I hate to keep saying "I told you so" but I've had many conversations at Oculus Connect & elsewhere about the abject failure of 3DoF with few people seriously considering that the market has spoken. 6DoF standalone VR is the minimum bar for success with spacial computing. Forget 3DoF & AR. Focus on what's growing and retentive. That's 6DoF VR standalones and currently Quest is king.
I'd go so far as to say 3DoF was a massive setback for popular perceptions of VR.
Low-resolution spherical imagery and video is just not that impressive, and that's all you get with 3DoF. Contrast with the presence and immersion you get with even the cheapest 6DoF headsets, and it's not even the same technology category.
So, now we have a bunch of people walking around thinking they "tried VR" because they had a Gear or a Go or a Cardboard, but they didn't get what the big deal was about.
I am a complete newbie in VR. We had a Quest borrowed by a friend a few weeks back, when my family was in quarantine. Playing Superhot was a lot of fun, but it became next level shit when we tried it in our basement, where we have a huge empty 40m² room. It was absolutely insane, moving through the room, around opponents. This was it! So yeah, 3DoF is not what we need. Give me 6DoF, a lighter headset and a wider angle of view, and I will spend the rest of my life in our basement :)
that's like saying dos was a mistake because MS should have just developed xp instead.
of course 6dof is better than 3dof - that's obvious - but that is also a question of how expensive computing power is. Quest is simply the next iteration of Go - so obviously they'll sunset Go at some point.
The way you sound it seems like you think you split the atom or something.
I'm slightly perturbed that I picked up a Rift S instead of something else. I feel like Facebook^WOculus has it next on their list of abandonware, and the vendor lock-in feels heavier by the day. No OVR stuff, Can't run anything without the Oculus Store app open, etc.
I'm still annoyed that they don't have multiple user profiles for Quest. What kind of gaming device doesn't support that in 2020? Every time I hear an announcement from Oculus, I have a little hope they'll announce support for this, and every time I'm disappointed.
Yeah this is the dumbest part of using a Quest right now. No profiles means no separate save data, so I can't differentiate my high scores in Beat Saber from my wife's, which is really annoying.
And then of course in some games with a story mode, if they didn't build in multiple save files into the game then you're just kind of screwed.
Was just chatting with a friend about this. It makes no sense.
The Quest is the perfect machine to share with others. I can take it to friends or family (well, pre-covid I could). VR _needs_ to reduce the friction to trying it out.
Even just a generic "guest" profile would be a huge step forward.
I'll believe their new distribution method when I see it. How will they handicap it? How will they maintain their requisite absolute control? And we won't see it until sometime next year? Hmm. (Spoken as someone who was rejected from the Rift store.)
> > That’s why we’re going all-in, and we won’t be shipping any more 3DOF VR products.
> This is not exactly surprising, but still a bold and absolutely correct move from Oculus.
> As a developer who was rejected from the Oculus Quest store before, it's great to hear that they now how concrete plans to start opening up the store.
If you were rejected from the Quest store, you can still put your content out there on SideQuest.
In case you're not into VR but is curious about it from time to time: DoF means degree of freedom and you can easily imagine the tech leap from 3 to 6 (X, Y & Z axis of movements of the head plus surge [back and forth], sway [sideways] and heave [vertical] movements of your body).
I think by "X, Y & Z axis of movements" you meant "X, Y & Z axis of rotations". It sounds like you're talking about translations, which is confusing because that's the same thing you mention in the next sentence.
The Go is a great piece of hardware for what it is.
In my opinion, working with it since day one: It isn't going anywhere. You can still sideload, you can still tinker and the tooling is there to do this in pure android studio + 3d engine.
You don't need anything from FB / oculus for hobby projects as long as the driver is available (and they're already "out" so hopefully FB just puts it on GitHub or similar).
I still prefer the Go for watching content on planes, to "zone out" with virtual zen spaces, etc.
What a dick move.
I can understand that they won't accept any new apps, but also not accepting updates?
A lot of apps for media playing and social media for the Go are still under active development. Not allowing updates will effectively cut off Go users from social media.
Depends on what you're looking for exactly. Quest is what I'd recommend to most people since it's the only major headset that can operate completely on its own without a PC, and you can still connect it to one if you want to play titles that aren't available on Quest natively.
