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PCVR Game Discussion Thread - A New Era of Gaming
- Thread starter Zalusithix
- Start date
I bought my friend's 1st gen Samsung Odyssey, it gets here next week
I'ma get
Beat Saber
Superhot VR
Drunken Bar Fight
And then move on from there
What's this money being dumped on, though? I don't see any major, mega titles being produced.
You have Ubi. Hardly big budgets, though. And I doubt anything new will be getting greenlit. Seems like stuff that's just finishing production (and started a while ago).
The other major publishers haven't really supported it with big titles (outside of Bethesda... who also has curtailed support).
Facebook obviously has invested money, but what else would they invest money in (on the gaming side)? They've been trying to build a platform.
On the indie side, all gaming is apocalyptic and entirely dependent on going viral. As terrible as VR is for the average indie dev, you'd still have a higher chance of getting traction than releasing an anonymous game in non-VR.
It'll be real interesting to see how Quest does. Because it's a compelling product that's filling a real void. Could totally seeing it being a leading sales platform in much the way the Switch has compelling strengths (portability) that makes it somewhat of an indie oasis.
If software sales suck on that, however, things could start getting bleak.
If you're into racing at all, I'd heavily recommend getting a racing game like Project Cars (1 or 2, both support VR). Actually even if you're not into racing games, it's worth experiencing it in VR.
I don't think any dismissive, extrapolated, 'distant future' predictions are worth making while the market is emergent, since the utility of VR for gaming is obvious to gamers and technologists. Extrapolating 5 years+ based on a few years of a market is faulty. Sure, people expecting miracles from Quest aren't seeing correctly, but predicting VR will be relegated to military / business use is myopic. That kind of short-sightedness would have predicted video games to not become the industry it is. The industry is always pushing markets beyond their capacity while ignoring the opportunities, because the decisions are always made by the wrong sorts of people. When the VR industry sees how it tried to jump from Apple I to iPhone 4 in 2 years time, it'll self-correct.
Right. My point was on hardware. Software is a bit barren now because that sw dev money can be better utilized in other areas.
I mean, there is so much tech investment in ridiculous areas that this stuff is just one more. I just don't see how it can be justified outside of chasing sunk costs or some pie-in-the-sky it's all going to work out faith based modeling. Which, hey, if million and billionaires want to do that I'm all for it.
The immersive gaming VR market isn't getting to 25m+ households anytime soon. And maybe it doesnt have to. Whatever.
If anything, though, hardware isn't getting the money. Valve's no where to be seen. VR was always a Hail Mary for HTC in an attempt to escape extinction (so anything they attempt is justifiable). The new HP model doesn't seem like it has a very high BoM and should be very intriguing for enterprise. That seems totally justifiable under those circumstances and what market they're shooting for. Facebook clearly gave the Rift S a major downgrade in terms of BoM. It's clear they shifted focus (Iribe departure over Rift S) and are prioritizing making profits on hardware and trying to expand the market. The only real interesting new product that's had signficant money poured into is Quest. And let's be blunt: with Facebook's agenda, a hardware success with that would give Zuck wet dreams. So it's a gamble worth throwing money at.
Innovation requires some level of faith, wouldn't you agree? The idea of virtual reality itself may be the main driving force right now, but the current tech is also on the fringe of making that dream possible. As the smartphone revolution flattens, it's clear that big companies are looking at immersive technologies as the next tech jolt, and it's easy to see why. Are we there yet? Not quite. But if you keep up with development, a few key technologies have the potential to categorically shift the playing field. There's no reason gaming won't be part of that shift.
As far as hitting the 25 million mark, my bet is on the second Oculus Quest or a competitor, so maybe 3-5 years. Once dynamic foveated rendering/eye tracking capabilities are available on standalone devices, I think popularity will rise extremely fast.
I hear you. Okay, so option 3 from the choices that I put in the tweet then. That's cool. Glad to see there are still passionate believers in it.
So... I read that blog post by Luckey today about the Rift S. If you don't want to give it a click the gist is this: he rips it a new one solely for the lack of a physical IPD adjustment, being only suitable for 70% of the population (vs CV1's "5th to 95th percentile, male and female"). Because of being out of the supported range ("a hair" under 70mm) + a skewed facial structure, he's now SOL when it comes to developing in the Oculus SDK ecosystem in the future (for military stuff... so... yeah...), seeing as how the CV1 is now discontinued. He talks about the challenges of making a headset in regards to IPD - some headsets did it as right as they could (PSVR), some were going 'this is fine', even when they could've solved the problem (initial WMR devices).
On one hand, "haha, fu palmer" and all that. On the other... I'm in the literal middle of reading History of the Future right now. The Rift, current VR, all of that was his and his coworkers baby. Honestly, I feel that shit. You really can't take away the fact that he really did know his stuff more than most in regards to VR. So, seeing this post makes me think "what is facebook doing right now with PCVR?" This isn't the right way to expand PCVR at all, it might actually be a huge step back despite the low price and removed tracker barrier. Rift, despite its occasional weird issues (what headset doesn't have a bunch, eh?) was the PCVR go to at its excellent price point. Where does it go from here?
