What do you think of XR devices like Varjo? Will it have impact?
It’s interesting to note that Apple is starting to push AR in its high-end phones. It’s maybe a matter of time till we see Apple AR glasses or something similar. I would expect that to happen within the next five years or so.
Maynard Handleysays:
What do you see as the reason to buy a VR setup? If the answer is gaming I don’t know if that’s a big enough market — especially when you consider the complications that arise when you want to move in a game while simultaneously NOT banging into real world furniture…
(If you visit The Void to play in their VR space, you can see all this in detail. Yes, it’s lots of fun. But the content is limited, and seems like it’s a major exercise to create more of it. Their systems are very carefully arranged to avoid the “banging into walls” problem in a way that can’t be assumed at home. And it feels like going to Disneyland, in the sense that it’s lots of fun as an annual experience, but not necessarily something to do every week.)
Then there are the supposed educational uses. I’m sympathetic to these in theory, but I’ve seen how this plays out enough times to have zero confidence in reality. There will be piles of shovel ware claiming to teach your kids anatomy, geography, or whatever through VR. It will almost all be utter garbage, just like every previous iteration of these claims from before CDs were a thing. Sure gullible parents and school districts will be fleeced, just like they were in the previous hype cycles, but even parents and school districts can only be fooled so many times.
I think there’s a reason Apple and MS are pushing AR much more than VR, at least right now. The use cases may be less gee whiz than VR, but there are more of them and they feel like there’s the potential there for more on-going value. This still means glasses (AR on phone or tablet works, sure, but it clearly sucks), but it means a rather different stance regarding software.
The usual Future Nauseous https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/05/09/welcome-to-the-future-nauseous/
pattern suggests that this will be in fact how VR becomes reality; not via dedicated VR glasses and use cases, but via AR use cases that are an obvious extension of the way one normally uses glasses (and associated optical equipment like binoculars, magnifying glasses, thermal imagers, …)
There are three reasons to by an expensive game platform.
Content, content and content.
Jon Opraysays:
I think this underestimates Facebook and the Oculus Quest and their commitment to creating content. The Quest 2 has a 90Hz and higher resolution screen if I remember correctly and a lot more power, as well as bringing the cost way down, compared to PC tethered headsets, and also is $100 cheaper than the original Quest.
What I’m saying is that your 4th prediction is accurate, but it’s not Sony.
I’m seeing more and more content on the Quest over the last half year. Echo VR is a standout multiplayer experience, for me, for example.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Quest hits that 10M mark in 2021 or 2022, and I think most the other players in this space will either be extremely high and and niche or get killed by the Quest.
I am also very positive regarding the technology behind the Oculus Quest, but I fear that the strong association with Facebook is also a negative for many. The idea that Facebook must know what you are playing and when, and then sells this information to third parties is not a positive.
Sadly, I think VR didn’t have its due because of maximalist capitalism. Without a big market to exploit, the small vr market remains Balkanized and unserved.
The Microsoft mixed reality hardware is more consuner friendly, but the software and store gave been abandoned for two years. In the old days a future Jay Allard could have made a name running this division but modern stack ranked Microsoft doesn’t care.
Steam VR is active software, but the hardware is off putting to normies and the communuty is toxic (no tech support except angry, aggrevied young men). Even the new, said to be great Index is painful to set up because of the new controller style.
Facebook has good hardware and software, but just alienated a big chunk of the tech community via lies about logins. The Oculus store is terrible – I couldn’t get Tetris Effect to work or get support.
So it’s a perfect storm, VR remains janky because it hasn’t crossed the chasm but can’t cross the chasm because it keeps losing the early adopter momentum necessary for growth. I am a nerd, own two vr systems, and still spend at least an hour a week fiddling with drivers and cables.
Oh yeah, it’s also impossible to buy a good video card now. Or buy a PS5 and PSVR. Like toilet paper, stores don’t have video cards in stock anymore.
Just to make sure we’re absolutely clear about the VR issue being a market problem: it is harder to buy the video card and equipment needed for VR now than it was in 2016 unless you surrender to the Zuckerverse. #progress
tldr: all current VR headsets are Treos and the VR industry needs an iPhone.
tldr: all current VR headsets are Treos and the VR industry needs an iPhone.
There is truth in that except that I think that the Quest is de facto the iPhone, but it is an iPhone sold by Facebook.
I am a nerd, own two vr systems, and still spend at least an hour a week fiddling with drivers and cables.