If you're confident you won't be using your headset without a PC though, there are other options. Rift S is more comfortable and offers better latency and image quality than Quest's PC connection feature does, for example. On the low end of the price scale there are also cheap WMR headsets which have worse controllers and controller tracking but can get you the basic experience of a 6DoF headset for ~$200 if you buy used. On the high end there's also the Valve Index, which offers significant improvements in image quality, FOV, and refresh rate, but you already explicitly ruled that out as too expensive.
Don't drop a cent on a Valve rig until there's a wireless option.
I got a Quest thinking I would just use it for some casual portable gaming here and there, and now I'm going to just sell off my vive rig because there's no way I can go back to tethered VR.
A more powerful Oculus Quest would probably be a day one purchase for me at this point.
Quest is better just because you can buy it relatively quickly, and for Valve Index you have to wait many weeks in line. Valve Index (or Rift, for example) is lighter, because it doesn’t have battery, and has better tracking (pros), but is connected by cable (cons). But you need cable for Quest to play PC games anyway!
But it’s not significantly cheaper - you want 128GB version because games are huge, this is $500. Then you need a case - this is relatively fragile equipment, and you don’t want your lens to get dirty since it’s hard to clean - $40. Then you need Oculus Link cable to play Half Life: Alyx or other more demanding games - $80. Quest doesn’t have built-in headset - $50 more (I’m actually using over-the-ear headphones with $10 short cable). You may also need grips (magnetic battery cover is the most stupid thing!). You can buy cheaper accessories, but they are hit or miss, so I opted for first-party case and cable at least. Anyway, this is $670, which is getting into Valve Index territory.
Oculus Quest. Hands down. I used to be a real VR skeptic before but after trying it I immediately got one and now use it every day. For me you either go all-in with Valve Index or get a Quest.
I’ve been thinking of getting one now that it is a pretty well supported target in Godot (https://godotengine.org/article/godot-oculus-quest-support), which means I could easily get prototypes running on it with little hassle. Am curious about when they’ll refresh the hardware, though, because it comes across as a little underpowered on the standalone front (and I don’t have a beefy machine to use Oculus Link with it).
> People have spent more than $100M on Quest content and more than 10 titles have generated over $2M in revenue on Quest
That sounds weird: The only numbers they can share with us are that people have spent $100M on game development, but they only point to a total of $20M of revenue. Obviously $20M isn't the entire revenue on the platform... but since they didn't share any other numbers, the default assumption would have to be that they aren't very flattering, either.
"Come develop on our platform! Spend $100M to make $20M in revenue!"
Focusing their product line like this is a great move. I hope that they do more to hone in on overall usability for the average user, and continue to expand beyond gamers as their core persona. Focusing on standalone VR, hand tracking, and hopefully more social and productivity apps like Facebook Horizon will be the best way to grow.
As an old VR developer, this is great news. I agree with you all - remove 3DoF, it’s “diluting” the experience, and not in a good way. In the apps themselves, too many design sacrifices have to be made to account for this narrow use case.
The price point was great - but for overall flexibility standalone devices are the future.
I bought a Go recently because it was the only VR platform I could afford and... it was cool for a minute but quickly felt like a gimmick, so this isn't surprising.
I'd still like to develop for "real" VR and play around with it in the future but this is out of my league at the moment.
Unfortunately just the kind of experience you can expect when buying non-open systems. Company loses interest in hardware - it can stop everyone developing for it. If they would at least open it up for sideloading so the hardware isn't doomed to become electronic trash.
How easy is it to ship exemplar apps to Quest? Can I just pick up Unity XR, riff a little on the FPS example, and compile it straight to something I can load on a Quest?
I own a Quest and Rift CV1. It's hard to go back to the Rift, even with the extra computing power. It's just a pain to clear enough space, whereas I can be more flexible with where I use the Quest. Plus, the cameras are an eyesore, think I might just take them down.
The resolution on the Quest is better too, and when I really need my gaming PC for some VR title I can always use link with it.
The Quest has a lot of cool titles on it, though I'd be lying if I didn't admit that most of the time it's a Beat Saber machine for me. Beat Saber is fantastic.
I have both the Quest and Rift S (previously a Rift and DK2, along with regular usage of the Vive). I would say just get the Quest.
For PC-backed graphics and exclusives, you can use Virtual Desktop with the sideloaded unlock to do wireless streaming or use Link for a hardwired experience.
