You got a new job, cut back on going to the movies and dinners at Nobu
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Valve Index Available June 28 ($499.99 VR Headset Only, $749.99 Headset + Controllers, $999.99 Headset + Controllers + Base Stations)
- Thread starter Schierke Mori
- Start date
Could just buy it in chunks like when people upgrade their machines :-P
and then ask for a raise at work...and a bonus
It's so surreal to see VR heading in two directions. Index is going all out for the enthusiast market while FB strays away and going towards mass consumer and ease of use.
No offense to Valve, but I'd put my money on Oculus here. We've already seen that you can have the most advanced, bleeding edge tech in VR, but it doesn't mean anything without devs wanting to develop for the thing.
I feel like what Quest offers is what the minimum viable product is for VR to hit mainstream which is wireless, 6 DOF, a wide library and not needing a PC.
No offense to Valve, but I'd put my money on Oculus here. We've already seen that you can have the most advanced, bleeding edge tech in VR, but it doesn't mean anything without devs wanting to develop for the thing.
I feel like what Quest offers is what the minimum viable product is for VR to hit mainstream which is wireless, 6 DOF, a wide library and not needing a PC.
It doesn't matter though since it's already compatible with all VR games and all the VR games to come.
If they purchase the headset it will never stop being worth it like a fsiled console or something.
The hell is Nobu u weirdo
I'd rather just ask for the Index and then get fired for it
I still might get the headset because I'm an idiot but the sad part is if I do I'm not getting rid of my OG Vive until wireless comes to Index. Having two headsets on my desk is going to be hard to explain to my wife lol.
You don't have to choose to develop for the Oculus or Valve headset. You support SteamVR and it works on all of them. It is a good thing to have a high-end headset for enthusiasts and lower-priced mass-market headsets.
Were you referring to anything specifically? I'm not sure anyone who'd be recommended VR without also using Steam VR.
Fair enough! I actually respect that Valve doesn't lock their stuff to a single headset.
I may have used the wrong wording to express my thoughts, I care more about the "killer app" part and much less about it being 1st party.
I know Valve has something up their sleeve to show off later this year. I think not showing it off beforehand in order to push those on the fence over the edge is a mistake. They must also be aware of that as well so maybe it's just that cool? We will see!
I don't think this actually applies to the Quest since it runs Android rather than Windows.
I need more info on the new basestations. My current play area is 4mx2m and works great. What makes these so great? 749 is easier to swallow than 999.
My main issue with the Vive and the original Oculus was the weight of the headset and the amount of space and outputs required to use the headsets. Oculus S seems to solve both of those problems for me.
Did they announce this at the event?
If they're discontinuing them, I'm going to have to buy another one or two ASAP.
That's far more disappointing than anything relating to the Index (which is mainly price).
Thanks for posting that. Norm sounds very positive on the headset, though he considers it to be a "1.5 gen" device rather than a "2nd gen" device due to a lack of features such as eye tracking or wireless support.
That high refresh rate support and image persistence of only 0.330ms is very impressive, and one of the most exciting things about it.
I don't think I can justify that kind of money for a wired and LCD-based headset though, and I wish they would stop making black hardware.
All I did was invert the image so it does look a bit weird, but that is so much more appealing to me - though I'm not a fan of the design of this headset.
It really seems like the cost of the base stations is what's holding things back.
The headset itself seems reasonably priced at $500, and while $250 (bundled) is a lot for the controllers, there's a lot of hardware in them.
If the $750 bundle included a single base station, and an additional base station was $100 to add room-scale tracking, I think there would be fewer complaints.
Everything seems priced like it's there as an upgrade for existing VR owners.
- Want a new headset? $500 for what is likely going to be the best on the market overall is reasonable.
- Happy with your Vive but want to upgrade the controllers? $280 is fair.
Can you buy Steam Controllers there?
I expect they probably will sell them, but it may not be available at launch since Valve are manufacturing and distributing these themselves.
That really needs to be a standard feature for all headsets.
Ah, yes I suppose that's true. That's such a different thing though, it's not even competing with the Index.
Price is high, but VR is imo still going to be an enthusiast market for the foreseeable future (even with the lower end "mass market" headsets) so I don't see that as a problem. As much as I want to buy into VR, I don't think I can justify the investment until wireless and foveated rendering are standard, hopefully by then the VR games market will have improved massively so I can deal with the wait.