I'd really like to make a thread, but it would just cause a shitstorm.
On one hand, "haha, fu palmer" and all that. On the other... I'm in the literal middle of reading History of the Future right now. The Rift, current VR, all of that was his and his coworkers baby. Honestly, I feel that shit. You really can't take away the fact that he really did know his stuff more than most in regards to VR. So, seeing this post makes me think "what is facebook doing right now with PCVR?" This isn't the right way to expand PCVR at all, it might actually be a huge step back despite the low price and removed tracker barrier. Rift, despite its occasional weird issues (what headset doesn't have a bunch, eh?) was the PCVR go to at its excellent price point. Where does it go from here?
I'd really like to make a thread, but it would just cause a shitstorm.
You can make most of the same point without Palmer. It's kind of obvious to everyone with sense that Rift S is a misstep. I think it is a profit gaining move because FB knows they have to hunker down for the long haul. They're going to follow the Nintendo path of selling hardware at a huge profit no matter what it costs them now.
Yeah. I was a big casual fan - we're about the same age and I looked up to his success and was rooting for him - but I'm not anymore.
Having "the guy who did the thing" throwing his weight around puts it into perspective a bit, imo. Having these hard numbers based on all the work he did feels damning, that's a huge chunk of people gone. I wasn't really paying attention to the nitty gritty early kickstarter, DK1, DK2, "a look into the future" press conference days - I've only been on the VR train for over a year - so a lot of these fine details are newer ground for me. Nate Mitchell was doing damage control on Tested the other day and Carmack isn't (or hasn't quite yet go around to) running around and being frank about things.
All of this corporate politics, BOMs, favoritism stuff is just so beyond extra. Just do a good job for your customers. This is going to potentially mess up the bottom line you care so much about, ffs. Bad VR drives people away like no other! Makes me wish anybody but Facebook was handling the Quest.
Currently playing Farpoint with the Aim controller.
It's a great VR game. High production values, solid story, great weapon feel and very customisable controlwise. I am having a ton of fun.
Did a capture of a boss battle:
People who.'ve never experienced VR will probably think it looks a bit tame but let me tell you everytime one of those spider things leap right at your face it is TERRIFYING.
It's a great VR game. High production values, solid story, great weapon feel and very customisable controlwise. I am having a ton of fun.
Did a capture of a boss battle:
People who.'ve never experienced VR will probably think it looks a bit tame but let me tell you everytime one of those spider things leap right at your face it is TERRIFYING.
I think with the sales of Go compared to Rift and the positive response to Quest FB has shifted its focus to the mobile/stand alone form factor. At this point there really is no guarantee we will ever see a Rift 2 although they would be throwing money away if they didn't at least make Quest (and future iterations) capable of running PCVR. It's more than just low hardware sales though (which should have been expected). A lot of PC gamers will always prefer Steam when given a choice, a problem the closed-off ecosystem of Quest doesn't have.
I think the inside out tracking, more comfortable design, and $400 price of Rift S were good decisions to get more people in VR, even if it meant going with a 80Hz LCD. But the down graded audio and loss of physical IPD adjust were too much. My Rift shipped with two sensors, remote, and Xbox One controller two years ago for the same price. The S, which won't have any of these really shouldn't have had to cut so much additional cost.
I think the inside out tracking, more comfortable design, and $400 price of Rift S were good decisions to get more people in VR, even if it meant going with a 80Hz LCD. But the down graded audio and loss of physical IPD adjust were too much. My Rift shipped with two sensors, remote, and Xbox One controller two years ago for the same price. The S, which won't have any of these really shouldn't have had to cut so much additional cost.
Blood Trail will be released tomorrow (Early Access)
Realistic guns and gore? I'm in!
Realistic guns and gore? I'm in!
I'm not that squeamish when it comes to video game gore, but that trailer feels....excessive lol.
From their perspective it makes total sense though. I'd also guess the fact that they scrapped the higher end Rift for now is what caused the spec overlap here. I would assume their original plan was to have a much larger gap between the two but when the Rift S became the direction, that gap kind of became non-existent.
With all the different warping techniques Oculus has, it'll actually run better on Rift than it will Vive (assuming you can't hold 90fps and need help from the APIs).
I would say hold off to see what performance is like (if NMS is your main priority), but the fact it's going to be running on PSVR means they must have gotten some optimizations done. Unless you have a really awful CPU, your PC is way beyond what PS4 is capable of doing.
PSVR sold 4+ million units and is the highest selling VR headset.
I run an Oculus setup on a 980 with 8gb ram and it's super sweet. I believe the requirement from Oculus is 960.