The Rift has better quality screens and optics, but the Quest has a higher FoV and I find that ultimately wins out for overall experience.
The hand tracking stuff is very cool, extremely well done, and a bunch of stuff is coming down the pipe for it right now. It's supposed to come to the Rift too, but for now Quest has the advantage there.
I will probably end up selling my Rift at some point. I got the value of playing Alyx at full quality, but don't consider the minor IQ loss with streaming to the Quest to be that much of a blocker. I can do everything with the Quest, so it's the system for me.
Rift was outstanding at the time and I think I still prefer the shape of the controllers but that said I haven't even touched it since getting the Quest.
Being able to use it anywhere in the house and without a cable just make it a much better experience.
Also when you do use it with a PC the guardian setup process is more reliable and less error prone than having to set up external PC sensors.
After a few years with an Oculus Touch, my basic conclusion is that I'm too good at immersing myself in standard games to ever be truly excited about VR. For me there just isn't a big enough difference to justify all the inconveniences.
[+] [-] ArcVRArthur|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] didgeoridoo|5 years ago|reply
Low-resolution spherical imagery and video is just not that impressive, and that's all you get with 3DoF. Contrast with the presence and immersion you get with even the cheapest 6DoF headsets, and it's not even the same technology category.
So, now we have a bunch of people walking around thinking they "tried VR" because they had a Gear or a Go or a Cardboard, but they didn't get what the big deal was about.
[+] [-] jansan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pj_mukh|5 years ago|reply
Sidenote, Quest will be mixing between AR and VR [1]. Maybe it'll take a hardware revision to really bring it to the fore, but the future of AR/VR are quite blurred. [1]: https://tech.fb.com/the-future-of-work-and-the-next-computin...
[+] [-] toby|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SubiculumCode|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway9468|5 years ago|reply
of course 6dof is better than 3dof - that's obvious - but that is also a question of how expensive computing power is. Quest is simply the next iteration of Go - so obviously they'll sunset Go at some point.
The way you sound it seems like you think you split the atom or something.
[+] [-] jachee|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbenson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|5 years ago|reply
And then of course in some games with a story mode, if they didn't build in multiple save files into the game then you're just kind of screwed.
[+] [-] jaaron|5 years ago|reply
The Quest is the perfect machine to share with others. I can take it to friends or family (well, pre-covid I could). VR _needs_ to reduce the friction to trying it out.
Even just a generic "guest" profile would be a huge step forward.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] MikusR|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shafyy|5 years ago|reply
This is not exactly surprising, but still a bold and absolutely correct move from Oculus.
As a developer who was rejected from the Oculus Quest store before, it's great to hear that they now how concrete plans to start opening up the store.
[+] [-] ericflo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vageli|5 years ago|reply
> This is not exactly surprising, but still a bold and absolutely correct move from Oculus.
> As a developer who was rejected from the Oculus Quest store before, it's great to hear that they now how concrete plans to start opening up the store.
If you were rejected from the Quest store, you can still put your content out there on SideQuest.
[+] [-] caiobegotti|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k__|5 years ago|reply
6DoF -> looking & moving around
[+] [-] quietbritishjim|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keyle|5 years ago|reply
I have not adopted more VR options since (still sour from the money spent). But I imagine 6-dof is the minimum requirement.
Box still there, covered in dust.
[+] [-] leetrout|5 years ago|reply
In my opinion, working with it since day one: It isn't going anywhere. You can still sideload, you can still tinker and the tooling is there to do this in pure android studio + 3d engine.
You don't need anything from FB / oculus for hobby projects as long as the driver is available (and they're already "out" so hopefully FB just puts it on GitHub or similar).
I still prefer the Go for watching content on planes, to "zone out" with virtual zen spaces, etc.
[+] [-] Uhrheber|5 years ago|reply
A lot of apps for media playing and social media for the Go are still under active development. Not allowing updates will effectively cut off Go users from social media.
I sense a class action coming.
[+] [-] arkades|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ajedi32|5 years ago|reply
Long answer:
Depends on what you're looking for exactly. Quest is what I'd recommend to most people since it's the only major headset that can operate completely on its own without a PC, and you can still connect it to one if you want to play titles that aren't available on Quest natively.