To be fair, Valve isn't really trying to compete with Oculus on that level. If they were there'd be commercials for this on TV and you'd be able to buy it at Best Buy and the price would be more competitive. They fully concede the mid-range/mainstream market and are more interested in pushing the limits for enthusiasts (while also making sure there's an option for people to buy VR games on Steam).
yeahhhhhh £1000 erm well if I had 1000 quid I can certainly think of better ways to spend it. At this rate I am not expecting to see VR mainstream in my lifetime. But then I am kinda ok with that, always seemed like a stupid idea anyway wearing a helmet to play games. Just wish valve would stop wasting their resources on this niche stuff that 99.9999% of gamers will never be able to experience.
LOOOOLLL jeez dude.. really are you expected to be dead in 5 to 10 years?
Exactly, tons of complaining that VR needs to be cheaper when two new VR headsets just launched today for way cheaper. This is an enthusiast headset, I haven't decided if it is worth the money for myself yet, but I didn't expect it to be cheap.
Absolutely! I'm so glad someone is making higher-end headsets, even if this doesn't quite have all the features I'd hoped for.
Finished watching the Tested video. Liked what Norm had to say about noticing the refresh rate differences.
Still think it's way too expensive for what it is. I won't even be tempted until there's a significant price cut.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they were so secretive with this. At this point, I can only guess they were fearful of HTC abandoning the SteamVR space in retaliation and didn't want things tipped until it was almost ready for market. This way they wouldn't be vulnerable if HTC just left. Although it seems like a hollow victory either way. Because this is going to do nothing to help the market grow. Not unless they can slash prices.
The going against Facebook's F8 conference was dumb, IMO. If anything, seeing that ridiculous price made Oculus' products that much more appealing. I know I jumped on Amazon when the Quest went live.
This can't be stated enough. Listening to Norm talk about the controllers, I started getting a real impression that these things were way over-engineered and made more costly than they needed to be. If you're gonna make absurdly engineered and priced controllers, show a fucking game that tells me why it was done. How could they still have nothing showable?
Still think it's way too expensive for what it is. I won't even be tempted until there's a significant price cut.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they were so secretive with this. At this point, I can only guess they were fearful of HTC abandoning the SteamVR space in retaliation and didn't want things tipped until it was almost ready for market. This way they wouldn't be vulnerable if HTC just left. Although it seems like a hollow victory either way. Because this is going to do nothing to help the market grow. Not unless they can slash prices.
The going against Facebook's F8 conference was dumb, IMO. If anything, seeing that ridiculous price made Oculus' products that much more appealing. I know I jumped on Amazon when the Quest went live.
This can't be stated enough. Listening to Norm talk about the controllers, I started getting a real impression that these things were way over-engineered and made more costly than they needed to be. If you're gonna make absurdly engineered and priced controllers, show a fucking game that tells me why it was done. How could they still have nothing showable?
I don't like the price at all, but there's always going to be high end products for those with the money. I do have the money but there's nothing in the PC space that is compelling me to spend the money at this point. I'm more comfortable with investing in Sony's VR ecosystem.
This is what I was waiting to see. If the audio setup is cool my interest in the Index headset is rising again. But shouldn't this cable be in the headset box? But I really dislike the headset is using a LCD panel.
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I suppose they ought to start doing controllers with their own damn sensors then. Though, why can't the headset track the controllers around the player's body? Is the tech so dependent on visual sensors?
£919 And they are not being subtle about this - they are blatantly not targeting "Mainstream". They've said it countless since starting their VR hardware efforts, and all webpage's contents make that point really clear on every page
How are you still confused or even shocked?
this knee jerking is absolutely laughable and predictable, despite the spec being so clear.
If you live and die by mainstream, it's PC - pick any vendor you want, such as the new Rift S.
There are so many alternatives
Yes, it needs visual line of sight for positional tracking. Though the controllers do have accelerometers and gyro in them. So reaching behind your back as a gesture is likely doable.
This article explains it pretty well I think: https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/30/oculus-talks-the-controller-tracking-limitation-of-quest/
The sensors are on the headset, so they can't really sense backwards.
Looks fantastic but wow that pricetag. I expected $800 for everything which is still expensive but seeing 4 digits suddenly makes it much worse lol. I'll stick with my Vive for now but at least I can upgrade one thing at a time sans base stations (which are $150 a piece wtf?)
We know a valve game is coming, and we should expect it to definitely use the controller.
I'm pretty sure there was a quote of Gabe saying he wanted to push the boundary of VR first to a high upper limit, which will eventually produce more friendly set prices, but I can't seem to find it. I believe the same idea applies to the controllers as well. They spent years developing it, refining it, and testing it to create a future proof controllers, which time spent shows how difficult it was. Now that they have, they can leave it alone basically. In X years time, it will gradually decrease in price to a suitable point. I can't imagine what new controller scheme we would need next, probably finger tracking.
Tracking. None of it would work otherwise. It's only sold separately so that Vive owners don't need to buy them again if they don't want to.