I am very negative regarding VR headsets connected to a PC via cables. It is “fiddly”.
Oh yeah, it’s also impossible to buy a good video card now. Or buy a PS5 and PSVR. Like toilet paper, stores don’t have video cards in stock anymore. Just to make sure we’re absolutely clear about the VR issue being a market problem: it is harder to buy the video card and equipment needed for VR now than it was in 2016 unless you surrender to the Zuckerverse. #progress
With Greg, with discussed the issue of supply limitations, but I don’t think I could convince myself that it was a driving force. That is, for example, there is no shortage of Oculus Quests, the Oculus Rift is widely available. The prices have fallen. Yes, it can be hard to build a super powerful PC or a PS5, but you do not need the latest video card to do VR.
I expect that supply is a factor, but even if supply were plentiful, we would not get tens of millions of new users.
drewsays:
I agree that the Quest should be an iPhone, but it’s a dud. I could not get Tetris Effect to download from their store onto my PC so I neer connected my Facebook account (now deleted). You need a cable and a PC to have the “best” Quest experiences, like carrying a G3 laptop in your pocket to power an iPhone. The Oculus ecosystem is bad and Facebook association is brand poison in 2021.
My VR story: I upgraded video cards for Doom Eternal, it is terrible, bought a used VR headset, Alyx | Beatsaber | Pistol Whip, and Quar VR magic.
I think like all video games you need a system seller, Alyx, and the hardware…
Facebook could have cracked it if they’d left the silos next to each other with a conveyor belt between; Zuck strangled Oculus by pouring all its data in the ever expanding Facebook silo.
I love VR, even with the cables and duckduckgo-ing answers. My two hopes for mainstream VR in 2021 is Euro law forces interoperability and some plucky startup makes the Roku of VR (I promise if there were an EASY way to use VR exercise 1/10 Rachel’s Ray’s enthusiastic audience would have bought their husbands VR headsets for Christmas) OR that Warren and a Biden admin break up the Facebalkans before all the Oculus mojo is monetized to meet the next quarter.
I am not sure that you are supposed to use the Quest connected to your PC. While it is possible, I do not think that it is how it is expected to be used.
drewsays:
I think you are right; I am uncertain which headsets from Oculus requires cables for Alyx.
What do you think of XR devices like Varjo? Will it have impact?
It’s interesting to note that Apple is starting to push AR in its high-end phones. It’s maybe a matter of time till we see Apple AR glasses or something similar. I would expect that to happen within the next five years or so.
What do you see as the reason to buy a VR setup? If the answer is gaming I don’t know if that’s a big enough market — especially when you consider the complications that arise when you want to move in a game while simultaneously NOT banging into real world furniture…
(If you visit The Void to play in their VR space, you can see all this in detail. Yes, it’s lots of fun. But the content is limited, and seems like it’s a major exercise to create more of it. Their systems are very carefully arranged to avoid the “banging into walls” problem in a way that can’t be assumed at home. And it feels like going to Disneyland, in the sense that it’s lots of fun as an annual experience, but not necessarily something to do every week.)
Then there are the supposed educational uses. I’m sympathetic to these in theory, but I’ve seen how this plays out enough times to have zero confidence in reality. There will be piles of shovel ware claiming to teach your kids anatomy, geography, or whatever through VR. It will almost all be utter garbage, just like every previous iteration of these claims from before CDs were a thing. Sure gullible parents and school districts will be fleeced, just like they were in the previous hype cycles, but even parents and school districts can only be fooled so many times.
I think there’s a reason Apple and MS are pushing AR much more than VR, at least right now. The use cases may be less gee whiz than VR, but there are more of them and they feel like there’s the potential there for more on-going value. This still means glasses (AR on phone or tablet works, sure, but it clearly sucks), but it means a rather different stance regarding software.
The usual Future Nauseous
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/05/09/welcome-to-the-future-nauseous/
pattern suggests that this will be in fact how VR becomes reality; not via dedicated VR glasses and use cases, but via AR use cases that are an obvious extension of the way one normally uses glasses (and associated optical equipment like binoculars, magnifying glasses, thermal imagers, …)
There are three reasons to by an expensive game platform.
Content, content and content.
I think this underestimates Facebook and the Oculus Quest and their commitment to creating content. The Quest 2 has a 90Hz and higher resolution screen if I remember correctly and a lot more power, as well as bringing the cost way down, compared to PC tethered headsets, and also is $100 cheaper than the original Quest.
What I’m saying is that your 4th prediction is accurate, but it’s not Sony.
