6 ms·

I'd love to hear from an individual (not a magazine or a writer who reps a magazine) who has tried all 3 vr headsets coming out soon (the Rift, the Sony and the

I'd love to hear from an individual (not a magazine or a writer who reps a magazine) who has tried all 3 vr headsets coming out soon (the Rift, the Sony and the HTC). Is there a clear and obvious winner? Do you think any of them truly live up to the hype?

vrnut 11y ago
No clear and obvious winner. They should all have pretty similar capabilities. I haven't tried any of the motion input systems of the headsets besides the HTC Vive, but I've heard they're comparable (Rift's will probably be slightly better than Vive's, and Morpheus's slightly worse)
alexqgb 11y ago
Content dev. here, with no connection to any particular platform. Haven't demo'd PSVR, but based on its wand-style controller I'm comfortable saying that the Rift + Touch is the best, and for reasons that the other platforms may have a very difficult time competing against. As far as resolution, tracking, field of view, and general comfort go, the Rift CV1 and the Vive are closely matched, incredibly good, and - if you can believe this - underhyped. Though PSVR is said to be not quite as good, the technical bar is so high that Sony can come in slightly under and still deliver an awesomely good experience, and probably a more popular one once you factor in value for money. That said, I still think Oculus has a fundamental advantage due to the approach they've taken with Touch. Unlike the wand-style controllers used by HTC and Sony, Touch allows you to point and grab, which turns out to have a major effect on the sense of Presence, as well as level of dexterity you can bring to your interactions with the environment. It also reflects what your hands are actually doing in social apps, which has value that becomes immediately clear once you're in one. Indeed, the combination of social + the manipulation of near-field objects is (at least to my mind) the very core of VR. This wasn't something I'd anticipated, but having experienced it, I cannot imagine developing content that didn't put their combination at the center of the experience, since doing so would put you at a serious competitive disadvantage to people who did see them as fundamental, and had worked from there. I should say that I've seen some very clever interaction strategies in the Vive that do a good job in working around this limit, but there's no denying that they're making virtues of necessity. Ultimately, the Touch gives developers far more to work with, and I think that's going to be the decisive feature, especially now that the Rift also supports Vive-style room-scale tracking. Once devs. start to really understand and master the potential of Touch + social, I suspect the most engaging content ideas will gravitate to the Rift. As hardware fades into the background and content comes to the foreground, I suspect this advantage will pull the entire Oculus platform ahead. Of course, it may be possible for Sony, HTC, and any other entrants to abandon wands and mimic the Touch's design in much the same way that traditional game controllers have all converged on the same basic form. If this happens, all bets are off. But until it does, I'd put my money on Oculus.
csimpson 11y ago
I'm not the guy you want to hear from, because I'm the guy from Gizmodo that wrote the story, but I've tried pretty much every mainstream VR headset. Out of the three you mentioned, I like the Vive the most. But I think by April, when it's shipping, the consumer version of the Rift will be out or nearly out as well and those two are really close in quality; my money will be going to Vive personally. I actually really like the latest Samsung Gear VR, though. No wires, no setup bull; just connect your phone to the headset and you're off. I genuinely think an all-in-one solution like this is the future.

vrnut 11y ago

No clear and obvious winner. They should all have pretty similar capabilities. I haven't tried any of the motion input systems of the headsets besides the HTC Vive, but I've heard they're comparable (Rift's will probably be slightly better than Vive's, and Morpheus's slightly worse)

alexqgb 11y ago

Content dev. here, with no connection to any particular platform. Haven't demo'd PSVR, but based on its wand-style controller I'm comfortable saying that the Rift + Touch is the best, and for reasons that the other platforms may have a very difficult time competing against. As far as resolution, tracking, field of view, and general comfort go, the Rift CV1 and the Vive are closely matched, incredibly good, and - if you can believe this - underhyped. Though PSVR is said to be not quite as good, the technical bar is so high that Sony can come in slightly under and still deliver an awesomely good experience, and probably a more popular one once you factor in value for money. That said, I still think Oculus has a fundamental advantage due to the approach they've taken with Touch. Unlike the wand-style controllers used by HTC and Sony, Touch allows you to point and grab, which turns out to have a major effect on the sense of Presence, as well as level of dexterity you can bring to your interactions with the environment. It also reflects what your hands are actually doing in social apps, which has value that becomes immediately clear once you're in one. Indeed, the combination of social + the manipulation of near-field objects is (at least to my mind) the very core of VR. This wasn't something I'd anticipated, but having experienced it, I cannot imagine developing content that didn't put their combination at the center of the experience, since doing so would put you at a serious competitive disadvantage to people who did see them as fundamental, and had worked from there. I should say that I've seen some very clever interaction strategies in the Vive that do a good job in working around this limit, but there's no denying that they're making virtues of necessity. Ultimately, the Touch gives developers far more to work with, and I think that's going to be the decisive feature, especially now that the Rift also supports Vive-style room-scale tracking. Once devs. start to really understand and master the potential of Touch + social, I suspect the most engaging content ideas will gravitate to the Rift. As hardware fades into the background and content comes to the foreground, I suspect this advantage will pull the entire Oculus platform ahead. Of course, it may be possible for Sony, HTC, and any other entrants to abandon wands and mimic the Touch's design in much the same way that traditional game controllers have all converged on the same basic form. If this happens, all bets are off. But until it does, I'd put my money on Oculus.

csimpson 11y ago

I'm not the guy you want to hear from, because I'm the guy from Gizmodo that wrote the story, but I've tried pretty much every mainstream VR headset. Out of the three you mentioned, I like the Vive the most. But I think by April, when it's shipping, the consumer version of the Rift will be out or nearly out as well and those two are really close in quality; my money will be going to Vive personally. I actually really like the latest Samsung Gear VR, though. No wires, no setup bull; just connect your phone to the headset and you're off. I genuinely think an all-in-one solution like this is the future.