If you're confident you won't be using your headset without a PC though, there are other options. Rift S is more comfortable and offers better latency and image quality than Quest's PC connection feature does, for example. On the low end of the price scale there are also cheap WMR headsets which have worse controllers and controller tracking but can get you the basic experience of a 6DoF headset for ~$200 if you buy used. On the high end there's also the Valve Index, which offers significant improvements in image quality, FOV, and refresh rate, but you already explicitly ruled that out as too expensive.
[+] [-] xwdv|5 years ago|reply
I got a Quest thinking I would just use it for some casual portable gaming here and there, and now I'm going to just sell off my vive rig because there's no way I can go back to tethered VR.
A more powerful Oculus Quest would probably be a day one purchase for me at this point.
[+] [-] vl|5 years ago|reply
But it’s not significantly cheaper - you want 128GB version because games are huge, this is $500. Then you need a case - this is relatively fragile equipment, and you don’t want your lens to get dirty since it’s hard to clean - $40. Then you need Oculus Link cable to play Half Life: Alyx or other more demanding games - $80. Quest doesn’t have built-in headset - $50 more (I’m actually using over-the-ear headphones with $10 short cable). You may also need grips (magnetic battery cover is the most stupid thing!). You can buy cheaper accessories, but they are hit or miss, so I opted for first-party case and cable at least. Anyway, this is $670, which is getting into Valve Index territory.
[+] [-] Kiro|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flak48|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Filligree|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snapetom|5 years ago|reply
I was thinking about eventually getting a Vive rig, but never felt there was a killer app just quite yet. Squadrons got my attention.
[+] [-] sdfgsdfgsdfg|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Mindwipe|5 years ago|reply
Still lots of content censorship requirements for this new way to distribute.
Why does content have to submit to a blanket rejection of dealing with any sexuality when it's not even going through their store?
https://developer.oculus.com/policy/content-guidelines/
[+] [-] rcarmo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drcode|5 years ago|reply
That sounds weird: The only numbers they can share with us are that people have spent $100M on game development, but they only point to a total of $20M of revenue. Obviously $20M isn't the entire revenue on the platform... but since they didn't share any other numbers, the default assumption would have to be that they aren't very flattering, either.
"Come develop on our platform! Spend $100M to make $20M in revenue!"
[+] [-] toeachtheirown|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theschwa|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] terpsichorean|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krapp|5 years ago|reply
I'd still like to develop for "real" VR and play around with it in the future but this is out of my league at the moment.
[+] [-] whywhywhywhy|5 years ago|reply
Real VR isn't about the 3D effect it's about having body and hand presence.
[+] [-] coffeeaddicted|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway1777|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrfusion|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorgoiler|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingnothing|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|5 years ago|reply
The resolution on the Quest is better too, and when I really need my gaming PC for some VR title I can always use link with it.
The Quest has a lot of cool titles on it, though I'd be lying if I didn't admit that most of the time it's a Beat Saber machine for me. Beat Saber is fantastic.
[+] [-] timdorr|5 years ago|reply
For PC-backed graphics and exclusives, you can use Virtual Desktop with the sideloaded unlock to do wireless streaming or use Link for a hardwired experience.
The Rift has better quality screens and optics, but the Quest has a higher FoV and I find that ultimately wins out for overall experience.
The hand tracking stuff is very cool, extremely well done, and a bunch of stuff is coming down the pipe for it right now. It's supposed to come to the Rift too, but for now Quest has the advantage there.
I will probably end up selling my Rift at some point. I got the value of playing Alyx at full quality, but don't consider the minor IQ loss with streaming to the Quest to be that much of a blocker. I can do everything with the Quest, so it's the system for me.
[+] [-] whywhywhywhy|5 years ago|reply
Being able to use it anywhere in the house and without a cable just make it a much better experience.
Also when you do use it with a PC the guardian setup process is more reliable and less error prone than having to set up external PC sensors.
[+] [-] bni|5 years ago|reply
Quest is front heavy and Rift S is much more comfortable.
Screen on Quest has better blacks due to OLED. Rift S screen is much sharper but due to the LCD dark scenes looks a bit washed out.
Very much looking forward to the unified headset that supports both standalone and wireless PC connection, that is surely coming next year or 2022
[+] [-] Causality1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdfgsdfgsdfg|5 years ago|reply
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