The only thing that I dont understand between the oculus quest and rift S is that they have the same price. Shouldn't the quest cost more than the rift s by a good margin? Is there a chance the rift s is being slightly over priced in order to make back what they would be losing with the oculus quest?
BoM is often not really relevant in pricing. There can be all kinds of strategic reasons. If I'm guessing in this particular case, it's for the following reasons:
1.) It forces the Rift to start bringing real profits into the company.
2.) It combats the narrative (with the casual audience) that Rift S is inferior to the Quest (they're the same price after all).
3.) With it's 50 dollar price increase, it can be sold as being superior to the model it's replaced (even if it's clearly not).
4.) The old Rift had been on sale for effectively 299.99 a couple of times in the past. This will easily allow them to routinely run 299.99 sales and even 249.99 sales and still make money on the hardware. Big sales at 249.99 could help build a larger audience (from groups who were priced out in the past). And this can be done without having to lose money.
The really amusing part about the Palmer blog post is that he complains that all his software is in an ecosystem (Oculus') which doesn't offer the hardware choices he wants.
No shit, that's exactly what many of us have been saying about buying software locked to a specific manufacturer's hardware.
If you are an analyst you really should be aware of just how much money is in VR outside of gaming. And the hardware is mostly the same.
Very interested in how this game will control. Will we be able to utilize a HOTAS in ship, but motion controls outside? This could be really cool.
ahh okay that makes a lot more sense when you put it that way. either way im pretty excited to pick up a quest as soon as its out, still debating on the rift s
Seems its sales isnt far too behind with the VR on PC
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But in terms of software, wouldn't it be best to buy a Rift considering you get to play both the Oculus exclusives (without fickling around with reVive) and get to use it on Steam? Like, I buy every VR game on Steam. Of course, you have to have Oculus app open, but it has never given me trouble.
Where does this narrative about Rift S's supposed "affordability" originate, and what is the agenda behind it? Without fail every tech pundit, blog writer, and reddit/forum warrior uses it as a prop and I simply don't understand it. It is impossible to believe all these people are oblivious to the fact CV1 has been $399 for nearly 2 years and $349 for last 6+ months--with retailers regularly further discounting across that entire span (as low as $299-$329). I'm sitting here reading this shit confused as fuck wondering how $399 is unprecedentedly affordable and how is what is effectively a price increase going to bring more people into VR.
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It's the marketing those sites get from Oculus, and they just reprint it.
The same as when the Epic marketing says its behaviour is "good for consumers" and they just reprint it.
I'll tell you, this narriative is already having an effect on me though (as I'm feeling some sympathy over the product), and I've owned a Rift for years and I hate S. What was the lowest Rift + Touch /w 2 total sensors came to? Because that would be the most fair comparison.
$300. Touch has been bundled with the Rift since a few months after its launch.
I think the Rift S launching at $400 could mean Facebook is simply milking early adopters AND/OR seeking profit from hardware sales due to not being able to consolidate their own store on PC.
Same could be said about HTC's Focus Plus, I guess.
I think the Rift S launching at $400 could mean Facebook is simply milking early adopters AND/OR seeking profit from hardware sales due to not being able to consolidate their own store on PC.
Same could be said about HTC's Focus Plus, I guess.
Seems like a lot of the best deals included gift cards back. I'm absolutely certain Amazon had it for 299.99 (after gift card) at least twice. If you don't treat Amazon gift cards as cash, then it was higher.
The Rift + Touch + 2 Sensor Bundle is all they've sold for well over 2 years. Permanent MSRP has been $399 since at least Fall of 2017, Limited Time Oculus-Run $399 sales predated that by maybe half a year or so. 2018 shopping season started the effectively perpetual $349 MSRP, made permanent in January. Those are all official MSRP's without any deal hunting, you could find further discount regularly. Lowest I ever saw from a real retailer on new hardware was $299.
they said they would have more vr announcements soon, wouldn't be surprised if its a part of the quest countdown
I hope so! I've been tempted to grab BL2 on PSVR especially because of Aim controller support. I've heard theres a weird stutter issue though and that's stopped me from getting it.
Please don't be an Oculus Store exclusive
doubt it would be but i hope not either even though i own a rift and am buying a quest
i bought it way back when it was on sale for 10 dollars before the graphics overhaul update with the thought of it getting a vr port. Glad ill finally be able to launch it soon
I also have a Rift (no plans on getting a quest) but I like getting my games on Steam just in case
Has anyone tried Natural Locomotion in games like Skyrim?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/798810/Natural_Locomotion/
Bonus points if you use WMR. Thinking about getting back into VR, but teleportation doesn't feel the best and I can't handle the disconnect between button movement.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/798810/Natural_Locomotion/
Bonus points if you use WMR. Thinking about getting back into VR, but teleportation doesn't feel the best and I can't handle the disconnect between button movement.