do have such a take. And it appears the big barrier VR sickness which accompanies the segment of gaming where the money is at (shooters like call of duty, whether people like to hear it or not) but in other games also of course...interestingly I just heard today on this forum that the sickness with VR is not possibly related to "motion sickness" (implying physical movement confusion with the brain) but the opposite, with the term called "cyber sickness" I have (proton war) and when it lagged and blurred I did get that uneasy feeling, perhaps the cure is higher hz and smoother picture quality and clearer, whatever it might be, that will be the what casual gamers will talk about, playing call of duty in first person and I along with many gamers know that would spread like wild fire. I want the industry to rush and I really do feel they just might but maybe it's better business not to.
I forgot to mention also, Nvidia pumps out that 1200 dollar graphics card, only about l, I forget, but within a year of the 1080? I feel a similar thing could happen possibly with rift and if not maybe the vive as they already have a new version coming (not too different though) Also you mention eye tracking, there is a brand "fovea" I believe coming soon, preorders starting in November and with higher resolutions per eye, the market really seems to be in a race in my opinion.
And I just see there is an article about a newer 1080 card coming, it seems like good money making practices to push on new tech somewhat quickly but with a price tag for the few and lower over time, as has always been done with tech (tvs cough) I just hope oculus does something similar but I suppose if they don't there are other parties in the mean time as you mention, just unfortunate they will likely just be for videos. And again I enjoy the conversation here I'm really a VR evangelicist you could say haha.
1080 and the Titan XP was within 3 months from each other.
I would immediately upgrade IF they bring out a higher resolution HMD. and I wouldn't mind paying up to $1700 for it. As long as I know I can utilize fully my 2x Titan XPs
I think there are many more people like you mbze! And congrats on your two titans! Very impressive, it's really unfortunate though how cross firing is never optimized well 😕 I wonder if a headset or games for it would be optimized for crossing firing, I'm afraid they wouldn't though or at least well :pensive: I do think none the less, you will just add to the list of early adopters for these new highly priced graphics cards as I to plan to upgrade when a next gen headset comes, (currently have 970) I need something above the pascal though cause my goal is 4K 60fps (stable) on high graphics for my next graphics card upgrade and that isn't possible without cross firing at the moment which I'm not interested in, no beef though lol! I do think the profit is there for any upgrade however I don't know the work needed for oculus to push out a 4K headset and the profit may not be worth it but I guess only time will tell.
The thing is - most games/software don't really plain on new cards. They plain on older cards. So instead of the 1080 - most games will be 980 instead. That drags the whole tech world by one generation of graphics and performance. Right now, the CV1 is that way it is - is because of that as well. They didn't plain on everyone having a 1080 so that way everyone could have more access to VR once more cards start to come out and get cheaper slowly allowing more users access to the hardware.
Once CV2 also comes out - that puts two HMD on the market as well. That means the over all cost of VR will come down and split the market up a bit as not everyone will just jump ship to the CV2 for whatever reason (bugs, cost, software support, etc). This allows growth to increase over time and allow bigger jumps in the hardware changes.
For example, I wouldn't be surprise if CV2 cost 800$ vs the 600$ we pay now. This controls the demand a bit - and it's something that can come down over time as the hardware becomes cheaper to make, cheaper to get access to, and allows bigger jumps with in the hardware it self (instead of going to 2k per eye screens they jump to 4k per eye screens - might be possible like I said with eye tracking and more vr tricks that have shown to cut down vr resources requirements). That will bring up cost by quite a bit if they do for the screens - but resources wise - it be something that everyone could in theory run by next-next year using the 2080 cards.
This is all just theory thinking - I really can't see CV2 being that big of a jump as of yet - so change CV2 with CV3 time frame here more than anything.