I’m seeing more and more content on the Quest over the last half year. Echo VR is a standout multiplayer experience, for me, for example.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Quest hits that 10M mark in 2021 or 2022, and I think most the other players in this space will either be extremely high and and niche or get killed by the Quest.
I am also very positive regarding the technology behind the Oculus Quest, but I fear that the strong association with Facebook is also a negative for many. The idea that Facebook must know what you are playing and when, and then sells this information to third parties is not a positive.
Sadly, I think VR didn’t have its due because of maximalist capitalism. Without a big market to exploit, the small vr market remains Balkanized and unserved.
The Microsoft mixed reality hardware is more consuner friendly, but the software and store gave been abandoned for two years. In the old days a future Jay Allard could have made a name running this division but modern stack ranked Microsoft doesn’t care.
Steam VR is active software, but the hardware is off putting to normies and the communuty is toxic (no tech support except angry, aggrevied young men). Even the new, said to be great Index is painful to set up because of the new controller style.
Facebook has good hardware and software, but just alienated a big chunk of the tech community via lies about logins. The Oculus store is terrible – I couldn’t get Tetris Effect to work or get support.
So it’s a perfect storm, VR remains janky because it hasn’t crossed the chasm but can’t cross the chasm because it keeps losing the early adopter momentum necessary for growth. I am a nerd, own two vr systems, and still spend at least an hour a week fiddling with drivers and cables.
Oh yeah, it’s also impossible to buy a good video card now. Or buy a PS5 and PSVR. Like toilet paper, stores don’t have video cards in stock anymore.
Just to make sure we’re absolutely clear about the VR issue being a market problem: it is harder to buy the video card and equipment needed for VR now than it was in 2016 unless you surrender to the Zuckerverse. #progress
tldr: all current VR headsets are Treos and the VR industry needs an iPhone.
tldr: all current VR headsets are Treos and the VR industry needs an iPhone.
There is truth in that except that I think that the Quest is de facto the iPhone, but it is an iPhone sold by Facebook.
I am a nerd, own two vr systems, and still spend at least an hour a week fiddling with drivers and cables.
I am very negative regarding VR headsets connected to a PC via cables. It is “fiddly”.
Oh yeah, it’s also impossible to buy a good video card now. Or buy a PS5 and PSVR. Like toilet paper, stores don’t have video cards in stock anymore. Just to make sure we’re absolutely clear about the VR issue being a market problem: it is harder to buy the video card and equipment needed for VR now than it was in 2016 unless you surrender to the Zuckerverse. #progress
With Greg, with discussed the issue of supply limitations, but I don’t think I could convince myself that it was a driving force. That is, for example, there is no shortage of Oculus Quests, the Oculus Rift is widely available. The prices have fallen. Yes, it can be hard to build a super powerful PC or a PS5, but you do not need the latest video card to do VR.
I expect that supply is a factor, but even if supply were plentiful, we would not get tens of millions of new users.
I agree that the Quest should be an iPhone, but it’s a dud. I could not get Tetris Effect to download from their store onto my PC so I neer connected my Facebook account (now deleted). You need a cable and a PC to have the “best” Quest experiences, like carrying a G3 laptop in your pocket to power an iPhone. The Oculus ecosystem is bad and Facebook association is brand poison in 2021.
My VR story: I upgraded video cards for Doom Eternal, it is terrible, bought a used VR headset, Alyx | Beatsaber | Pistol Whip, and Quar VR magic.
I think like all video games you need a system seller, Alyx, and the hardware…
Facebook could have cracked it if they’d left the silos next to each other with a conveyor belt between; Zuck strangled Oculus by pouring all its data in the ever expanding Facebook silo.
I love VR, even with the cables and duckduckgo-ing answers. My two hopes for mainstream VR in 2021 is Euro law forces interoperability and some plucky startup makes the Roku of VR (I promise if there were an EASY way to use VR exercise 1/10 Rachel’s Ray’s enthusiastic audience would have bought their husbands VR headsets for Christmas) OR that Warren and a Biden admin break up the Facebalkans before all the Oculus mojo is monetized to meet the next quarter.
You are definitely right about the wires 🙂
I am not sure that you are supposed to use the Quest connected to your PC. While it is possible, I do not think that it is how it is expected to be used.
I think you are right; I am uncertain which headsets from Oculus requires cables for Alyx.
I think you mean the Rift.
You can get a great experience with the Quest. Sadly, it requires a Facebook account.