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I always think about the people developing such groundbreaking technology, sweating for years to craft something revolutionary, putting everything you got into

I always think about the people developing such groundbreaking technology, sweating for years to craft something revolutionary, putting everything you got into a product, just to get some guy from the Wall Street Journal declare that it's not ready for mainstream. A guy that knows nothing of the challenges, the hurdles and quite frankly, nothing of the actual success the produt will actually have. But just because Wall Street Journal, that person is somewhat a "voice that matters" even though he's just some random columnist, with no experience in the domain and nothing to back it up but his personal opinion and factoids. How annoying that must be.

forrestthewoods 11y ago
I doubt they'd disagree. It's not ready for the main stream. But It is ready for the hardcore niche audience that will build $1000+ dollar machines to power a $600 headset. All is according to plan.
BillinghamJ 11y ago
When you've been deep into R&D and then translating that into a shipping product, it's very easy to not realize that you've been building a product which simply nobody wants or just isn't right. Not saying that's necessarily the case here, but that's why you often need external pragmatic perspective, like from the WSJ.
rwmj 11y ago
There's nothing particularly new in this article. All of these criticisms have been obvious for years. Oculus/FB seem as if they don't care and are deliberately targeting hardcore gamers. Presumably they know what they're doing.
nawitus 11y ago
He wrote a review for the mainstream person, who is not interested in the challenges of building the product, but rather how good it is.
weego 11y ago
This is a major logical fallacy I've faced in "engineering". Technical challenges and effort are irrelevant to the consumer: their contract is the exchange of disposable income for something that they get pleasure / function out of in a way that is measurable against the investment. If you've spent years and invested everything in something that sucks, then it sucks until someone evolves it into something that doesn't. That is why first to market is not always the golden ticket.
6stringmerc 11y ago
What you've identified is a primal dismissing of criticism as a discussion technique with any merit. The same could be directed back at your comment, which would create a funny but useless negative feedback loop. As in, your criticism of the author for not having an engineering background means nothing because if you have an engineering background you're not qualified to render an opinion of a journalistic enterprise.
empath75 11y ago
I wouldn't recommend that anyone buy VR unless they have tons of extra money sitting around and know exactly what they're getting. And I pre-ordered the Oculus on day one. It's not for everyone. I think there are two kinds of people here -- people who have been waiting for this their whole lives, and people who should probably wait until it gets cheaper.

forrestthewoods 11y ago

I doubt they'd disagree. It's not ready for the main stream. But It is ready for the hardcore niche audience that will build $1000+ dollar machines to power a $600 headset. All is according to plan.

BillinghamJ 11y ago

When you've been deep into R&D and then translating that into a shipping product, it's very easy to not realize that you've been building a product which simply nobody wants or just isn't right. Not saying that's necessarily the case here, but that's why you often need external pragmatic perspective, like from the WSJ.

rwmj 11y ago

There's nothing particularly new in this article. All of these criticisms have been obvious for years. Oculus/FB seem as if they don't care and are deliberately targeting hardcore gamers. Presumably they know what they're doing.

nawitus 11y ago

He wrote a review for the mainstream person, who is not interested in the challenges of building the product, but rather how good it is.

weego 11y ago

This is a major logical fallacy I've faced in "engineering". Technical challenges and effort are irrelevant to the consumer: their contract is the exchange of disposable income for something that they get pleasure / function out of in a way that is measurable against the investment. If you've spent years and invested everything in something that sucks, then it sucks until someone evolves it into something that doesn't. That is why first to market is not always the golden ticket.

6stringmerc 11y ago

What you've identified is a primal dismissing of criticism as a discussion technique with any merit. The same could be directed back at your comment, which would create a funny but useless negative feedback loop. As in, your criticism of the author for not having an engineering background means nothing because if you have an engineering background you're not qualified to render an opinion of a journalistic enterprise.

empath75 11y ago

I wouldn't recommend that anyone buy VR unless they have tons of extra money sitting around and know exactly what they're getting. And I pre-ordered the Oculus on day one. It's not for everyone. I think there are two kinds of people here -- people who have been waiting for this their whole lives, and people who should probably wait until it gets cheaper.